Colour markings of German aircraft gun ammunition 1939-1945

or

And now paint it stripy!

As we were already dealing with colour markings of German aircraft bombs of the WW2, as well as heavy Flak ammunition (in Polish only), it's probably time for another assortment of Luftwaffe ammunition, namely projectiles for aircraft guns - cannons and heavy machine guns.

Situation is generally similar to the Flak ammunition here - the whole projectile is painted with a colour corresponding to its type, but - as opposed to anti-aircraft shells - there are many additional markings in form of colour rings, denoting additional features of the ammunition.

Also, general colour scheme of aircraft gun projectiles looked like this:

• High explosive (Sprgr.) - yellow (RLM 27);
  
• Incendiary (Brgr.) - blue (RLM 65);
• Armour piercing (Pzgr.) - black (RLM 22);
• Armour piercing composite rigid (H-Pzgr.) - black with a white (RLM 21) nose;
  
• Practice (Üb.) - gray (RLM 02).

As we can see, gun ammunition was initially painted with Luftwaffe colours, according to the L.Dv. 251.1. manual, as opposed to drop ordnance pained with RAL colours. But ammunition painting schemes suddenly show RAL colours in 1944 too - for example, yellow was RAL 1006 then or blue was RAL 5001. What's interesting, RAL 5001 is really dark greyish blue instead of light blue RLM 65.

It also has to be noted here that nose colour of APCR projectiles was described as aluminium in 1942, not white. But more to the point...

It is a little bit more complicated in case of projectiles combining a couple of functions, e.g. armour piercing incendiaries. Their colour scheme was made of basic body colour (e.g. denoting HE or AP projectile) supplemented with a colour ring located in its forward part, just in front of the bourelet, corresponding to the additional function - e.g. incendiary.

• Projectiles with additional explosive effect (e.g. AP with a HE charge) - yellow ring;
• Projectiles with additional incendiary effect (e.g. AP incendiaries) - blue ring.

Additional colour markings, referring to projectile variants, were following:

 

• Projectiles with a day tracer (L'spur) - bright red (RLM 23) ring in front of the driving band;
• Projectiles with a night tracer (Gl'spur) - dark red (RLM 28) ring in front of the driving band;
• Projectiles with a self-destructor (m. Zerl.) - green ring in the forward part of the body, in front of the bourelet (or at the base of the fuse).The green colour did not belong to an official Luftwaffe colour palette, being just described as grass green.

Additional letters coul be painted at the body, at two opposite sides, more precisely describing a variant of the projectile - as M, MX, Ph, E...

So is it simple or complicated? Let's take a look at a couple of examples, for simplicity and uniformity restricted in majority of the cases to the 2 cm calibre - but the same rules applied to all projectiles in calibres from 13 mm to 3,7 cm, while in calibres 5 cm and 7,5 cm, rather exotic in aviation, there were sometimes - for some reason - exceptions. So, in practice it looked like this:

   In the drawing above we can see, left to right:

• 2 cm Sprgr. L'spur m. Zerl. - deciphering this complicated but reach in content abbreviation, 2 cm high explosive projectile (Sprgr. - Sprenggranat) with a tracer (L'spur - Lichtspur) and self-destructor (m. Zerl. - mit Zerleger). Appropriately to these functions the projectile is painted yellow (HE) with a green ring in its forward part (self-destructor) and a bright red ring in front of the driving band (tracer). The fuse is in natural metal colour.
• 2 cm M-Gesch. o. Zerl. - demolition projectile (M-Gesch. - Minengeschoss) without a self-destructor (o. Zerl. - ohne Zerleger). Painted yellow overall, with an additional marking of a demolition projectile in form of a black letter M at the body. Such projectiles, literally "mines", had exceptionally thin walls (so thin that sometimes they had to be reinforced with an internal insert under the driving band) and very high HE capacity, what resulted in high explosion force. Projectiles of this type in 2 cm calibre had no tracers due to being maximally filled with an explosive charge - as opposed to bigger ones, even of 3 cm calibre, which already had tracers. The name Minengeschoss was derived from high power demolition projectiles of the 19th century  intended for destroying fortifications - and thus called mine projectiles.
  
