Albatros D.III in Allmenröder's markings
Eduard 1/48

By: Tomasz Gronczewski

Karl Allmenröder

The man

When the leader of an outfit is such outstanding ace as Manfred von Richthofen, other members of the squad can be easily outclassed by his fame. Nothing similar happened to another Jasta 11's star Karl Allmenröder. "Karlchen" Allmenröder was born on May 3rd 1896 in a family of pastor. He started medicine studies but outbreak of the great war threw him to the artillery. During fighting in Poland against Imperial Russian army in 1915 he was awarded with Iron Cross and later with Friedrich August Cross. However in early 1916 he and his brother Willi decided to climb into skies and started flying course at Fliegerschule Halberstadt. On March 29 they were assigned to FA227. Being artillery's workhorses soon became boring for both brothers and in November 1916 they managed to transfer to new Jasta 11. Three months after his arrival Karl started his long run of victories. His score was growing up steadily. When "Bloody April" began Allmenröder had been already an ace, and during this famous month he added four more victories. But it was in May 1917 when he gained biggest fame. During this month he downed thirteen RFC's planes - by far more than any other German pilot in the same time. It was officially recognized on June 6th when he was awarded with the Knight's Cross of Hohenzollern House Order. A few days later, on June 14th he gained his own Blue Max. On June 25th 1917 Manfred von Richthofen became a commander of a new Jagdgeschwader, and it was Allmenröder who took honor of commanding now famous Jasta 11. Nobody knew then that Karl's brilliant career was about to end. On June 27th, a day after he scored his last 30th victory, Karl Allmenröder met his fate. His Albatros was shot by Allied guns, and mortally wounded pilot crashed between the trenches.  Despite the fact that war continued and many aces built up their scores, Allmenröder maintained posthumously his position of fourth scoring ace of Jasta 11. He is now remembered as one of the most famous German aces, and one of the few whose almost all victims seem to be fully identified and confirmed without any disputes.

	and the machine
	Allmenröder's D.III was a standard aircraft from mid production series with a radiator off-set to right. As other high scoring Jasta 11 aces Allmenröder painted fuselage, struts, undercarriage and wheel discs with red. Nose and elevator carried usually ace's personal color, which in the case of "Karlchen" was white.

Franz Ray’s scoreboard

Sources:

• Above the Lines

• Jasta Pilots

• Albatros Fighters in Action

The model

Allmenröder's Albatros was my third and last subject of the Cookup. This time it was an aircraft with old rudder and a radiator moved to the right. I have not described its construction step-by-step because it was very similar to the construction of Franz Ray's D.III O.A.W. Instead of a new long article I will focus only on differences.

Colors

Three color camouflage:

As it is known now Albatros scouts carried three color scheme from the their very beginning. Initially it was soft edged Dark Olive Green / Red Brown / Pale Green scheme. Later color divisions were sharper. In April 1917 an order came to replace red brown with mystic violet or purple paint. As soon as Allmenröder's Albatros was dated for May 1917, it should carry following scheme: Dark Olive Green / Violet / Pale Green.

I decided to use following paint equivalents from the Humbrol range:

• Humbrol 163 as Dark Olive Green

• Humbrol 120 as Pale Green

• Humbrol mixture (6 x H 109 Matt WWI Blue + 1 x H 73 Matt Wine Red + 1 x H 60 Matt Scarlet + 3 x H 23 Camouflage Grey) as Violet

In order to be honest abovementioned receipts are purely based on Dicta Ira. They just looked good for me. Below you can see the result. Because I am not a good photographer I failed to catch exact color shades. On the real thing Dark Olive Green and Violet are lighter, and Pale Green is less vivid.

Bottom surfaces of the wings were painted with a Humbrol mixture (8 x H 65 Matt Aircraft Blue + 1 x H 48 Mediterranean Blue)

Transparent red finish:

Many Jasta 11 Albatros scouts had their entire fuselages overpainted red. Allmenröder's D.III was not an exception. The colors used to do it remains unknown. Only sure parameter of the paint was that the red coat was not fully opaque. I tried to simulate this effect in the following way:

First I painted entire surface with Humbrol 63 Matt Sand. Then I painted all "metal" panels with Humbrol 31 Matt Gray Green. The rudder was painted white. After everything dried I took Eduard express masks for Albatros national insignia and used them to mask crosses. Having them masked I sprayed them firstly with Tamiya Gloss White. Later I put masks in the places of outlines, sealed a line between background and outline with Humbrol Maskol and sprayed inner areas of the crosses with Tamiya Gloss Black.

Later I gave the fuselage a coat of Future and applied sepia wash using Pebeo artist oil thinned with turpentine. After a night I sprayed entire fuselage with Humbrol 153 Matt Insignia Red. Finally I masked out the nose and sprayed it with Tamiya Gloss White acrylic paint.

An elevator was sprayed with white separately, and later glued to the main body.

As soon as on the real thing red finish had been applied to struts, entire undercarriage and wheels, I used the same multi step method to paint them.

Conclusions

The model in Allmenröder's markings is a bit easier than Ray's because its wings were not covered by lozenge nor colorful rib tapes.

Anyway I managed to complicate the live seriously, because during very last step of rigging application the kit fell on the floor and broke into pieces. Anyway after two unsuccessful attempts I managed to repair it eventually. The photos were taken after final refurbishment.

The gallery

Other Cookup pages of Tomasz Gronczewski

Werner Voss | Franz Ray | cookup subjects comparison