Yeah, thanks for your reply to my earlier post Erich, gloss black paint on a Nightfighter has gotta be the worse choice, might as well left it unpainted...
I really applaud the Luftwaffe's choices of night camoflage, they obviously went to a lot of trouble to research what was effective, even through to painting the tail fin on some Ju-88G's to appear as if they were the earlier 'A' series...
IMHO, the US would have made a better choice if they had used the F7F Tigercat as a Nightfighter. This to me was an aircraft that would've been a complimentary NF to the Mosquito in the ETO, they did indeed convert 66 to F7F-2N's between Oct. 1944 and Aug. 1945, but they were assigned to VMF[N]-533 formed at Eagle Mountain Lake, Texas. This unit reached Okinawa on 14th Aug. 1945, the day before the surrender !....
If only they had sent more over in 1943 than the one the RAF RN tested at Farnborough back then, but the US seemed to dawdle alot with their new designs, and anything that needed extra developments usually got sent on to the Navy, then the Marines....valuable time was lost, considering the Tigercat's first flight trials occurred back in April 1940. One can only assume they didn't see it's terrific potential in Europe, ''if it's got wings n' wheels, it should go on a Carrier''...The P-61 was a better choice for the PTO, as it had great ground-attack and bombing potentials as well, but the F7F-2N should have gone to the ETO where it's contribution to lowering the Night Bombers attrition-rate would have been greatly appreciated........