[Larry Hickey]

John,

I think that you misunderstand my point. It isn't the similarity of the units, but the camouflage carried by specific factory production runs that matters. Your example of W.Nr.3101, 2N+CN, carries the two solid greens, as does 3U+EP, listed as W.Nr.3102. If these a/c were all built by Jan., of 1940, I would expect all of the planes leaving the factory in that production run to have the same camouflage pattern--ie two dark greens on the entire upper-surface. Since U8+BB does not have a solid green upper-surface, but a heavily mottled one, I would expect that it was probably not from that production run, unless the camouflage was field mottled over a solid dark green camouflage after it left the factory. This isn't impossible, and field mottling was applied in some Bf110 units, but I strongly suspect that U8+BB is not W.Nr.3102. In my experience, the heavily mottled aircraft were replacement a/c from 1940 production batches.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator