Colors of Luftwaffe Bombs

[pstrany]

there is precious little literature about Luftwaffe bombs, and even less about the colors those bombs were to be painted. L.Dv. 4200 “Die deutsche Abwurfmunition” (1943) does not directly address the issue of bomb colors, but mention is made of colors for some weapons. The two colors that I have found mention of in this document are "beigegrau" (beige gray) and "dunkelgrau" (dark gray). The colors for some bombs (such as the SD500, AB250 & AB500) is specified as beigrau. Others (such as the Brand 50) are specified as dunkelgrau. One or two are labelled either/or. Unless I've missed it, no other colors are specified.

This document does not specify a value for dunkelgrau, but a color is specified for beigegrau, specifically in reference to the abwurfbehälter (AB series of bombs), where the color is further defined as RAL 7027.

OP 1666, "German Explosive Ordnance" (June 1946) in the introduction indicates that bombs under 500Kg were dark green, and anything over 500Kg was light blue, but further in the text it then specifies colors for each type of weapon, some not relating to the initial generalization at all (for instance, the SC250 - Types 1, 2 and 3; J, L, L2, B and K are specified as being field grey(sic), sky blue or aluminum overall.) This inconsistancy continues throughout, and no source for the colors specified is indicated, though there is some stencil information included that seems quite accurate, so this does not discredit this document, but knowing the source would be very helpful in determining how widespread these applications were.

All the other sources I have tend to mute on the question of base colors. So my question is, is there a general rule of thumb as to colors that Luftwaffe bombs were painted? There are precious few color photos around, but of the few I've seen, it is evident that larger bombs were indeed painted a light blue, in spite of the fact that this color is not mentioned in L.Dv. 4200. Did Luftwaffe bombs actually appear in dark green then as well, in spite of the fact this is not mentioned in the aforementioned manual? IS there some documentation that would support all this? I know that there are SC250 and SC50 bombs that appear very dark in b&w photos. Are they gray, or green? RAL or RLM colors?

Of course, the caveat is that these would be factory colors. What happened once the weapons reached the unit level is anybodies guess!


Paul