The real markings of Pierre Le Gloan's Dewoitine D.520 No.277

[Glenn Sprouse]

Hello all!

I am doing a skin for War Thunder, (and marking the 1/48 Tamiya kit too) for Pierre Le Gloan's D.520 No.277. in GC.III/6. I was going to do three versions of the skin for War Thunder representing Battle of France, early armistice markings, and Vichy markings for Syria in June 1941. He had the same aircraft through all of that.

The problem started to arise with the markings when I took a good look at the photos. This photo, of his aircraft during the early armistice period, shows the issue I found.

There is a color on the nose between the spinner and the "arrow" end of the Vichy stripe. The stripe we know is white, as that was the directive of the Vichy Government for armistice aircraft. The spinner, when compared to the stripe, looks similar. The color between the two is different. Profiles generally don't show this color at all. They just show the normal camouflage. The handful of profiles that show the color have shown it as yellow, blue and natural metal.

Another photo shows a different angle and another aircraft, to the left, that appears to have color on the nose in the same place.

Eventually, the entire tail was painted yellow, but it also appears that the color on the nose was retained.

Profiles for the three periods show the following.

The Battle of France markings are the same in every reference I have. For the other two periods they miss or can't agree on the nose color and they also can't agree on the spinner color although that seems to be split between yellow or white.

My information on French markings during World War II is limited. I wanted to ask if there was anyone out there who could make a better guess at the nose and spinner colors than I could or has direct information about the markings here. I appreciate any help anyone can give me. Thanks!

 

[Wurger]

Here two shots showing the starboard... as you may notice the front of the plane behind the spinner is quite dark and and not that light like for the port side. If there would be another colour both sides were of the same tone. The third image below shows that there wasn't any different paint applied but just one of the grey colours of the camo. IMHO the effect you noticed, is a light trick that could be caused by the shape of the front part of the engine cowling and panel lines running there. Also the effect might have been caused by overheating of the engine cowl and getting darker of panel plates there. Have a look at the two additional images with the "4" and pilots standing next to the plane. Can you see?

the pic source: Dewoitine D.520

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

Hey Wurger! Thanks for the response.

I see what you are saying,. The last photo definitely shows camo all the way to the spinner.

Maybe I should subtly discolor the area in question as a weathering step to represent what is in the photos. It is dark in some photos and light in others. Maybe like a burning from the heat. Not sure how to show that but I'll have to experiment a bit.

Now I need to settle on a Spinner color. White seems to be the accepted in the BoF. Armistice period is unsure but the top two photos you posted show the spinner a different and darker shade than the white armistice stripe. Maybe the yellow seen in the profiles.

Again. Thanks so much. This helps a lot.

Glenn

 

[Wurger]

...Maybe I should subtly discolor the area in question as a weathering step to represent what is in the photos. It is dark in some photos and light in others. Maybe like a burning from the heat. Not sure how to show that but I'll have to experiment a bit.

Now I need to settle on a Spinner color. White seems to be the accepted in the BoF. Armistice period is unsure but the top two photos you posted show the spinner a different and darker shade than the white armistice stripe. Maybe the yellow seen in the profiles.

My pleasure. Glad I could help a little bit.

Regarding the weathering and discolouration of the front area of the fuselage... I would say that the part should stay as it was painted with the camo coat there. It could get a little bit faded but I don't think so. It is more likely that teh effect is because of getting darker of the panels behind the front segment. The overheating , dirt and dust and, for sure, the soot from the exchaust pipes were the reason for. So I think it would be better to make the panel plates behind the front part darker.