• 2 cm M-Gesch. m. Zerl. - demolition projectile, "mine", with a self-destructor. Thus painted yellow with a black letter M and a green ring (self-destructor) at the base of the fuse.
• 2 cm Brgr. L'spur m. Zerl. - incendiary projectile (Brgr. - Brandgranat), with a tracer and a self-destructor. As an incendiary - painted blue overall, with a green ring at the base of the fuse (self-destructor) and a bright red ring in front of the driving band (tracer).
  
• 2 cm Brgr. 44 o. Zerl. - incendiary projectile without a self-destructor - known to us already from the post about the AZ 9501 hydrodynamic fuse. Pure incendiary, without other features - so it should painted blue overall... But no, for some reason it's also marked with a yellow ring, looking a little bit like a Brsprg. projectile... One shouldn't try to understand.

What's interesting, the 2 cm Brsprgr. L'spur m. Zerl., a splinter-incendiary projectile (2 cm Brandsprenggranat Lichtspur mit Zerleger) apparently looked exactly the same as the 2 cm Sprgr. L'spur m. Zerl. shown above - for some reason it did not have a blue ring denoting incendiary effect painted at its forward part. But, on the other hand, as opposed to printed manuals of the era, one can encounter photos of preserved yellow 2 cm shells with blue rings - so maybe there was some diversity in this aspect.

Nose fuses were left, as was already mentioned, in natural metal colour, with an exception of the tropical ammunition (Tropenmunition) and the so-called unified ammunition (Einheitsmunition) intended for use in all climate zones - in this case nose fuses (or dummy nose fuses) were painted in the basic projectile body colour, i.e. yellow, blue or grey. Additionally, the neck of the cartridge case and the primer were sealed with red lacquer. Tropical ammunition was additionally marked with letters Tp on the body, white on AP projectiles, black on other types.

•  2 cm Sprgr. L'spur (Tp) m. Zerl. - 2 cm high explosive projectile with a tracer and a self-destructor, known tu us already from the previous drawing, this time in a tropical variant (Tp - Tropenmunition). Carrying standard colours - yellow body (HE projectile), green ring at the base of the fuse (self-destructor) and bright red ring adjacent to the driving band (tracer), additionally it's distinguished with the fuse painted in the basic body colour (yellow in this case) and black letters Tp on the body.
  
• 2 cm Brsprgr. Gl'spur m. Zerl. - 2 cm high explosive incendiary projectile, already mentioned above, with a night tracer (Gl'spur - Glimmspur) burning less brightly than a day tracer and a self-destructor, in the unified variant (Einheitsmunition). The projectile is painted yellow (HE) together with the fuse, marked with a green ring behind the fuse (self-destructor) and a dark red ring in front of the driving band (night tracer). Note - as was already pointed out, incendiary function of this particular projectile is not marked with a blue ring on the body, although one cannot be sure if it was a standard feature. 
• 2 cm Brgr. L'spur m. Zerl. - incendiary projectile with a tracer and a self-destructor, already presented above, here shown in the unified variant (Einheitsmunition). Marking is also similar, painted blue overall just together with the fuse, with a green ring at the base of the fuse (self-destructor) and a bright red ring in front of the driving band (tracer).
  

