Hello!
Few comments about the theme.
It looks like I/JG 26 and 7./JG 26 were used as separate entities. Dislocation maps for Luftflotte 1 do not show I/JG 26 but do show JG54 and 7./JG 26.
For me 7./JG 26 is interesting because it is a Lw unit which could and did participate in battles over Gulf of Finland. Look for their claims in grids (26 Ost) 70, 80 (parts) and 90 (parts).
I have not ever seen photos of 7./JG 26 at Eastern Front. First Gruppe JG 26 Fw 190 photos are published IIRC at least in "Luftwaffe: a Pictorial history" by Vera Willams and Eric Mombeek. Not only fuselage is in odd camouflage. One photo shows wing upperside which is also painted in way which looks something like the JG 54 "snake skin" camo on fuselage sides!
At Michael Holm's excellent site (
http://www.ww2.dk , Michael's site is one of the cornerstones of Lw research as far as I am concerned, THANKS Michael.) we can note one interesting thing from the monthly strengths:
June 1943
III/JG 26 12 Fw 190 A-4&A-5 "
an andere verbände"
4./JG 54 12 Fw 190 A-4&A-5 "
von andere verbände"
I am pretty sure what happened was that 4./JG 54 received used Fw 190s from 7./JG 26. It is quite logical as these two Staffeln were swapped to each other in the first place.
In early 90's almost intact Fw 190 was found in Leningrad area (grid 36Ost 20124). The plane was from 4./JG 54 and lost in July 19th, 1943. The camouflage is described as "...consisted of a
dark green, brown violet and tan (sand)" (Mark Sheppard in this Forum's thread
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=6339 ). The colors sound to be similar to Italian camouflage.
In my first posting I mentioned about the 14 GIAP sighting/shoot down of two "Machhis" ("Makki") near town Mga July 1943. If one makes a search of Luftwaffe claims near the location (grid 36Ost 10178 ) it becomes clear that the "Machhis" are very likely to be from II/JG 54. And if taken as Italian because of camouflage perhaps from 4./JG 54?
AFAIK 14 GIAP flew Yak-7 at that time? Interestingly Fw Paul Brandt from 4./JG 54 claimed a Yak-1 at grid (36Ost) 10 214 (not far from Mga and return to base would be over it) 19th July 1943, the same day the Fw 190 mentioned above was lost. There are no other Yak-claims for 4./JG54 for the duration of July 1943. It might be the very same Fw 190 found recently which was back then took to be a "Makki"!
I think it is also an interesting topic to discuss if it was JG 26 which inititated the odd camouflage experiments at Eastern Front and not JG 54? Or at least was involved in the developement. I can also see the old "RLM 02 Grey/RLM 71 on Fw 190 or not" theme surfacing it's head. The "snake skin camo" was - at least originally - of such colours, yes?
Are there identifiable photos of JG54 planes from April-May 1943 after the winter white camo was removed? During Summer three-tone camouflage was in use for sure and there exists the widely known colour photos for them. From my point of view not so interesting because by then JG 54 was sent to South away from Gulf of Finland region.
Cheers,
Kari