Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: SFRT - Frenchy on September 01, 2015, 12:48:27 PM
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When did it lose it's circle around it?
(http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/us-military-star-16476039.jpg)
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My guess in late 1943 or so but ya it did change during the war.
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M18s retained the star and circle because their low silhouette caused them to be misidentified as German. The fact was that most tank crews quickly painted out the white stars altogether as it was a dead give-away.
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Guess the star with the circle around it would give them a nice target... :O
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Until the end of the war. Used primarily in the European campaign. The single star at distance by air crew was sometimes difficult to differentiate from german cross; especially American vehicles that can be easily confused with german (m18, m3, jeep) from the air. The term "American Luftwaffe" was coined. Circle is broken since a stencil was issued and many crews didn't bother to fill the gaps in. For the invasion of Sicily, crews were ordered to increase the width of the circle and paint it yellow.
Yes, some crews did away with it all together as it made a real easy target for german gunners.