And now two more interesting pieces of demolition projectiles:

• 2 cm M-Gesch. X m. Zerl. - demolition projectile X with a self-destructor, looking like an absurdally stretched 2 cm M-Gesch. with its rear part (normally hidden inside the case) lenghtened so, that the overall length reached 99.2 mm (as compared with 83.1 mm of a regular demolition projectile), not particularly successful - it seems, its excessive length caused stabilisation problems. As a demolition projectile with a self-destructor (built into the ZZ 1509 fuse), it carried the same colour scheme as the 2 cm M-Gesch. m. Zerl. - yellow overall (HE) with a green ring at the base of the fuse (self-destructor), but this time was distinguished with black letters MX on the body.
• 3 cm M-Brgr. 108 m. Zerl. - something more inriguing at last, a bigger calibre demolition-incendiary projectile (M-Brgr. - Minen-Brandgranat) for the MK 108 El cannon (number 108), with a self-destructor. As such, painted yellow (HE), with its double function indicated by two rings at the base of the fuse - green (self-destructor) and blue (incendiary), plus a black letter M for a demolition projectile. This projectile, intended as an unified ammunition eventually replacing demolition and incendiary projectiles, had pretty complex and interesting internal layout - its forward part (approximately just over a half of its length) was filled with a conventional HE demolition charge, while the rear part housed a kind of a cylindrical incendiary pellet filled with an incendiary composition, with a number of holes in the wall. The ZZ 1589 B impact fuse was combined with a self-destructor, while a VC 70 primer, used e.g. in other 3 cm demolition projectiles, assured delayed fuse action on impact.

And yet a short note on self-destructors (if any were present). Generally two kinds were used - tracer projectiles had self-destructors connected with the tracer element, which after burning out - similarly to a delay train - ignited a self-destruction charge located at the rear of the projectile. In case of projectiles without tracers, the self-destructor was built into the main fuse, which, due to decreasing rotation speed of the projectile in flight, eventually released a spring loaded firing pin, held in place by centrifugal elements, into a percussion primer - as for example in ZZ 1505 or ZZ 1506 fuses. Note, such fuses were designated as ZZ (Zerlegezünder - self-destructing fuse).

Let's deal with armour piercing projectiles now,  rather attractive in appearance due to their contrastive colours.

In the drawing we can see, left to right::

• 2 cm Pzgr. o. Zerl. - armour piercing projectile (Pzgr. - Panzergranat) without a self-destructor. In spite of its "grenade" name, it admittedly had a thick walled body, but without a fuse or a HE charge - filled with pressstoff and closed with a plug at the rear. Thus painted black overall.
  
• 2 cm Pzsprgr. o. Zerl. - armour piercing high explosive projectile (Pzsprgr - Panzersprenggranat) without a self-destructor, it differed from the AP projectile described above with presence of a HE charge with a base fuse - and its explosive feature is marked with a yellow ring (high explosive) at the base of the ogival section of the body.
  
• 2 cm Pzbrgr. (Phosphor) o. Zerl. - armour piercing incediary projectile (Pzbrgr. - Panzerbrandgranat) without a self-destructor, with a charge of phosphorous - as an armour piercing projectile painted back, and its incendiary feature is marked with a blue ring on the body (incendiary projectile) and while letters Ph (Phosphor, phosphorous). What's interesting, it did not have a fuse, it was just filled with phosphorous and closed with a screwed in plug at the rear.
• 2 cm Pzbrgr. (Elektron) o. Zerl. - armour piercing incendiary projectile without a self-destructor, with electron charge - marked, similarly to the predecessor, with a blue ring, but this time with a white letter E (electron) on the body. The projectile had a pretty unusual construction, it was equipped - as an AP - with a JZ 1527 graze fuse, which wasn't a base fuse but was located deep inside, in the forward part of the body; incendiary charge of electron was placed behind the fuse and the body was closed with a plug at the rear end.
  
• 2 cm Pzsprgr. L'spur o. Zerl. - armour piercing projectile with a tracer, without a self-destructor - appropriately marked with a yellow ring in front denoting, as we already know, presence of a HE charge and bright red ring adjacent to the driving band - a tracer.
  
• 2 cm Pzsprgr. Gl'spur m. Zerl. - armour piercing high explosive projectile with a night tracer (Gl'spur - Glimmspur) and a self-destructor. It is marked with two rings at the forward part - yellow (HE charge) and green (self-destructor), as well as a dark red ring in front of the driving band, denoting a night tracer (burning less brightly than a day tracer). Self-destructor was pretty unusual in this case, built into the BdZ 1516 base fuse and coupled with the tracer - after the tracer had burnt out, the primer was shot into the firing pin located in the forward part of the fuse.
  

