Hansa-Brandenburg with Naval camo

[Olham 164]

We may never know the exact colours for these old craft, but here is a picture of

a model, that looks "believeable" to me - you can only get it "circa" right.

For Bullethead.

 

 

[Hauksbee 103]

We may never know the exact colours for these old craft, but here is a picture of a model, that looks "believeable" to me -

Outstanding model. I remember seeing it about a year ago. That's one of the pics. that got me enthused about Hansa-Brandenburgs to begin with.

Edited August 29, 2009 by Hauksbee

[RAF_Louvert 101]

I remember reading an article a while back over at The Aerodrome forum on the subject. Here is the link:

Kriegmarine Hex Patterns

 

I am also trying to find a color palette I came across some time ago as well, but so far no luck.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou

 

 

[Hauksbee 103]

Here's few more from the same site. I discovered a folder to which I had downloaded these to build the W-12.

 

.

Edited August 29, 2009 by Hauksbee

[Olham 164]

Great model, Hauksbee, right colours or not - they look believeably "German colour style" to me.

[Duce Lewis 3]

Looks like a very interesting crate

Anyone know what it's intended mission was?

 

Tailgunner certainly had a nice unobstructed view with that inverted rudder

[Rickitycrate 10]

Hansa-Brandenburg W 29 were used in attacking the Short seaplanes, Curtiss and Felixstowe flying boats. They also preyed on naval vessels. July 6th, 1918, the british submarine C25 was surprised on the surface by a formation of Brandenburgs led by Christiansen. In a short time the submarines motors had been put out of action, and many of the crew, including the C.O.. had becomecasualties. Eventually the C25 was towed to Harwich, leakinglike a sieve. The damage was all done by machine-gun fire, for the submarine was oldand the plating was not bullet-proof. Source; Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War by W.M. Lamberton

and from Wikipedia the following;

 

General characteristics

 

• Crew: Two (pilot & observer/gunner)
• Length: 9.38 m (30 ft 8 in)
• Wingspan: 13.50 m (44 ft 4 in)
• Height: 3.00 m (9 ft 11 in)
• Wing area: 32.2 m² ^[2] (348 ft²)
• Empty weight: 1,000 kg ^[2] (2,200 lb)
• Loaded weight: 1,494 kg (3,285 lb)
• Powerplant: 1× Benz Bz.III 6-cylinder water-cooled inline engine, 112 kW (150 hp)

Performance

 

• Maximum speed: 175 km/h (95 kn, 109 mph)
• Range: 520 km (281 nmi, 320 mi)
• Service ceiling: 5,000 m (16,400 ft)
• Endurance: 4 hrs
• Climb to 1,000 m (3,280 ft): 6 min^[2]

Armament

 

• 1 or 2 × fixed, forward-firing 7.92 mm (0.312 in) LMG 08/15 machine guns
• 1 × flexible 7.92 mm (0.312 in) Parabellum MG14 in rear cockpit

[Olham 164]

A very special design. Here are two pics with sources.

 

www.directart.co.uk

 

www.marineflyverforeningen.dk

 

 

[Rickitycrate 10]

I stated in another thread the she was a wonderful fighter. She played an important role as far as airplanes in WWI are concerned.

 

The Hansa-Brandenburg monoplanes influenced German seaplane design considerably; several copies appeared in 1918, such as the Friedrichshafen FF 63, the Dornier Cs-I, the Junkers J11, and the L.F.G. Roland ME 8. After the war a version of the W. 29 was used by Denmark, while a license for the manufacture of the W 33was obtained by Finland. Source; Fighter Aircraft of the 1914-1918 War.

 

I would dearly love to see this plane and of course many other seaplane/boats made available eventually.

[Duce Lewis 3]

Thanks for the info Rick

 

Yes this would be a good idea...

I would dearly love to see this plane and of course many other seaplane/boats made available eventually.

[Rickitycrate 10]

You're welcome Duce. I wonder, do I get 2 points for the contest? Hehehe

[Duce Lewis 3]

You're welcome Duce. I wonder, do I get 2 points for the contest? Hehehe

Crimmey, 2 more points!!!

I barely have that much total

Brother can you spare a dime ...point?

 

Aww, great info though

I never knew these Kriegsmarine had these crates

With that range, I'm wondering if they harassed the British Coastal defenses

 

Cheers,

[Hauksbee 103]

Great model, Hauksbee...

