[pstrany]

Sorry, should have been more clear. The second photo illustrates Clint's point, a bomb originally in a light color that had an application of a dark color (black?) applied to the lower areas in a very rough manner to aid in concealment from beneath on a night mission. Thus, the first picture, a light-colored bomb with a rough application of a camouflaging color for concealment while on the ground. The second, a light-colored bomb with a darker color, also roughly applied, to conceal the bomb while carried on an aircraft (presumably for a night bombing mission.)

As to the sleds, you are absolutely correct. Everything I've read indicates that the larger bombs were installed on these sleds at the factory or larger distribution point for ease in handling and shipping. Once on an airfield, they could be dragged around with tractor or other vehicle, and indeed were sometimes loaded onto aircraft directly from the sled. Below is a scan (partial) from "German Air-Dropped Weapons to 1945" by Wolfgang Fleischer. His source appears to have been a German aircraft manual, and illustrates how a bomb can be winched into a bomb bay directly from the shipping sled. The second image, also from Fleischers' book, shows bombs at a factory being mounted on sleds prior to leaving the factory. The author identifies the sled as a TG-3 Transportgestelle (there were evidently several different models, with other units identified elsewhere in this book.)

There were, of course, quite a few pieces of airfield equipment designed to lift bombs of various weights for mounting on aircraft, such as the LWC-500 lifting dolly (for weapons up to 500kg) and the Hercules II (Gerätenummer 20277) which was designed for larger weapons. However, these were largely for mounting bombs and not for shipping or moving them for anything but a short distance.

Paul