Has the KI-44 Tojo ever been painted in 'traditional' IJAA colors schemes?

[msxyz]

I bought a 1/32 Hasegawa kit of the Nakajima Ki-44.

I'm not interested in building a small scale replica of any particular aircraft serving with a specific unit during the war but, rather, to build an aircraft fresh out of the factory.

In all the drawings I've seen of this aircraft, the Ki-44 was either in natural finish with bright red bands painted along the fuselage or adopting an odd grey / forest green camo. I was wondering if, at least early in the war, this aircraft was painted with the standard 'army green' / grey finish or it always adopted a different color scheme.

 

[Wurger]

I think there were Tojos painted with the IJAA clolours. But these paints quite easy peeled off. Have a look at these few pictures..

Also check the links...

1/48 Arii Ki-44 Tojo by Jorge Bonilla Alvarado

KI 44 Tojo Hasegawa 1/32

 

[msxyz]

Thank you.

I must admit that the Ki-44 painted in solid green over gray doesn't look as good as with a natural aluminum finish.

I also like the pain scheme used by ajcmac even if I always thought that the chocolate brown was used exclusively on bombers and 'Dinah'

 

[Wurger]

The tonality of the colours used by IJAA depended on a manufacturer. Therefore one paint could be of two or more tints.

You can follow this...

Aviation of Japan

or just this .. for instance

 

[msxyz]

Looking for more sources, I found this old color photo taken at Clark Air Field after the war.

Even if a bit discolored and with altered hues, it's possible to recognize to at least two different camo schemes.

The plane right behind the person posing for the photo is a Ki-45 and it's painted in solid brown

The second plane is a Ki-44 and it's also painted in solid brown.

Then, another Ki-45 in medium green over light gray.

Many of these paint schemes were surely improvised on the field, but I wonder if, after a certain point in the war, airplane factories were still bothering to paint the aircrafts or simply supplied them with a basic coat of primer and left the job to the support crews of the individual units.

 

[Wurger]

To be honest I don't consider the picture as a good reference. If you make a focus on the Hinomaru markings you will notice the lack of the red colour in there. In my opinion if the image is an origin colourful one it means that the negative had a problem with the red hue. Unfortunately a brown colour is a kind of mixture of black and red paints. If one of its components can't be showed correctly the rest of tints of the paint can't be too.

 

[msxyz]

I agree that hues are probably way off due to deterioration; the green color of the trees in the back became too yellowish and probably the brown color was closer to a dark tan than to a chocolate brown.

But I think the aircrafts red hinomaru have been covered by a very crude paint job (look at the white stripes surrounding the red cicle: you'll see some gray paint over them, too.) . I've seen other post war photos of Japanese aircrafts with their nationality markings covered in such way; why they did this to their prizes of war is beyond me. It's not that anyone would go strafing the airfield mistaking it for an enemy controlled territory.

 

[Wayne Little]

both aircraft are not Brown, but Green, most likely "JAAF # 7 Ohryoku nana go shoku 黄緑七号色 - yellow green no.7 colour" as referred to by Nick Millman, it is a strong Olive green to Olive brown colour.

 

[Wurger]

Yep I agree with Wayne Little's post above.