page_title: Organization of the Luftwaffe
section_title: Camouflage schemes
hierarchical_section_title: Organization of the Luftwaffe / Identification markings and camouflage schemes / Camouflage schemes
caption_attribution_description: English: A Bf 110G-4 Night fighter at the RAF Museum in London. The antennas on the nose are of a FuG 220 Lichtenstein SN-2 radar set (ITU-classificatio: Radiolocation land station in the radiolocation service). Clearly visible are the openings for two 20mm cannons in the lower nose and two 30 mm cannons in the upper nose.
context_page_description: Between 1933 and 1945, the organization of the Luftwaffe underwent several changes. Originally, the German military high command, for their air warfare forces, decided to use an organizational structure similar to the army and navy, treating the aviation branch as a strategic weapon of war. Later on, during the period of rapid rearmament, the Luftwaffe was organized more in a geographical fashion.
  Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was prohibited from having an air force, with the former German Empire's Luftstreitkräfte disbandment in 1920. German pilots were secretly trained for military aviation, first in the Soviet Union during the late 1920s, and then in Germany in the early 1930s. In Germany, the training was done under the guise of the German Air Sports Association at the Central Commercial Pilots School.
  Following its 15 May 1933 formation in secret, the formation of the German air arm was openly announced in February 1935, with Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring as its Commander-in-Chief, in blatant defiance of the Versailles Treaty.
context_section_description: In the Luftwaffe, there were centralized regulations on field camouflage patterns. In practice, these were either amended or ignored. Units in various areas used their own way of painting the aircraft excepting the Geschwaderkennung alphanumeric unit identifiers. Units in the very northern parts of Europe used pale blue wavy lines on a gray background. Night units of both fighters and bombers tended to color their aircraft completely black with a light brown or light gray pattern. This changed in early 1942: night fighters were painted a light gray on the upper surfaces and fuselage/nacelle sides, with light blue undersides, then over-sprayed with either irregular dark gray spots or irregular dark gray lines over all their upper surfaces. The irregular lines were meant to match the intricate patterns of ocean waves (usually called "wave-mirror" camouflage) as seen from the air, especially for interceptions of RAF night bombers over the North Sea.  The nighttime skies over Germany usually had some light from either moonlight or even from city lights reflecting upwards into the skies, making a light base color effective for night fighters against sometimes cloudy or foggy skies below the night fighters' usual combat altitudes. Reconnaissance and maritime aircraft operating over the North Sea tended to paint the underside light blue and the top side in a dark gray or dark green to resemble the sea. By 1943, as economic conditions tightened, front line units used captured allied paint where available. Central control over camouflage relaxed even further.
  Later-deployed examples of both night fighters defending the Reich, and Heinkel He 177 heavy bombers used for night raids over England such as with Operation Steinbock, often returned to using flat black undersurfaces replacing the light blue previously used during the mid-war years, while retaining the skyglow-based light gray base color/darker gray "wave-mirror" irregular lines or irregular splotches on the upper surfaces. With units disbanding and reforming frequently, intricate patterns became less common. Dark green became more or less the standard. With deteriorating conditions and scarce supplies, various motley color schemes were used. This changed only for those day fighter and "destroyer" units that flew as part of the Defense of the Reich  (Reichsverteidigung) campaign. Later in 1944 these units adopted the pattern of a distinct color band, or two-colored bands, around the aft fuselage, with each Geschwader usually having their own unique combination.
caption: A museum-preserved Bf 110G night fighter with its accurate light base-color nocturnal camouflage, also bearing "wave-mirror" irregular gray lines
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