I found the diagrams you mentioned in Merrick's earlier 1977 book published by Skybooks Press. To be honest looking at the diagram I'm currently not convinced that they are derived straight from an official period document. This diagram could have easily been derived from studying the Do17 and or Hs123 official pattern diagrams and created by Merrick to show his ideas of how the paint colours were rotated. They do show the pre-war splinter pattern which as pointed out was the same for all aircraft in plan view except the obvious differences in segment placement across different types because of their shape/size.
I think it's clear that the pattern was not mirrored, but I am as yet unconvinced that there were more than two different variants of colour combinations. I'm going to look into the other types to confirm. I am however 100% convinced that this was the case for the Hs123. I have studied hundreds of photos of the type mapping the splinter pattern out and it is a fact that there was just an A and B scheme as far as I am concerned. I'm pretty sure about the Ju87A too, but I currently do not have enough photos to make a detailed study, but I'm working on that.
What you have to take into consideration is the difficulties that would arise if you had aircraft and components painted in six or even four different splinter pattern colour combinations. The units/depots/factories would have had a real hard time stocking components in 4/6 different colour combinations to match the aircraft that they would eventually be fitted on. There is a photo of a Do17M/P in flight with the main wings, tail wings and cowlings left in bare metal, but with the fuselage, control surfaces and tail fins finished in the pre-war splinter, which I think confirms that at least during that period the main components were supplied pre-painted and later assembled into the finished article. After a while you would have had a visible mis match of pre-war camouflaged aircraft with many different combinations of the 4/6 different colour combinations on different replacement components. This is not something that we see in the photographic evidence that survives. It would be much easier to handle this situation with only two combinations, an A and B scheme. This is what we are seeing also on the official diagrams. No mention of 4/6 schemes always A or B... Where are the diagrams that explain the other C, D, E or F schemes? They are no where to be found and if anyone has any hidden away I would love to be proved wrong...
I do think however that in Dénes' Stuka photo that we have an example that has been finished in the A scheme, but has a replacement starboard undercarriage fairing painted in the B scheme.
Anyway, always interesting these camouflage discussions. Still so much to discover even if some are of the opinion that these camouflage conundrums were done and dusted 50 years ago...
