Stab (Luftwaffe designation)

The German language term Stab (literal translation: "staff") was used during World War II to designate a headquarters unit of the German "Luftwaffe" (air force). There were "Stab" units at the level of a "Gruppe" or "Geschwader" – units that were equivalent to wings and groups in the air forces of the English-speaking world. "Stab" units directly controlled aircraft as well as controlling those belonging to subordinate units.
These command units used the mandated blue or green "staff aircraft" colour for the third character (the individual aircraft's letter) of their alphanumeric "Geschwaderkennung" wing code, to distinguish their aircraft from the rest of air units in the same unit. These units were divided in the following form, for the fourth and last character normally used to distinguish individual "Staffeln" (squadrons) from the letter "H" onwards in Luftwaffe wing codes:
On some occasions they also used letters Q, I, J, W and others, or numbers, but these were used less commonly. As day fighter Jagdgeschwader combat wings did not use the "Geschwaderkennung" four-character alphanumeric code system for aircraft identification, as one example, the all-jet Jagdgeschwader 7 "Nowotny" and piston-engined Jagdgeschwader 300 "Wilde Sau" fighter wings, these used the red-blue or blue-white-blue Reich Defense (German Reich metropolitan defense) rear fuselage bands of 90 cm total width respectively, for their "Stabsschwarm" units. Under the cockpit, the rank of the air commander might have been indicated via a rank sign, with or without additional letters as mentioned above.
For example: