Hey guys! I was rooting around over on the Naval Historical Center's website and I found some more info regarding
Ranger's air group.
I found a neat little section entitled "Location of USN Aircraft in WWII 1942-Sep 1945" which is full of PDFs giving you a ridiculously detailed and concise breakdown of EVERY carrier, carrier air wing, cruiser, land base, etc... including aircraft model and squadron assignments.
I found several for October of 1943. Here's one dated 10/5/43
http://www.history.navy.mil/a-record/ww-ii/loc-ac/1943/oct43/26-10-43.pdf
Scroll to page 7 for the start of the Atlantic section and you'll see that
Ranger's Air Group 4 consisted of the following:
VF-4 F4F-4 Wildcats (22)
VB-4 SBD-5 Dauntlesses (30)
VT-4 TBF-1 Avengers (9)
It also lists one more TBF-1 as being aboard but not assigned to VT-4 or any other squadron for that matter; typo? VT-4 didn't get -1Cs until they returned stateside and transferred to CV-9 later on that year.
So then, from looking at these documents and the photos from
Action on the USS Ranger - Air Group 4 my revised aircraft group will now have the following markings:
VF-4 F4F-4s - Tri-Color with large tail and small cowling aircraft numbers and red surround Stars and Bars
VB-4 SBD-5s - Tri-Color with large tail and small cowling aircraft numbers and red surround Stars and Bars
VT-4 TBF-1s - Blue-Gray over Light Gray with fuselage aircraft numbers (?) and the original large Star on Circle.
You'll notice 2 photos of F4Fs taken in October of 1943. One is in tri-color and red surround Stars and Bars and the other is still in Blue-Gray over Light Gray and the original large Star on Circle. Looks like there is some leeway in the camo schemes during that particular deployment.
I'm still unsure of whether or not VT-4 even carrier aircraft numbers though. I know in late 1942 they had small "4-T-x" codes forward of the fuselage national insignia. I'm looking through photos taken on board
Ranger during late 1943 and the few close ups of the TBFs I can find don't show ANY numbers at all on the aircraft. Just the standard "large" star in circle national insignia in the standard 4 positions.
Side note, I did find one photo of one of VB-4s SBDs that proved interesting. The aircraft is in tri-color but the upper right wing shows evidence of a star and bar having been over-sprayed with a darker color. I'm not sure if the Sea Blue on the wing had simply faded and the national insignia had been painted over later on with fresh paint or if a different color had been used IE, Insignia Blue which is darker then Sea Blue.
So the search continues for the last few little details! Thanks for the help and feel free to add more photos/info if you find any.
-Mike