A quick footnote, Olham...this is not one of my models, ( 'wish it was!) though I do have a W-29 in the works. I am (nearly) certain this is the same model you posted. I have two folders with W-29 pics. downloaded from different modeling sites. (Note the different background color in one of them.) I think this model is well known in the scale-model community.

[Olham 164]

I didn't mean "your model" but "great model" - I thought the same as you:

must be the same model. There are even more pics in the web.

[Bullethead 12]

I remember reading an article a while back over at The Aerodrome forum on the subject. Here is the link:

Kriegmarine Hex Patterns

 

I am also trying to find a color palette I came across some time ago as well, but so far no luck.

 

Yeah, there are several threads on that subject. In all of them, old Dan-San Abbott swears up and down there was never a "blue" version of naval camo, and he has the official orders specifying the real colors, plus a scrap of fabric to back up his position. He claims that the commonly used "blue" colors (such as on this model and what I used on my DFW skin) were the product of an artifact forger (IIRC named Giller) who made some fake scraps in those colors and a bunch of bogus documentation for them. Because they was no other info to modelers available at the time, they ran with it and thus a big misconception has become ingrained in the modeling consciousness. Or so Dan-San says.

 

Too bad the "blue" version is such a pretty color scheme. I really like it, even if it has no historical justification

 

Anyway, Dan-San's decribed the fabric scrap's colors in the completely useless Methuen nomenclature. What we need are RGB values. And even with the photo of the fabric scrap to work from, we all get different colors depending on which pixels we eyedropper or how far out we zoom when trying to get a general impression. And on top of that, because of differences in the 3D models and in-game lighting effects, what you make in PSP or Photoshop doesn't necessarily look the same in the game anyway.

 

So.....

 

I've determined that true accuracy is compltely unattainable on this subject. As such, I've set myself a set of guidelines for doing German naval skins. Feel free to ignore them completely .

 

1. Prior to April 1917, there apparently was no official naval paint scheme so you can paint naval planes however you want.

 

2. From April 1917 - April 1918, there was an official scheme with color but it was all hand-painted. I assume that each airplane factory and field unit mixed its own paint or used whatever was on hand, so there would be significant variation in colors, patterns, etc. I figure somebody might even have done a "blue" version in this era. But in general, the colors could at least arguably be called by the names in the official order, because when the pre-printed fabric came out later, it used the same names for the colors as before.

 

Hand-painted hexagons were 150mm on the flats, symmetrical and regular. They were applied on top of the rib tapes and had no discontinuities for fabric edges. This is an extremely easy pattern to make when skinning .

 

 

3. After April 1918, the navy had a pre-printed fabric. This is what Dan-San's photo is of, so the colors should be at least arguably close to that photo (although as you can see, quite a lot of variation is possible). This pattern is a bit tricker to make because the hexagons are irregulare AND skewed at a 5^ angle, but it's still much easier than making an army lozenge pattern . You have to see Dan-San's diagram of how this was laid out to make it--can't explain it in words.

 

Pre-printed hexagons lined up at the fabric edges making rows of double-wide hexes. The rib tapes would have gone on top of this pattern.

[Olham 164]

Bullet, I placed a new tweak of the fabric sample colours in the other Marine-thread.

[Bullethead 12]

Bullet, I placed a new tweak of the fabric sample colours in the other Marine-thread.

 

Yup, I saw them. I've now got a collection of several dozen hexes of different shades and colors: some you made, some I made, some I found on the web. I can fit all these hexes together neatly to make the patterns, so I've got hundreds of combinations to try.

 

There are several annoyances. Each 3D model (at least those I've played with so far) seems to have a different ambient light level, so the same colors don't look the same in the game on different airplanes. Also, say you make a combination of 3 colors and decide you like 1 of them but not the other 2. So you keep that one and try 2 others. When you do that, the color you kept no longer looks the same in the game, on the same plane, as it did with its previous 2 partners. And when you keep those 2 and change the 1 you originally kept, the 2 you kept no longer look the same. Plus, there's the sheer number of combinations.

 

So, given all this, I've concluded that it's impossible to get naval colors to be "historically accurate". First off, nobody really knows what the real colors were, not even Dan-San, even for the pre-printed stuff. And even if you have a general idea, it's WAY too much work and frustration trying to get a good match. So I figure less than a 50% margin of error is unattainable. This ain't the case with army lozenge, which is very well-documented by comparison.

 

Therefore, the only reasonable solution for naval hex is to make something that looks cool. If you can make something that looks cool, all else is gravy .

[Olham 164]

That's what I said early on - first of all I gotta like it.