Erla built Bf109G-14/AS Red 5 of JG300

  

During the autumn of 1944 Erla delivered a series of Bf109G-14/AS aircraft to units engaged in the Reichdefense. Unlike Erla built G-10's, the Erla G14-/AS didn't have the refined engine cowling. Neither did it have the redundant lower cowl bumps of the Mtt Regensburg built G-14/AS. It did have the deeper oil cooler and the enlarged oil tank that can also be found on regular Erla built G-14's. 

Red 5 was photographed at Borkheide in the autumn of 1944 and was flown by an unknown pilot of 2./JG300. This aircraft was very similar to the more famous Red 2 "Rita" flown by Eberhard Gzik. A colourphoto of Red 5 clearly shows that the numerals of 2./JG300 were a brighter red than the fuselageband.   

Bf109G-14/AS Blue 11 of 8./JG27

Bf109G-14/AS W.Nr 785 750 photographed at Münster - Handorf in the summer of 1945. The thin fuselage band is typical of the band used by II./JG27 since the summer of 1944. The fin and rudder is clearly painted in darker colors than the fuselage hence the interpretation of latewar colors on the fin with a grey camouflage on the fuselage.  

Bf109G-14/AS of Bruno Klostermann

This is the Bf109G-14/AS flown by Bruno Klostermann in the autumn of 1944. Klostermann was a cousin of famous French ace Pierre Clostermann. Klostermann was killed in action on January 14:th, 1945, flying an Erla built Bf109G-10 marked Green 12. This however is clearly a Mtt Regensburg built Bf109G-14/AS.

Bf109G-14/AS Blue 17 flown by Heinz Schüler

A rather dull Bf109G-14/AS flown by Heinz Schüler of 16./JG5 at Forus, Norway, in March 1945. The beautiful blue markings brings a little life though as does the Bear of Berlin marking painted below the canopy. Typical of IV/JG5 aircraft is the red/white/red morane mast below the wing.

The paint on the rear fuselage might have been sprayed on in order to conceal the last four digits of the W.Nr which could be seen on contemporary aircraft.

Might be time again to remind everyone that the profiles are clickable for higher resolution images.

Bf109G-14/AS flown by Herbert Maxis

White 13 was flown by Herbert Maxis during operation Bodenplatte on January 1, 1945. There's a great number of photos of this aircraft, which doesn't make it much easier to try and interpret the colors. In photos all colors look quite dark while in a few others there's stark contrast between the two upper colors. This contrast makes me believe in a mixed camouflage of RLM 75 and green RLM 81. The high contrast between the white markings and the undersurface color points towards the greenish color rather than the pale RLM 76.

Update!
Photos from the recovery of this aircraft sent to me by Rémi Baudru (Thank you!) shows that this aircraft was painted in greys. The contrast of the colors are greater than a regular 74/75 camo but clearly grey.One can only speculate about these "latewar greys" as they can be seen on more wrecks than this one, but the ligther one could possibly be a faded version of 75, perhaps affected by lack of raw materials or a lower amount of pigments in the paint.  Whether the darker color is RLM 74 or a makeshift replacement following the withdrawal of RLM74 would also remain pure speculation.

This is one of the joys of running this blog - getting new information from all around the world that enables me to make the profiles as accurate as possible.

Bf109G-14/AS from JG300

A photo found on Ebay shows the fuselage of this aircraft beeing made ready to be towed away from a field following a crash/emergency landing. The tailband makes it certain that it's a JG300 aircraft. The medium tone numeral with white outlines looks like the numerals used by 11./JG300 although it's hard to be certain.

The JG300 losslist shows a Bf109G-14/AS Green 14, lost on January 30, 1945 after the pilot Uffz. Gerhard von Strassmann crashed on take off from Mark Zwuschen while on a ferry flight. Whether it's the aircraft in question is impossible to tell though.

Both colors in the top fuselage camoflage are too dark to be RLM75 so I've opted for latewar colors. The nose seems lighter as does the tail but that wouldn't be unusal with missmatched parts from different productiobatches. The wings are not seen in the picture and could have been in any of the late-war pattern. 

Updated the profile 2013-11-24