Favorite World War II aircraft camouflage scheme

Pretty much as the thread title says. Anyone have a favorite color scheme from that period? One of mine is the RAF night fighter color scheme from mid/late war that was green and sea grey all over. Though that's odd for a night fighter color scheme IMO.

Late war luftwaffe squigle. Or early soviet. More or less the same.

RAF temperate climate.

PRU Pink Spitfire

Hi,
I don't know a whole lot about the different schemes used by alot of the different air forces during the war. However, when I was younger and I first saw the Tamiya kit for the Buffalo Mk1, I do recall being kind of confused and intrigued by the scheme used by the RAF and RAAF on that plane in the Far East.

As I have come to understand it is mostly based on the scheme being used by the RAF elsewhere a the the time (though I could be mistaken), with a pattern of green and brown on the upper surfaces.

However, many of the planes then seem to have;

• a Yellow ring around the national roundels on the side
• a Red, White, and Blue fin flash
• a constrasting color ID band around the aft fuselage
• large aircraft/unit(?) identification letters on the side (in a contrasting color)
• a half black/half white paint acheme on the underside
• and occassionally some personal "nose art"

I kind of understand the logic of some of the stuff like the ID band, yellow ring around the roundel, fin flash, and black/white undersides to assist in making it easier for freindly pilots and ground gunners to differentiate between freind or foe, but it still kind of struck me then as a little odd at how the planes were both camoflaged and made to "stick out" and be "identifiable" at the same time.



[Image from Wikipedia - unfortunately not in color, but it kind of gets the concept across]

This (famous?) pic of a German Bf109 in desert camo is amazing.


Though for a "best general purpose" camo, I think the modern gray ones used by Western air forces, boring as they are, are probably quite good. Medium gray on top, light gray on the bottom. KISS.

z42 said:

Though for a "best general purpose" camo, I think the modern gray ones used by Western air forces, boring as they are, are probably quite good. Medium gray on top, light gray on the bottom. KISS.

Click to expand...

Way back when, when the U.S, Navy made the change over from flashy, colourful aircraft to Grey colours, a reporter bemoaned to an admiral that the aircraft now looked boring. The admiral replied, "Better a boring aircraft than a missing one."

1945 US Navy gloss blue.
2nd : the French 1940 tricolor.

PFVA63 said:

Hi,
I don't know a whole lot about the different schemes used by alot of the different air forces during the war. However, when I was younger and I first saw the Tamiya kit for the Buffalo Mk1, I do recall being kind of confused and intrigued by the scheme used by the RAF and RAAF on that plane in the Far East.

As I have come to understand it is mostly based on the scheme being used by the RAF elsewhere a the the time (though I could be mistaken), with a pattern of green and brown on the upper surfaces.

However, many of the planes then seem to have;

• a Yellow ring around the national roundels on the side
• a Red, White, and Blue fin flash
• a constrasting color ID band around the aft fuselage
• large aircraft/unit(?) identification letters on the side (in a contrasting color)
• a half black/half white paint acheme on the underside
• and occassionally some personal "nose art"

I kind of understand the logic of some of the stuff like the ID band, yellow ring around the roundel, fin flash, and black/white undersides to assist in making it easier for freindly pilots and ground gunners to differentiate between freind or foe, but it still kind of struck me then as a little odd at how the planes were both camoflaged and made to "stick out" and be "identifiable" at the same time.

View attachment 728196

[Image from Wikipedia - unfortunately not in color, but it kind of gets the concept across]

Click to expand...

With the exception of the black port undersides, most of the other features you mention are small and hard to detect at operational ranges. The reflective glint of sunlight off a canopy was far more likely to reveal the position of an aircraft than its national markings, code letters or other small identifying marks.

It seems that AHQFE decided to follow the marking scheme for fighters that was in use by Fighter Command in early 1941. During the Battle of France, RAF fighters had night/white undersides to aid identification by ground observers. Pilots felt that such markings made them more visible to the enemy and so the undersides were repainted in Sky during the Battle of Britain. For some reason, Fighter Command reintroduced the black port underside in early 1941 but retained Sky for the starboard underside. A Sky fuselage band was also added. This scheme was somewhat short-lived as it was soon changed again, with the Dark Earth of the upper surfaces replaced by Ocean Grey, while the Sky or Sky/black undersides were changed to Medium Sea Grey.

Medium Sea Grey was also used for the squadron/airframe code letters on the fuselage for the Dark Earth/Dark Green scheme. It wasn't very high contrast and wouldn't be readily visible unless the observer was very close to the airframe (e.g. within 0.5 miles).

Hope this helps...a bit.