[Flitzer]

Great discussion, and I'm adding my two cents, which is what it's worth.

Years ago I worked for a large multi national corporation that had a specialty paint division for industrial paints. I spent two weeks with that division and these thoughts stand out in my mind. The paints they were making for machinery manufacturers each had a specific color. They would produce these paints in batches as they were ordered. Each batch had to pass a test, it had to match the 'control' paint chip. But they didn't have just one control chip, they had two. To pass, the paint had to be somewhere between those two chips, and they were noticably different chips, I was amazed. I can imagine the last year or two of the war, a paint batch coming into the Messerschmitt Regensberg plant, and them refusing to accept it, holding up production, because the color isn't up to standard. Can't have the Reich defended by any aircraft having even a slightly incorrect shade of paint, better to lose the air war than fight with incorrect paint.

The application of that paint made a difference. The base color if any made a difference in the hue of the top coats because most of the camoflage paints were not sprayed on as a solid color, and even the spraying differed by the painter applying it. In other words, they were not painted to 'museum standard'. There are photographic examples of the same aircraft, sprayed with exactly the same paints by two different painters at the same time, and it's easy to spot the difference. Even thinning of the paints had another effect on the finish. So, I think an aircraft being painted for a museum should look as much like the photo of a wartime varient down to the primer showing here and there, and a few scrapes and scratches, and lest we not forget what the sun and rain did to these finishes that were not exactly made to last like the clear coat paints our cars have! Lastly, most of these aircraft had a coat of wax over them to gain a few more kilometers per hour in speed, and that darkened the paint a shade.