As far as the spinner colour is concerned... the three images I posted above indicate the spinner could be of the yellow. But the colour was introduced only when the D.520s were moved to the Algier and Syria. The spinners and the tails were painted yellow just because of that. See the image with the "White 4" . Before that, the Vichy had used the white strip along the fuselage with the white disc for the French roundel during the Armistice period. The white strip soon became the "arrow" but the actual marking was still the white strip there. All the pics of the "6" seem to be taken in 1940 in à Maison-Blanche but the D.520s of the GC III/6 were moved to Syria in May 1941. This may indicate that the spinner was light painted ( usually the D.520s had them of black ) earlier than the unit was moved. However I saw a pic with GC III/7 with spinners painted light but without the Armistice markings and dated on August 1940. If the spinner was of the white during the BoF it could remain of the colour during the Armistice time. It can indicate the third pic of the "6" where you may notice the same white both for the spinner and the Vichy "arrow". The slightly darker tone of the spinner seen in the two first images and also in the shot with her in the hangar, can be caused either by using a filter for taking these pics or poor scanning process. Therefore I made an experiment. I used three colours that could be used for painting of the spinner. The blue and red from the French roundel and the yellow used by Vichy. Then I converted the pic with the "6" flying into the B&W shot. The result you may see below. The yellow shadow in the B&W pic is the closest one to the spinner tone. But I wouldn't be surprised if the spinner would be of the light blue used for the rudder strips. Actually the spinner coat has the same tinge in the orginal images.

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

Hello Wurger,

Thanks so much for all the information. This is really helpful.

The weathering of the panel plates behind the spinner, they way you described, can probably be done with dark pastels on a model. I use chalk pastels and pastel washes for my exterior weathering. A controlled addition of dark pastels can give the area a dark, dusty, sooty look that you mentioned. As for the skins on War Thunder, just adjusting the color saturation and bright/dark of the area should give the same impression.

As for the spinner, the color experiment is an excellent idea and makes great points. I am definitely doing the yellow for the Vichy in Syria and white or yellow (leaning yellow with evidence from your color experiment) for the armistice period in Algiers.

As far as the Battle of France period, I have also noticed that the D.520's have black spinners. However, I haven't seen any photos of Le Gloan's 6 from the BoF time period, but profiles and model/decal companies nearly always show the spinner white in BoF. I wonder if they are extrapolating from existing photos of 6 during the armistice period and later to base their depictions on. You mentioned that the light spinner was introduced when they moved to Algiers and Syria. Le Gloan's GC III/6 was moved to Algiers from 20 June to early July which fits. Also, the photo you mentioned of GC III/7 with light spinners in August 1940 fits this evidence too. GC III/6's earlier BoF MS.406's had black spinners like the other units. All of this makes me lean towards a black spinner during the Battle of France period for Le Gloan's aircraft, with the light spinner appearing from 20 June with the move to Algiers.

Again, thank you so much for the time and effort you have put into helping me with this. I can tell you have done a lot of work. I can not state enough how much this is appreciated.

Glenn

 

[SaparotRob]

My pleasure. Glad I could help a little bit.

Regarding the weathering and discolouration of the front area of the fuselage... I would say that the part should stay as it was painted with the camo coat there. It could get a little bit faded but I don't think so. It is more likely that teh effect is because of getting darker of the panels behind the front segment. The overheating , dirt and dust and, for sure, the soot from the exchaust pipes were the reason for. So I think it would be better to make the panel plates behind the front part darker.

As far as the spinner colour is concerned... the three images I posted above indicate the spinner could be of the yellow. But the colour was introduced only when the D.520s were moved to the Algier and Syria. The spinners and the tails were painted yellow just because of that. See the image with the "White 4" . Before that, the Vichy had used the white strip along the fuselage with the white disc for the French roundel during the Armistice period. The white strip soon became the "arrow" but the actual marking was still the white strip there. All the pics of the "6" seem to be taken in 1940 in à Maison-Blanche but the D.520s of the GC III/6 were moved to Syria in May 1941. This may indicate that the spinner was light painted ( usually the D.520s had them of black ) earlier than the unit was moved. However I saw a pic with GC III/7 with spinners painted light but without the Armistice markings and dated on August 1940. If the spinner was of the white during the BoF it could remain of the colour during the Armistice time. It can indicate the third pic of the "6" where you may notice the same white both for the spinner and the Vichy "arrow". The slightly darker tone of the spinner seen in the two first images and also in the shot with her in the hangar, can be caused either by using a filter for taking these pics or poor scanning process. Therefore I made an experiment. I used three colours that could be used for painting of the spinner. The blue and red from the French roundel and the yellow used by Vichy. Then I converted the pic with the "6" flying into the B&W shot. The result you may see below. The yellow shadow in the B&W pic is the closest one to the spinner tone. But I wouldn't be surprised if the spinner would be of the light blue used for the rudder strips. Actually the spinner coat has the same tinge in the orginal images.