And now two bigger examples of armour piercing projectiles of 3 cm calibre (additionally, on the left hand side, the 2 cm Pzgr. o. Zerl., already known to us, shown just for size comparison), presenting yet another marking variants.

 

•  3 cm H-Pzgr. L'spur o. Zerl. - armour piercing composite rigid projectile, with an armour piercing core  (H-Pzgr. - Hartkern-Panzergranat) with a tracer, without a self-destructor. Painted traditionally black, with white forward part and a bright red ring in front of the driving band denoting a tracer. The projectile contained inside just an ogival tungsten core, without a HE charge.
  
• 3 cm Pzbrsprgr. L'spur o. Zerl. - a pretty sophisticated combination, armour piercing high explosive incendiary projectile (Pzbrsprgr - Panzerbrandsprenggranat) with a tracer, without a self-destructor. The body colour is black,  typical for an AP,  while both additional functions are marked with two appropriate rings at the forward part - yellow (HE) and blue (incendiary). Plus an usual bright red ring at the rear, denoting a tracer.

And finally at the end - the least interesting in our set practice projectiles, painted - as mentioned above - gray.

 

 

 In the drawing above we can see:

• 2 cm Sprgr. Üb. o. Zerl. - practice high explosive projectile (Sprgr. Üb.- Sprenggranat Übungs) without a self-destructor, made as a single piece body of a size of a complete shell with a fuse, empty inside and closed with a pressed plug at the rear. Painted grey overall, with three longitudinal arrows stamped at the body (spaced evenly 120 degrees apart), specific for blind practice projectiles not containing any explosives and meaning, in case of finding such a fired projectile, it is safe
• 2 cm Sprgr. Üb. L'spur o. Zerl. - practice projectile with a tracer, without a self-destructor. The body is empty inside, closed with a dummy fuse, with a tracer at the rear. Painted gray, with a bright red ring denoting a tracer.  Dummy fuse in natural metal colour.
  
• 2 cm Sprgr. Üb. L'spur m. Zerl. - and this one is a little bit more interesting, a practice projectile with a tracer and a self-destructor. That is, practice and explosive. It was equipped with a self-destructor combined with a tracer, with a small PETN charge at the rear part of the body. Forward part had inert filling and was closed with a dummy fuse - thus explosion was much weaker than a combat HE variant and the projectile had absolutely no impact action. It was painted gray overall and appropriately marked with a green ring at the base of the fuse (self-destructor) and a bright red ring at the rear (tracer). Practice ammuntion of this kind, exploding in the distance of 600-800 m, was intended for use on small training ranges.
  
• 2 cm Pzsprgr. Üb. o. Zerl. - practice armour piercing projectile without a self-destructor. It just differed from a regular 2 cm Pzgr. o. Zerl. with grade of steel, from which the body was made, and was also filled with pressstoff. Painted gray overall.
  

It has to be noted, practice variants of demolition (mine) projectiles, as e.g.  3 cm M-Gesch, L'Spur Üb. o. Zerl., except of being painted in a starndard practice projectile scheme, were also marked with a black letter M, in the same fashion as combat ammunition.

Those Germans were artistic souls. It's even more pretty than heavy Flak ammo, isn't it?

Related posts:

• Colour markings of German bombs 1939-1945 
• Colour markings of German bombs 1939-1945, part 2 (in Polish)
  
• Colour markings of heavy Flak ammunition (in Polish)
• Colour markings of 2 cm Flak ammunition (in Polish)
  

Colour markings of German bombs 1939-1945

It is beyond all doubt among people interested with military history or ordnance that German air force of the WW2 era had aerial bombs in its inventory.

The matter becomes worse when closer details of this weaponry are concerned. Technical questions, construction and parameters are quite reasonably studied and published, but it's another story when bomb painting is concerned. How did these bombs looked like? In what colour were they painted? How were they marked? 

