There I was, at O’ dark-thirty in the AM hours staring crosseyed over a gone-warm beer & a cigarette at a 1943 B&W photo of a once-upon-time state of the art fighter aircraft. Researching that color scheme. Wife came out o’ the bedroom, & said… " I wonder what that mechanic would think ; if he knew that 60 years after he slapped whatever paint he could find on that repaired wingtip, some bonehead would be wracking his brain trying to figure out the exact color to reproduce in 1/48th scale." Now that’s a thought ain’t it? Kinda puts it in perspective from the Vets point of view. In their world/time they had no concept of us. They just had a mission to do. Our small efforts at historical reproduction are quite pale in comparison to some slapped paint on a wingtip a long time ago.
Your wife is quite correct.
Most often the poor enlisted guy is told to get it done, not how, why , or with what. Sadly the modern era is less forgiving and much more micro managed. But once upon a time if the job was done and it didn’t cause more damage you were given a pat on the back.
Once, as part of a crew, we were told to paint that tail assembly. . .so we used the only means available on the back of a cutter in the Bering Sea, rattle cans.
Okay, to make a point we used several shades of paint and it looked great! Like a WWII formation aircraft. Were the pilots happy? Not really, especially the one who damaged the tail in the first place. But it was done.
And to think some IPMS wienie will tell me that it is not correct only makes me laugh, though I doubt someone will stay up late trying to figure out why 60 years from now, I can almost hear the guys wife telling him to go to bed and quit worring about “stupid” things.
Don
Revi,
You’ve got a point…it’s all well and good for instructions to come from “the top” to paint or make changes to cammo patterns…but what happens in the field is another world alltogether.
I guess your wife’s comments stem from our own stupid case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’ve got it…bad. And so does every modeller I know…
That’s exactly why I find it so hard to remain calm at shows or contests when people are telling me my German Dunkelgelb is not the right shade!
Back in the late 70’s or early 80’s Air Classics magazine published an interview with the German ace Erich Hartmann. During the course of the interview, a question came up on the markings his Bf 109 G6 carried during a certain period of time. Hartmann made a free hand sketch which they published and a full color three view based upon that sketch was also published.
Over the next couple of months, the magazine received quite a number of letters stating that “the markings were the wrong color” or “That aircraft never carried markings like that because so and so or such and such has said so”. My thought at the time was who am I going to believe - the guy who operated the equipment or some guy who has never seen the real aircraft and is basing his opinion on some 30 or 40 year old grainy black and white photos?
I always figured no one could tell you exactly how any particular aircraft looked on any given day, especially not in an operational combat unit.
I recently read about Greek mechanics, during the battle for Greece, taking two damaged airframes and putting the good bits together overnight, to produce a serviceable aircraft by morning. I bet they didn’t worry too much about making sure the camo patterns matched, and that the FS numbers were the same![:D]
Model and be dammned.
Karl
Ain’t it just the truth. For years and years I simply could not stand the idea of the paint job to be anything but just right. Well now, what exactly is just right? After all that grief I finally realized that “just right” is this: I like it…so it’s just right.
That’s why I snatch up every scrap of old paper, magazines, photos, anything from the period, because even in black and white, you can tell a lot. And there’s nothing, as any hisorian will tell you, that trumps contemprary, first-hand sources. So next time you pass a stack of old National Geographics at a yard sale, check what articles they contain. The best and cheapest references I have on many builds, and certainly the most accurate, are from those old magazines, especially WW II and the 1950s, a decade when the film was all color, and the jets were considered exotic enough to rate an article in several issues a year. I know I say this same thing a lot, but I can’t over emphsize it. Especially when the cheapest new reference book for color is no less than $15 for 48 pages and maybe 10 color profiles of doubtful authenticity.
Tom
this is something I have come to believe in the past few years. After seeing many period photos on the net of aircraft being done in anything BUT the colors the reference for the time period says it should be, I just do it like I like it. (Within guidlines, lime green and flamingo pink camo is out [;)])
And if the shade is close enough I go with it… so many things like differences in batches of paint, sunlight fading the paint, weathering of where the plane was stationed etc all played a role, so who knows if that RLM ## paint didn’t fade three shades lighter etc…
When my dad was in the Marine corps sometimes I would go in to work on a weekend with him and I remember the vehicles being every shade of olive drab imaginable… from weathering, to who knows what, there were no two exactly the same shade… So I don’t mind taking a little license with my craft…
Speaking of National Geographic, I use it as a reference too. Many years ago, I inherited all the issues from 1922 up to 1949, with a few from the early 50’s in there too. It’s a great source of information. Just the advertising photos alone are probably worth aquiring a few copies.
And I’ll bet nobody will ever recreate the red lead peace sign we painted on the port side of the island on the USS Ranger during a Yankee Station deployment either. It was there so it would be correct to depict it on a model of the ship if one so desired. Just because a reference photo doesn’t exist doesn’t make “not so”. I remember some guys on the flight deck taking pictures of it but don’t have any myself, I wish I did.
Field repairs were very common during combat operations in all theaters and have lead to many arguments among researchers, historians & modelers. One example is the debate over hard or soft demarcation lines on some WW2 AC with disruptive camo patterns. Even though the patterns were documented as being hard edge, as applied in the factory, it’s pretty easy to find photographic evidence of soft edge, almost certainly due to field repair. I try to work from photos whenever possible, but often have to settle for just my best guess. I kinda disagree with the idea that “anything goes” however, as IMHO research is an integral part of scale modeling.
Regards, Rick
Whenever I asked my Dad about a specific color or detail about the planes he flew, I’d get “Aw hell, I don’t know! I had other things on my mind! Like not dying!”
Judges at contests will hack you for a crooked line on an invasion stripe. But remember, half those were slapped on by hand with a 4-inch brush and no guidelines, the day before the invasion. look at closeup photos of the planes - the stripes looked like hell on D Day. Afterward, there was time to apply them properly.
I found this photo of mechanics paiting tail stripes on P-47s from my Dad’s unit - the stripes you can get perfect decals for, or that I carefully mask whenever I paint them:
Spray gun and a hunk of cardboard, while trying not to fall off the airplane
This is sort of like the B-17G “Miss Mischeif.” She was actually 2 planes put together, and they didn’t bother to repaint either one. The front half is bare metal, and the tail assembly is OD. That’s definitely on my list of future-builds.
What cracks me up is people who aren’t even old enough to remember that there was a WWII or (Korean War for that matter) who complain about colors and “authenticity”, when some of us know people who were there. sigh
“Ahh, youth.”
…is wasted on the young…[:D]
Roger that! [:D]
very humorous point Revi!!LOL [tup] guess i’m a bonefied bonehead too. later.
That’s why we have things like the Young Guns Build… haha
QUOTE: Originally posted by KJ200
Model and be dammned.
Karl
[#ditto]