Lozenge camouflage fabric piece : Imperial German Air Service

Piece of lozenge fabric from German aircraft. Lozenge preprinted fabric comprised a pattern of polygons that were printed by rollers in a distinct pattern that repeated along the bolt of fabric. Most polygons were hexagons of irregular shape and approximately 290 x 150 mm in size.

This sample has small transparent window let into the fabric to allow inspection of a pulley, cable or data plate. Window is approx. 23 x 50 mm and the patch is approx. 55 x 95 mm. The fabric is bulged over the patch.

The colours from underside of the fabric are approximately: Methune:-
Blue 21E7
Red 12D7
Green – very washed out, unable to get a match.

The surface is heavily doped and stained. The colours of the lozenge pattern on the reverse are very thin making colour matching difficult.

The aircraft from which this item came is unknown.
Towards the middle 1916, Germany started to adopt pre-printed colour fabric for their aircraft, making use of repeating patterns of coloured polygons. Modern researchers have termed the material 'lozenge fabric'. By April 1917 the new fabric was in general use and the Siemens Schuckert Werke was instructed in its use.

Two main schemes schemes appear to have been adopted: a daylight and a night scheme. The daylight scheme made use of a dark colour pattern for upper surfaces and the sides of fuselages, and a light pattern, to be used on the lower surfaces of wings and the bottom of fuselages. Despite this, there were deviations. The Albatros D.Va in the AWM collection, for instance, had the lower wings covered with plain and lozenge fabric, the wings being then painted in the previous camouflage pattern for plain covered aircraft, while the under surface of the upper wing was covered in light coloured five colour lozenge fabric. The AWM’s Pfalz D.XII had the light coloured pattern fabric on both the top and bottom surfaces of the lower wings. Other captured aircraft are reported having similar use of the fabric.