Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Custom Skins => Topic started by: noman on January 08, 2015, 02:44:25 PM
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Just a question that popped into my head while looking at all the great pics of the work you guys do on skins. Who decided how a plane was going to be painted? Did every plane in a squad get the same paint job with only minor variations due to them being painted by men and not robots such as cars today?
I know some were painted a certain color and pattern for certain reasons but why the wide variety in Luftwaffe planes? Which by the way I think have some of the best skins.
And a few more all black planes would be awesome. ( hint hint )
Keep up the good work Gentlemen. :salute
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To quickly answer your question, yes. :devil
Seriously though,
Each individual aircraft type has its own peculiarities in how paint schemes were applied. To start, there's the regulation from the given air force - in the case of the Luftwaffe its the aircraft ministry known by RLM. There, regulations in pattern and colors are made based on the role of the aircraft or likely area of operation . Then you have the painting process at the factory (free hand cammo, or stenciled). Of course there are different variations based on aircraft built in different factories. Here's a great example of that pertaining to 109G's http://theprofilepaintshop.blogspot.com/2013/10/chosing-correct-wingpattern-for-bf109g-6.html. Next, there is variation in the color of paints because of either different manufacturers or changes in available pigments. Finally you have changes made at the depot/ squadron level. Also, don't forget about short term markings or winter cammo.
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This website:
http://www.jpsmodell.de/dc/main_e.htm
Has a TON of great information on paint specifications not only by nationality, but by service, and even in some cases down to individual aircraft types.
Been trying to get this stickied, as I think it would be a TREMENDOUS help.
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Sax. I find that site to be good for general info on colors and patterns at best. I would verify what you get from there with other sources.
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In general some department of the air force that ordered the plane would tell the factory how and with what colours they wanted it painted. However there are lots of exceptions to this.
British, Italian, German and US aircraft were fairly well documented WRT colours and schemes. You can often work out the whole scheme by just looking at a single photo of the plane and referring to drawings of the scheme. However there is the issue of repaints done at a depot or squadron level when a plane was moved to a new theater. For instance a lot of USAAF bare metal planes were given a top coat of olive drab or RAF green when they redeployed to France in 1944. Also some lend lease aircraft ordered by Britain would turn up in the UK painted in the RAF scheme but using the nearest USAAF equivalent colours.
Soviet and Japanese aircraft are a bit more of a minefield, part of the problem being a lack of documentation, although that has improved recently. Photos are often of very poor quality making it difficult to make out the scheme. Also Soviet aircraft schemes tended to a lot less strictly applied, with different factories using there own variations of the official scheme. There is still a lot of debate about what the correct shades are for the various colours used on Soviet aircraft.
Japanese aircraft used fairly standardised factory schemes but in the early to mid war years there was a lot of depot and squadron level repainting going on using all sorts of colours. Also different factories would use different shades of paint to each other. So for instance a Zero made by Mitsubishi would be a different shade of green and grey to one made by Nakajima. Luckily there are various clues that can be got from a B&W photo to tell which factory made the aircraft .
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Sax. I find that site to be good for general info on colors and patterns at best. I would verify what you get from there with other sources.
I haven't looked at many of the other sections, but I know for certain it lists the official Navy specs (including the actual spec reference numbers for many of them). There's whole sections on the geometric tail insignia and carrier air group ID markings from later in the war (IE Bunker Hill's white arrow, the lightning bolt flashes on Shangri-La, etc).
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Seems it would take 10 lifetimes to figure all this out which what makes what you guys do all the more impressive. A big :salute to you guys and what you bring to AH. It would not be the same without what you guys do.