Japanese Camouflage late-war

[Keith1967]

In a number of USN combat reports the American pilots describe the Japanese aircraft as being coloured brown or mottled brown/green. An overwhelming number of the colour profiles I have seen in books and on the net show the Japanese aeroplanes as green or green/silver metal. Which is correct. Did the green bleach to brown under sunlight, or was the effect of direct sunlight on green to make it look brown? There are a number of profiles showing brown but these are nowhere near frequent enough to substantiate a brown camouflage

regards

Keith

 

[TheAircraftBuilder]

In a number of USN combat reports the American pilots describe the Japanese aircraft as being coloured brown or mottled brown/green. An overwhelming number of the colour profiles I have seen in books and on the net show the Japanese aeroplanes as green or green/silver metal. Which is correct. Did the green bleach to brown under sunlight, or was the effect of direct sunlight on green to make it look brown? There are a number of profiles showing brown but these are nowhere near frequent enough to substantiate a brown camouflage

regards

Keith

Bear in mind that there were two main 'Air Forces' used by Japan in WW2 - Navy (IJN) and Army (IJA). They often used different colour sets and I believe that IJA aircraft used brown as one of their camouflage colours (either as a single block colour as per below) or possibly patches depending on local conditions. Particularly later in the war I think standardisation of markings was of a low priority combined with shortages of materials - a squadron on some island chain in the middle of nowhere would likely use what they had.

This chap has an almost unhealthy level of research available on WW2 Japanese aircraft colours - well worth a trawl through the site. Aviation of Japan 日本の航空史

Japanese aircraft are also probably the least well-referenced in terms of photographic evidence - Soviet stuff of similar vintage being similarly vague. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence seems to be a good rule of thumb in these cases....

 

[Shinpachi]

This is spectrum list for the IJA Aircraft Paint Standard in case of no color sample.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Shinpachi]

Original RGB value in the list shows the brightness ratio against white color measured by the Ives colorimeter.
Compensation for the digital RGB (0-255) will be x255/100 (x2.55)

 

[Keith1967]

Bear in mind that there were two main 'Air Forces' used by Japan in WW2 - Navy (IJN) and Army (IJA). They often used different colour sets and I believe that IJA aircraft used brown as one of their camouflage colours (either as a single block colour as per below) or possibly patches depending on local conditions. Particularly later in the war I think standardisation of markings was of a low priority combined with shortages of materials - a squadron on some island chain in the middle of nowhere would likely use what they had.
View attachment 650714
View attachment 650715

This chap has an almost unhealthy level of research available on WW2 Japanese aircraft colours - well worth a trawl through the site. Aviation of Japan 日本の航空史

Japanese aircraft are also probably the least well-referenced in terms of photographic evidence - Soviet stuff of similar vintage being similarly vague. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence seems to be a good rule of thumb in these cases....

Many thanks. It has been suggested that the olive green used on Japanese aircraft might be the solution and looking again this seems a definite possibility. The site you refererence is excellent.

regards

Keith