Scale model makers treat this subject completely freely, what leads to a multitude of colours in which their model bombs are painted. Also a quick research on the internet shows, that the matter is pretty unknown to a wider public. Identification of bomb types in photographs or from recovered relics causes a lot of troubles.

Let's take a closer look at the painting and colour markings applied to German bombs, limited (so far?) to bombs carried externally, also from 50 kg on, and excluding any inventions as illuminating or photoflash bombs, sea markers, target indicators etc.

Bomb body colours

Colour schemes of the bombs in question looked officially like this:

• Bombs for normal climate before July 1942 – dark grey RAL 7021.
• Bombs for tropical climate before July 1942 – light blue (initial series – aluminium). This was meant to prevent bombs from heating up in intense sunlight.
• All bombs from July 1942 – grey-beige RAL 7027.

There were exceptions from this rule in form of e.g. green S Be bombs, discussed below.

NOTE: as factory drawings show, SD class bombs were painted Feldgrau, 3 RAL 840 B2 (later designated as RAL 6006) instead of dark gray RAL 7021 at least around 1941. Smoke bombs were apparently painted Feldgrau too. Sadly I have no idea at the moment, if all of them, if always, if there were dark gray SDs or NCs too.

Honestly speaking, other colours are also mentioned in postwar publications, different from fore-mentioned official regulations and not covered by German manuals - e.g. grey-green (feldgrau), dark green, sand, olive green, blue-grey or black. How far it is caused by intentional change of painting scheme, how far by accidental variation of paint colour or how far by an inaccurate colour description - I have no idea.

It is however worth noting, "technological" painting schemes, where sub-assemblies, from which a bomb is mounted, differed with colour, are also mentioned in postwar publications - e.g. blue body with silver tail or silver body with olive green tail. It was obviously caused by assembling a bomb from parts of different manufacture or production period (or probably by makeshift assembling bombs from parts found in depots by the Allies). But, again, it's hard for me to judge, how common it was.

Let's go farther. 
Markings identifying particular bomb category and type were applied to the bomb body painted in the basic colour. There were descriptions of the bomb, fuze or HE types, additional informations and warnings - an so on. We're not going to deal with these, though (it's a topic for  another lengthy research), honing on the colour markings identifying bomb classes.
It is anyway important, that a more of less precise marking of the bomb type was painted on top of the bomb body, near the suspension lug. Sometimes very short in case of the more typical classes, e.g. Jc for the SC 50 JC or BeC for the S Be 50 C, sometimes shortened just a little bit, e.g. D 250 Pr for the SD 250 Pr, sometimes complete as e.g. NC 50 D or SB 1000 A. Colour markings identifying a class of the bomb were painted on the bomb body or the tail section - in form of stripes, rings or colourful warhead nose. And these are of most interest for us now.

The drawings below show generally, for uniformity, bombs in grey-beige colour introduced in 1942. Any markings save for those of the bomb type, were also omitted for clarity.
 

250 kg bombs colours.

Demolition bombs SC (Minenbombe), the most classical, with filling factor in order of 50 per cent, were marked with single yellow longitudinal stripes (RAL 1006), in each quarter of the tail section, between the fins. Such a stripe was 40 mm wide in case of the SC 50, SC 250 or SC 500 bombs, 60 mm wide for the SC 1800, but it could also be trapezoid in shape, getting narrower together with the tail cone (it could be encountered on e.g. SC 1800 bombs).

A couple of other irregularities considering bombs marked with longitudinal stripes has to be mentioned (not only demolition ones). Not always - especially in case of heavier bombs with long tail sections - stripes were reaching the forward end of the section, occupying e.g. 1/2, 2/3 or 3/4 of its length only.
An example of standard marking of the SC 250 bombs is shown in the drawing above. 

