Skin Request: A6M2 of Tetsuzo-Iwamoto from 332 Kokutai

[Mister Fork]

[Mister Fork]

[Mister Fork]

Right side photo (from restored A6M2)

[Greebo]

I'd skin this if an actual WW2 photo of the plane could be found. Without an original photo profiles, warbirds, skins and models are just educated guesses as to what the plane looked like and those responsible for them usually end up copying each other.

[Mister Fork]

They didn't take many pictures, and I don't know of any exist of this variant colour scheme. I know there is one in the dark green. The IJN/IJA didn't take many pictures compared to the USAAF and USN.

Still digging.

[Volron]

Time to call in...the Lyric1.  

[Vraciu]

Time to call in...the Lyric1.  

Bat Signal - On.

[lyric1]

Time to call in...the Lyric1.  

I have been looking.
May have to prowl some Japanese sights on this one.

[Shifty]

Fork the Zuikaku's fighters sported  narrower fuselage bands than depicted on the restored A6M2 in the photo. There are some photos taken when they were operating out of Rabaul  where you can see the markings.






Also there are a few photos from operations aboard the Zuikaku.



Some sported red piping around the white bands.







Here's a model 32 from the Zuikaku.

[lyric1]

BY all accounts there is no photos of the actual aircraft per all the Japanese sites I have looked at. You posted most of the images I had except this one.

[Mister Fork]

Nice find!

It's one of the challenges I've run into trying to find skins for any IJN/IJA plane - there are not a whole of pictures from WWII out there.  Especially, not a single colour photo.  Pretty weird but I don't think the Japanese military were a bunch of active photographers - and they didn't necessarily have active media journalists attached to units.

I agree - the rear band is a lot narrower in the photos than the colour ones I found including the painted replica of his plane. So weird. 

[Fencer51]

For example, in "The World at War" Documentary, they interviewed a Japanese journalist that was with the fleet at Midway.  He was basically imprisoned upon return to Japan (along with others) to keep the actual news of the battle from the public.  So I bet that a lot of photos etc were censored for the same reason throughout the war.

[Mister Fork]

For example, in "The World at War" Documentary, they interviewed a Japanese journalist that was with the fleet at Midway.  He was basically imprisoned upon return to Japan (along with others) to keep the actual news of the battle from the public.  So I bet that a lot of photos etc were censored for the same reason throughout the war.

I remember the series from my youth.... Would explain why we really don't have a lot of WWII photo media from the Japanese.  So it's guess work?

[Greebo]

I am not convinced that the aircraft with narrow fuselage bands on a lot of these photos are from Zuikaku's Air Group. If you look at the first of Shifty's photos you can see the tail code begins "AII" which makes it one of Kaga's aircraft. The other photos have been censored to remove the tail codes so you can't rely on the book captions to be correct without knowing the history of the photos.

Here is the only photo I could find of what is definitely a Zuikaku A6M2 of the period, which has wide fuselage bands like the profile and replica.

[Vraciu]

Here's one that I've never understoood.    Why the black cowling on the A6M?   Was it for anti-glare?   Recognition?   Intimidation?  Mitsubishi's Marketing Department?