Gun Soot

[Stoney74]

Dan,

If anyone has them, you would.  Can you post some pictures that illustrate the level of gun soot that seems to permeate the skins of the community?

I want to know if I'm just being a Scrooge or if they never actually got that dirty.  I've never seen pictures where the gun soot was as conspicuous as it seems to be on our skins.  I'd rather see tons of oil streaking down the belly as I would gun soot.

[end rant]

[Guppy35]

Hmm.  Probably a good rant.  No Crew Chief in his right mind would let his bird get that messy

I think it might be that folks forget that often times guys never fired their guns in anger, and if they did, the armorors went over the guns, cleaned it up and recovered the gun ports.  Not quite like us AH types who are shooting all the time

But since you asked for photos, I'll use my Spit XII stuff since they are not from a book and scan better and clearer.

Two Spit XIIs from 41 Squadron in April 1944.  EB-B is the last Spit XII built and the Flight Commander's aircraft.  It's been with 41 Squadron for about 5 months at this point.  Still pretty clean.

EB-D behind him has been with the squadron since July 43, so about 10 months, and flown a lot more operations and has at this point 1 kill to it's credit.  Paint a bit more faded and chipped, looking a bit the worse for wear.

Interestingly these two Spit XIIs were involved in the last air combat with the Spit XII in September 1944 when Terry Spencer in EB-B shot down Experten "Bully Lang" in his 190 and Pat Coleman in EB-D shot down another 190.
Note you don't see streaks from the cannons or MGs.


MB882 EB-B from the top.  Looks pretty clean even after 5 months of squadron flying


MB882 from below.  Oil and fuel streaks from where the DT hangs under the belly and maybe a bit of streaking from the cannon shell ejection ports as well as a bit from the mg ejection ports.

[oboe]

I thought this one did show some level of gun soot - especially around the 20mm port and partially covering the '3' in the aircraft ID:



Stoney,

I have an interest in skinning at least a couple P-47D-11s.   The stable is full, but there are so many for the 56th and 4th FGs.   I see you are CO of the 348th - would you like to see someone attempt 'Fiery Ginger'?   Or is there some other 348th D11 you have an interest in?

[Greebo]

This is why I always like to work from photos if possible. The level of gun soot, oil stains and chipping can vary enormously. A Spit used in the desert would be a lot tattier than the ones above for example.

The other thing is I find is that AH's arena lighting seems to swallow a lot of a skin's detail and weathering effects when looked at in game, so they need to be a bit made a bit heavier to compensate.

Here's a few photos showing some more noticable gun streaking. Notice on the F6F most of the soot is from the cartridge ejection chutes.

[Fencer51]

Originally posted by oboe

Stoney,

I have an interest in skinning at least a couple P-47D-11s.   The stable is full, but there are so many for the 56th and 4th FGs.   I see you are CO of the 348th - would you like to see someone attempt 'Fiery Ginger'?   Or is there some other 348th D11 you have an interest in?

Not that you need it but you have my personal permission to replace the 4th FG P-47s I did with the "red" around the Star-Bar and the "Yellow" around the Star-Bar.  They are 2 years old and not worthy of holding a spot.  I updated the other two and don't intend to update these.

[Edit]  Those would be P47d11_8 and P47d11_9.

[Stoney74]

Originally posted by Greebo
Here's a few photos showing some more noticable gun streaking. Notice on the F6F most of the soot is from the cartridge ejection chutes.

Plausible that the streaking is from lubricant off the weapons versus soot?  Especially at the ejection ports as gravity would naturally cause it to flow out of what I would assume would be a heavily lubricated (considering the corrosion protection necessary aboard ship) receiver?  As the airflow at the leading edge splits, an equivalent amount of soot should go over the top of the wing as does the bottom.

And, Oboe, I appreciate the offer.  I had Fiery Ginger about 85% complete and then stopped once the P47D-11 que was full.





I deleted some of my old screen shots when I gave up on the project.  I saved the master files though, so I could presumably finish it up and submit it.  There's another squadron aircraft I was going to start after it, but I'll defer to anyone that wants to do any of the other PTO/CBI T-Bolts.