View attachment 624513
View attachment 624514

Wow. You modeler guys don't fool around.

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

LOL!! Thanks SaparotRob.

It's kinda like this...

 

[FalkeEins]

..only an artist's impression but may be of interest - from a two-part feature last year

 

[bobolex]

Hi Glenn, I love that cartoon ! I'm a bit of both extremes, as I do a bit of color correction for film, and some modelling too. Of course, the modeller's palette should be all greys but have the name of colours...
So, as to your question, I'm not sure I agree with Wurger, and I do see something pretty definite on your first set of pictures. I don't think it's just a case of paint peeling off or heat-damage, it would not be so clean and the French did know their materials a little bit (enough for paint not to just peel off completely on an important part of the airplane, especially if you consider how little/short these airplanes were engaged in actual fighting, and how they then got proper maintenance and a (partial) new decoration. So I don't think your impression can be so easily set aside...
I have the Fana de l'Aviation issue that was just posted, it is somewhere, so I will try to dig it up...
Also, there is a very important aspect to know when analyzing Black & White pictures of the period : different negative processes (panchromatic vs orthochromatic) gave quite different greys to the colors. A classic and easy example is to look at the French cocardes on all the pictures here : sometimes the (medium) blue and the red are the same density of grey, sometimes the red is definitely lighter. This is not an effect of lighting, wear, or anything like that, it's simply how different type of B&W film render colors. So based on that, you begin to understand how difficult it is to analyse an unknown color... But perhaps (I'd have to think about it seriously), there may be a way to make a judgment based on differential analysis : if you have pictures of the same plane (or decoration) from both types of film, perhaps you can deduce the color from how it responds to each... The Fana de l'Aviation had an article on this many, many years ago, I will dig it up too.
In the meantime, there is this too (and notice that Le Gloan's arrow ends before it does on the airplane without frontal band here, as if it ended before a color band) :

 

[elbmc1969]

Compare to the photos. Not sure any of them really work, but the light gray nose is clearly the closest.

 

[special ed]

In post 2 the arrow extends to the front of the cowl on #4 and below. The arrow stops on #6 before the band. It may be a different color.

 

[le_steph40]

Hello,

Some others details:
No "Masque de Tragédie" on the tail during BoF.
N°277 is an early serie D.520, so, early air scoop each side of the nose
Antenna mast NMF and "chamois "color probable behind the rear cockpit windows

HTH
Stéph

 

[Wurger]

And also found the pic that seems to be much better than the one posted above ...

the pic source: the Internet.

 

[bobolex]

With all due respect, I still believe the two top pictures show somehting happening with the color of the front of the cowling. It's definite on this panel and not beyond.
Now, one thing to keep in mind is that the front cowling of the D.520 is quite sloped compared to the rest of the nose, so light falls on it differently than the rest of the nose : brighter if the light comes from the front, darker if it's from the back. It's particularly clear in the 3rd picture, on the AC on the left in the hangar, where the light source is the door and the panel is very light. Whether this is all we are seeing is the question here, but I don't think it can be settled with low quality, underexposed pictures.
For instance, I would be ready to bet that the two first images in Wurger's first post were taken at the same time, but the first one only looks darker because it's not reproduced properly. In the Fana #603, that same picture is reproduced cleanly and looks much like the second.
Now it could very well be that Glenn's first picture was also taken that day (in the Fana #604, the caption does not give a location for it), but at any rate, I don't see obviously different colors on the front cowling between Glenn's 1rst picture (port side) and Wurger's 2nd (properly exposed) picture (starboard side). I would say it's the same color all around and it's not just camouflage shades (clear distinction with camouflage on port side).
Obviously, the picture of other III/6 D.520s showing that they had regular camouflage all around that front cowling are not enough to settle the question of Le Gloan's #277's particular decoration... He was recognized as an exceptional pilot and his plane showed it elsewhere (tricolour ace band across the 6, etc.).