Well, the question of marking bombs with longitudinal stripes on tail sections requires a little bit more attention. Sometimes, apparently in the early stages of the war, one can encounter photographs of dark grey bombs without any colour markings on their tail cones. There are also opposite cases, where colour identifying bomb class is not applied in the form of stripes, but covers the whole area of the tail cone (except fins), looking sometimes as painted pretty roughly, overlapping the fins.
I suspect - sadly without any hard evidence so far - that German bombs such as SC, SD etc. had no colour markings at all in the beginning of the war. Only some time later (1940?) they received colour painting of the whole tail cones (obviously formally regulated, presented in drawings of official manuals - I have sadly no idea, when these drawings were made), which was limited to longitudinal colourful stripes pretty soon (as can be judged from its limited representation in pictures). When it happened, I have no idea yet, but the stripes were in force in June 1942 beyond any doubt, and apparently in the spring of 1941 already.

High capacity bombs SB (Grossladugsbombe) with filling factor in order of 75 per cent were initially marked in the same fashion as common demolition bombs, i.e. with single yellow stripes on the tail section.  The marking was however subsequently changed to two parallel stripes, e.g. 30 mm wide in 20 mm. distance. An example of such a marking is presented by the SB 1000 bomb in the drawing below. 

Fragmentation-demolition bombs SD (Splitterbombe or dickwandige Sprengbombe), with shells thicker than SC and with resulting filling factor of around 30 per cent, were marked with single longitudinal red stripes (RAL 3000) on the tail section, between the fins. An example marking is presented by the SD 250 above.

Concrete fragmentation bombs S Be (Betonbombe) of pretty unusual construction, with small central chamber filled with HE, surrounded by a thick concrete jacket with embedded metal fragments, were classified as splinter only with no demolition effect. Thus they were clearly distinguished by their colour - they were, in contrast to any other bombs in question, green.
A designation of the bomb type was additionally applied to the body, such as BeA 1 (for the S Be 50 A 1) and analogically BeA II, BeC I, BeC II, BeD, BeE etc. The S Be 250 C is shown in the drawing above.

Kinetic armour piercing bombs PC (Panzersprengbombe, e.g. PC 1600) with filling factor of 15-20 per cent, AP bombs with increased penetration PD (Panzerdurchschlagbombe, e.g. PD 500) with filling factor below 10 per cent as well as rocket assisted AP bombs PC-RS (e.g. PC 1000 RS) were marked with longitudinal blue stripes on the tail section between fins. An example of such a marking is presented by the PC 1600 bomb in the drawing below. 

Incendiary bombs Brand C (Phosphorbrandbombe) - filled with incendiary liquid and glass bottles containing phosphorus, were marked with two red rings on the body - one in the middle and one on the ogive; A red bottle was additionally stencilled between the forward fuze pocked and the forward red ring - as shown by the Brand C 250 A above..

Incendiary bombs without phosphorus, also of the Flam C type (Flammenbombe or Brandbombe) containing mixture of gasoline and oil with small HE charge, as well as an interesting Streubrand C 500 carrying 1400 incendiary ampoules in 20 per cent solution of spirit and opened in air by a exploding cord cutting its sheet metal body, were marked with two red rings - in the middle and in the nose sections of the body. A similar marking was applied to the ABB 500 cluster bomb, a little bit similar to the Streubrand 500 and containing 140 incendiary bombs of the B 1 family. An example marking is shown by the Flam C 250 bomb in the drawing above. 

Smoke bombs NC (Nebelbombe), carrying smoke substance and a small HE charge, were painted feldgrau or grey-beige, had white tip of the ogive with four adjacent longitudinal white stripes (40 mm wide and 250 mm long in case of the NC 250 S) and white marking of the bomb type on the body, as presented by the NC 250 S above. 

Concrete practice bombs ZC (Übungsbombe aus Zement) having concrete bodies with cavities for glass ampoules with smoke liquid indicating impact point, had body nose painted in colour of the smoke they produced - also white or red. Bomb type and smoke colour were aadditionally described on top of the body. Bombs without smoke ampoules had no colour noses. An example painting of the concrete practice bomb is shown by a "red" ZC 250 A rot above.

High capacity demolotion and AP bomb markings.

