[Jim P.]

This comment doesn't necessarily pertain to this thread, but it seemed like a reasonable place to add this. For some reason authors of numerous publications continue to maintain that most 2., 5. and 8. Staffel fighters from the mid-war years - late-1940 through 1943 - wore red Verbandkennzeichen - red code numbers. This is NOT indicated by loss reports. While there were some exceptions, the general rule is that the codes were black as reported in losses.

Notable exceptions were with the early JG 77/5 units in the north and with 2. and 5./JG 27 in North Africa. With the JG 27 machines one really needs to look at photos because, for instance, in 5./JG 27, many machines carried a black number and a red II./Gruppe bar, while others wore all red markings and some all black. It is definitely confusing as heck, but the study of photos cannot be understated versus taking 'published sources' as gospel.