The Fana de l'Aviation article on B&W film and color rendition is in issue 144 (November 1981). It begins with the fact that most pictures from the period (at least in France, as other countries may have had different film chemistry) were orthochromatic, rather than panchromatic. While panchromatic films have an even sensibility to the red and blue outer sides of the visible spectrum and render both in similar shades of grey, orthochromatic films are less sensitive to the red side and thus renders it darker than an equivalently dense blue.
Just to ble clear, the relative darkness/lightness of a color is independant of its shade : navy blue vs sky blue are obvious examples. So what is at stake here is litterally how in less-than-perfect 1930's orthochromatic photography, red shades (no matter their darkness) registered as darker than an equivalent blue.
The french cocarde and tail flag colors offer a very easy illustration : in most of the pictures, the blue shade (center of the cocarde, front of the tail flag) is noticeably lighter than the red shade. The real color of that blue is relatively light (much lighter than the British blue and often toodark in decals), but it's not as light as these images show it in contrast to the red. This is especially clear in the picture of D.520 #4 in Wurger's post. The only places where it's not so obvious are the two starboard side images of 277, but that may be because the sun falls directly on the side of the airplane and diminishes the contrast (relative over-exposure).
The same article goes on to discuss other colors : on orthochromatic film, logically, all shades that tend towards the red or the blue will follow the same trends : the reddish brown of French camouflage comes out relatively darker and is quite distinguishable from the medium grey of the green and the light grey of the (bluish) dark grey. In panchromatic film, because the sensibility to colors is more even, the three shades of French camouflage are harder to distinguish, all tending more towards medium greys.
Another layer of compexity arises with colored filters : these were common in B&W photography because they could increse the contrasts of the sky and clouds for example. Because of the light appearance of blue (sky) in orthochromatic film, clouds tend to disappear in the same light grey, so people would use yellow-green filters to inverse the color-balance and bring out the clouds. But as a result, the relative rendition to blue and red are inverted (lighter red in cocardes).
This, of course only adds to the confusion, and the article concludes that one cannot determine colors definitively just from the grey shades of a B&W picture. But at least we now know a bit more of what is happening...

So then, we can look at our pictures again and compare shades of grey within the same picture (same exposure, same overall contrast level, same light direction, same film type,...), and carefully compare it to other pictures, keeping in mind what has changed in these parameters.

Going back to #277, the color profiles given in the Fana 603/604 do give a different shade to that front cowling, agreeing with what Glenn saw. They make it camouflage dark grey, which matches the picture of 277 in flight port side. In the picture from the starboard side, we see a darker shade around the cowling compared to the lighter camouflage grey elsewhere on the aircraft. This could be due to relative shading (the sloped cowling catches less sun) and so the cowling may be indeed camouflage grey (a part from another aircraft ?), as the Fana profile has it (and profiles 3 and 5 in the set above).
Or it could be a color band, but if so, which color ? Cocarde blue as in profile 4 above ? In both port and starboard pictures, the cowling is darker than the tail blue, so I would say no. A darker blue ? possibly...
Red seems wrong, as the cowling is lighter than the red in both pictures.
Yellow ? A possibility only if the propeller spinner is white, since it's definitely lighter. The spinner seems the same shade as the white arrow on the port side picture, but it looks darker on the starboard side one... And since the light falls evenly on both spinner and tail there, it's logical to conclude that the spinner is yellow as many profiles (including the Fana) have it. Or the spinner could also be light grey. In either case, the cowling may well indeed be camouflage medium grey.

