I have tryed to find more images of the Spit with this yellow ring around the roundel and I have to agree with you on this that the black is hard to pick up in the artist profiles. so I salute my hat to you. and I have made a change on my org image so to keep with the history of the markings of the Spitfire. you got to keep me honest on this as Im no expert. So I thank you! but I do have a question about the yellow ring, seems its only on warbirds in defence of Great britain. is this true? was it added during the war as I dont see it post WW2. thanks again Wolf
Hallo GW,
As you know RAF camo patterns and markings were determinated by strict rules.This topic is enough huge to write a book on that.But I can do it in a short way.
The first period to December 1939- A type of roundels on fuselage,no yellow ring around the roundel,no fin flash,no roundels on undersides its camo patterns were Day-Night (left half of undersides was painted black and the right one white the borderline was the main axis of plane looking from under), Day-Night-Aluminium - like previous camo but the wings were Black-White painted only,the rest of fuselage undersides was paintad with silver colour.
the second period from December 1939 to May 1940 - A type roundels on fuselage (and undersides - Units in France only),no yellow outline around the marks,fin flash on fins,
On 1st of May 1940 introduced the A1 roundel type on fuselages. It was A type one with yellow ring.The marks were paited on fuselages with fin flash on fins.
On 15th of May 1940 The A type roundel was introduced on undersides.Because wings in that time were painted with Day-Night camo pattern, the A roundel on left half of wings got the yellow ring and looked like A1 roundel but the difference was the yellow ring which was thinner than the A1 standard outline.These markings were used up to 6.06.1940 when the new camo pattern for undersides was introduced.
6.06.1940 - 1.08.1940 without the undersides roundels ,then once again ordered to paint the A type roundels without the yellow ring on undersides.Besides it was introduced a new width of fin flash stripes.
On 27th of November 1940 once again the black left underside of wings was introduced and the A type roundel again got the yellow thin ring.
On 15th of April 1941 ordered to paint undersides with roundels A type like the order from 1.08.1940 said.
On 15th of May 1942 new markings were ordered.These were C and C1(with yellow ring) and fin flash - a square 24"x24" or 24"x18" or 24"x36" and B type roundels on upper sides of wings.These all markings had the white colour reduced in order to make aiming harder.
The next a small correction introduced to roundels was the order from 3th of January 1945 when the B type roundel on upper surfaces of wings was replaced by C type.This order was issued for the all aircraft of the Second TAF in Europe.And these markings were used in postwar period but when there were introduced changes I cannot to tell you because I don't know simply.
I hope I've answered to your questions mostly.There I uploaded examples of markings used with Spits.All the pic come from SAM publications Modellers Datafile no.3