A specific marking of bombs filled with HE coded 105 or Trialen has also to be mentioned. As the HE containing 15 per cent of aluminium was pretty scarce as well as relatively sensitive, these bombs were intended exclusively for attacking merchant ships from horizontal flight. Such bombs filled with Trialen were thus marked with silhouettes of a merchant ship on the tail cone painted in yellow RAL 1006, instead of usual single or double yellow stripes. Ship silhouettes were to be e.g. 350 mm long in case of the SC 500 J bomb (four silhouettes) or 800 mm long for SB 2500 (initially four, later eight silhouettes - two on each tail cone segment between fins). Bombs were also marked with black stencilling on body sides Nur gegen Handelsschiffe (against merchant ships only), as well as with an appropriate description on top of the body, e.g. SC 500 J Trialen or SB 2500 Trialen.

Markings of the SB 2500 bomb filled with Trialen.

It is, however, worth noting, that ship silhouettes in available drawings or pictures are smaller than the theoretical dimensions given above. In case of the real life SC 500 J Trialen they seem to be approx. 260 mm long.

Side view of the SC 500 J Trialen bomb

An exception can be encountered among colour markings of the SD class bombs, in form of the SD 1700 bomb, made till 1941 only and apparently spent in the following year. The bomb dropped from 1200 m could penetrate 60 mm of armour at 60 degrees angle and was therefore classified as the Panzersprengbombe (AP-HE) or "demolition bomb with increased penetration". Thus it was not marked with an usual red stripe, but - as a 1942 manual describes - with a yellow-blue-yellow one. SD 1700 in dark grey RAL 7021 painting is shown below.
Notice: there are pictures of alleged SD 1700 bombs marked with dark single colour stripes, i.e. apparently red ones, as for regular SD class bombs. Either the two colour stripes were never actually used, either they were introduced on some later date, e.g. in late 1941 or in 1942 only.

SD 1700 bomb markings.

 
Cluster bombs AB (Abwurfbehalter) of bigger sizes carried markings patterned after regular bombs, but referring to ammunition type with which the container was filled.
In case of fragmentation bomblets (e.g.. SD 1, SD 2, SD 10, SD 15 etc.) as well as shaped charge-fragmentation SD 4 HL, four - or sometimes probably two - longitudinal red stripes were painted at the rear part of the container between the fins, analogically to a fragmentation bomb - as shown by the AB 250-2 in the drawing below.
In case of the AB containers with incendiary bomblets (B 1, B 2 etc.) a single red ring was painted on the rear part of the container body - as presents the AB 500-1 below. An exception was formed by the ABB 500 cluster bomb mentioned above, built differently than AB canisters however.
Canisters were also stencilled in two lines, between suspension lug and fuze charging head, with container type as well as type and quantity of the bomblets it contained - e.g. AB 500-1 / 116 B 2 EZ.

AB cluster bombs markings.

A controversy considering the demolition-incendiary Spreng-Brand C 50 bomb, carrying TNT in the forward section and incendiary electron elements in the rear part, has to be mentioned eventually. According to some postwar studies, the bomb marking combined those of demolition and incendiary bombs - with a red ring on the body and yellow stripes on the tail section. According to original documents of the era, the bomb had however no markings other than Sprengbrand C 50 description on the body.
Another discrepancy can also be encountered - according to a postwar Allied report the SD 1700 bomb mentioned above, with its unique two colour, yellow and blue marking, was  marked with red stripes on the tail section, as an usual SD bomb.

 

Part two (not translated yet) - deals with stenciling and marking variants. 

Part three (in Polish) - markings of SBe 50 concrete frag bombs. 

Part four (in Polish) - markings on lower surfaces of bombs

 

Related posts:

• Colour markings of heavy Flak ammunition (in Polish)
• Colour markings of German aircraft gun ammunition 1939-1945 
• German anti-submarine bombs (including markings, in Polish)
• Colour markings of German 2 cm Flak ammunition 1939-1945 (in Polish)