It's great that you Michael have signed on here to answer our questions, I really appreciate it! Now for a couple of questions. First off, you wrote in Crandalls book on the Fw190D that 81, 82, and well, green 81, was equal to RAL 8019, 6003 and 6006, I always assumed that these shades would be widely known by the manufacturers so that such accuracy issues would be avoided?
Also, the brown found on surviving aircraft like the 109 in the Australian war memorial museum for example is quite far from 8019 but the samples found on pieces from other aircraft seems to match each other quite well suggesting to me that it was quite a reliable color, just like RLM 82.
Again, as you mentioned that brown-tinted versions of 81 and 82 were tested in 1943(?) couldn't it be that both 81 and 82 were actually issued in green and brown?
For camouflage purposes the contrast between colors was most important but the contrast between the medium brown color and 82 would have been really low. And again, if the dark green, and medium brown were both 81, that means a lot of aircraft were painted in 81/81, that just seems so strange to me.
I have a feeling we are missing a part of the puzzle here!
Cheers / Anders