Hardrada55

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If I understand it correctly, in World War 1, Austria-Hungary's army consisted of the Imperial Austrian Landswehr, the Royal Hungarian Honved and an "Common" Army. If Austria-Hungary had lasted into WW2, either in it's historical form, or as some kind of federal constitutional "dual" monarchy, what might the insignia used to identify Austro-Hungarian air force (or air forces) aircraft have looked like? Would there have been only one insignia for one air force, or might there have been "three" air forces, like there were three armies? Austrian colors were red and white. Hapsburg Imperial colors were yellow and black. Hungarian colors were red, white and green. Might not they would have used some kind of Austro-Hungarian insignia paired with something to show nationality, like the Hungarian red white and green fin flashes and chevrons used early in WW2? During WW1 Austria-Hungary used the "iron cross" or Maltese cross or Cross Pattee. During WW1 Austria Hungary did not use this cross on the fuselage, but put it on the wings and on the tail. Would a WW2 Austria-Hungary follow that practice and put the cross on the tail and not the fuselage? Hungary in WW2 used a white cross, kind of a white balkenkreuz on a black square background. Might A-H have used a white cross pattee or a white balkenkreuz?
 
In keeping with the dual monarchy theme, consider Austria's current roundel, the white triangle in the red ball. Now, for Hungary, put a green ball in the white triangle, like Lebanon. For the Austrian Empire, use a red ball in the white triangle. Now this gets intriguing- The monarchy was seriously considering a south Slavic kingdom, on a par with Austria and Hungary. You could then have a blue ball in the white triangle.
 
Maybe something like this if Axis?

Or this?



Here is the historical Hungarian markings. Could an alternate history Austro-Hungary have used something similar?



Here is a roundel in Hapsburg yellow and black.

 
This has always been an interesting topic for me. I don't see the Hungarian WWII insignia being unrealistic, however I'm not entirely sure if they'll stop copying the German insignia.

Here are two late-war Phönix D.III illustrations (courtesy of http://www.cbrnp.com/profiles/quarter1/phonix.htm):
1687149861051.png
1687149917948.png
As you can see, Austria-Hungary even copied the Balkenkreuz ("straight" version of the iron cross) towards the end of the war when Germany had made the insignia change itself. That being said, I feel as though the naval fin flash (seen in the first photo) could become common place on all aircraft by this alternative Second World War. As mentioned earlier though, Austria-Hungary could likely have been "Austria-Hungary-Croatia" (or something else) by this time. That in of itself adds a new layer to this.

This is the pre-SFR Yugoslavia air force roundel:
1687150358830.png
This already has a cross in it, so perhaps this could influence the markings in some way?

In spite of all this, one thing that would be interesting is national nose art for different regiments/pilots. I think it would be cool if Squadrons or even individual pilots had their own nose-art depicting their nationalities (Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, etc.) Though this does get a bit more into a "personal want" of mine for an alternate history scenario of this style, I don't see it being too unrealistic. This is especially given ethnic tensions.
 

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