So I would say that the Fana profile (and profile 3 and 5 above) make the most sense. But what we would need to go further than logic is historical expertise regarding the color markings of III/6 or, of course, a first-hand account of Le Gloan's plane. I certainly am not an expert on that side of the war, so I will let others speak about that.

 

[bobolex]

As an aside, we know from the pictures of Eleusis (colored one above) and Rajak, that the spinner then was the same yellow as the tail, a color imposed by the Germans to identify the French aircrafts operating on the Middle Eastern front as Axis fighters. But that color is only on the tail and spinner (not the cowling) and does not help for pictures taken beforehand anyways.
Attached are the ones I know of from that period:

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

Thank you all so much for the input, bobolex, FalkeEins, special ed, le_steph40, and Wurger.

I have completed some preliminary skins in War Thunder with the earlier information and will post them to see what everyone thinks.

First, Battle of France period.

I went with the black spinner as I talked about in an earlier post. I have yet to add the color corrections that le_steph40 pointed out, the NMF on the antenna post and color behind the cockpit. Unfortunately I can't change the scoops. This is imbedded into the 3D model used by the game and is unchangeable. Can be frustrating, especially with aircraft I know a lot about and notice design errors that bug me. The biggest one I absolutely hate is the lack of intercooler exit doors on the fuselage sides of the P-47D Thunderbolts in game. But that is a story for another post.

Next, the Armistice Period.

Since there is some uncertainty, I did one with the white spinner and one with the yellow spinner. Nice thing about the skins is that I can color change any time I want. Can't do that when paint and decals are on a model. Also, I have started the darkening and discoloring of the nose area as Wurger described. I have yet to do a grey nose area (or different color) like bobolex suggested, but will try that soon and post it here to show everyone how it looks.

Now, in Syria.

Definitely the most colorful of the bunch. The nose area has had further discoloration to show a progression of weathering over time.

I want to thank everyone again for the photos that were posted. I was able to copy the position and style of the markings as closely as possible thanks to these. The camo pattern may be a little off from the photos as I was using the template from the Game with the colors themselves tweaked a lot to be more accurate.

I will do more changes and post more photos to see how they look to everyone. I will correct the colors on the mast and behind the cockpit as well at try the grey behind the nose. The argument of the arrow ending before the nose suggestion a color there makes sense. I can also try a yellow nose section to see how that looks and post it.

Again, I really appreciate all of the help. Thanks so much!

 

[Wurger]

Looking great! However the nose of the plane seems to be of different layout of the camo spots. As I mentioned it above IMHO it was of the grey colour but not of the chocolate. It might have been some of the green either at the top of the cowling and sides but the front section was of the grey paint. Therefore the section seems to be of the lighter tone while behind it the engine cowling seems to be dark.

I would say it was like that....

or similar to that ...

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

Thanks so much Wurger. I'm actually working on the grey for the nose now. Doing the NMF mast too.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Glenn Sprouse]

Hello,

Some others details:
No "Masque de Tragédie" on the tail during BoF.
N°277 is an early serie D.520, so, early air scoop each side of the nose
Antenna mast NMF and "chamois "color probable behind the rear cockpit windows

HTH
Stéph

As a general question about the interior. Was the whole interior chamois or just the area behind the cockpit? I'm getting some mixed information between chamois and Blue Nuit for the cockpit itself. Also, no Masque on the tail? I know this was on Le Gloan's MS.406 but on the fuselage. Was it present anywhere on his D.520 during BoF?

Also, the Gray on the nose and the NMF mast are finished. The chamois on the area under rear cockpit windows nest. Please talk a look everyone and let me know how it looks.

Thanks for all of your help everyone.