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Roundels of the World Air Forces
Roundel(GB), Rozet (NL), Cocarde (F), Flugzeugkokarde (D): A circular shaped, square shaped, cross shaped, star shaped or other shaped figure on an aircraft which indicates to what country that aircraft belongs to.
History.
To prevent ground forces at shooting friendly aircraft France introduced the roundel at the beginning of the 1st world war. It was based on their national cocarde in the colors red, white and blue. The UK and Germany followed with their own versions and soon after that all countries had their own roundel.
Also introduced in that period was the Fin Flash, original the painted movable part of the fin. Later on the painted figure would move to the fixed part of the fin. During the war the roundel would change in shape and /or color with some countries.
After the 1st world war the roundel was standardized within most countries. Only a few countries had some changes to their roundels. Just before the start of the 2nd world war some countries changed their roundel due to political reason or to avoid confusing. The time after the 2nd world war was characterized by the forming of many new nations and with that the roundels of those nations. Many countries were searching their identities which can be seen with their roundels as some versions were used only for a short period. The Vietnam war brought a mayor change to the roundel, these became much smaller and the low visibility roundel and the toned down roundel was introduced as a standard in the USA. Many other countries followed soon after that. About the website.
During the 2nd world war especially the UK roundel changed. In Europe the white circle on the wing roundel disappeared and in the far east the red circle was removed. By doing so the 1st low visibility roundels appeared, but after the war the original colors were applied again. Also the USA did change their roundel frequently during the war. Some changes only lasted for a few months.
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The end of the cold war with the fall of the Soviet Union was the end of some roundels but the a lot of new roundels were introduced. The same happened during the Balkan war. Still today governments fall orcountries political view changes and often with that change the roundel do to. That is why this website never will be finished.
In 2003 the website was created for internal use and only in Dutch to provide some information to the military about the roundel of the countries that were around in that timespan. Because of the rapid changes the time period was extended back to 1990, the fall of the Soviet Union. In the beginning of 2005 the website became public accessible. When the update to 1990 was nearly finished the time period was changed again to all after 1945. Some countries have already gone beyond that and go back to the beginning. In the end it is the intention to show all the roundels ever used on this website but it will take many years to get that done.
On request in 2015 the website became bilingual by introducing a English menu and bilingual pages. A complete English version was not possible therefore the bilingual version was chosen. The process of translating is still continuing.