Here we go again. I’m building an A6M Zero, the early version. (1941) and have figured out the exterior should be IJN dark grey (I think) Anyway, now the tough part; what was the interior color? I’m sure there’s some Zero experts out there that can steer me in the right direction. Also, is it true the props were natural metal on front and black on the rear? Thanks!
If you want a Pearl Harbor version you wouldn’t want anything looking like dark grey. Zeros early in the war sported a kind of light greenish grey. Tamiya makes a color called JN Navy Grey XF12 which is by no means dark and appears to have just a tad of green. A new color is XF-76 called IJN Grey-Green. I’d guess that’s their early war zero color. Gunze has a Mr. Color called (I’m almost sure) Mitsubishi Grey and it’s got a lot of green in it. Tamiya makes a load of greys (grays) and many of them are intended to duplicate ship colors. If you really want to get to brass tacks check out XF-75 Kure Arsenal IJN Grey. But many of those are for ships and not planes. Another new color is XF-71 cockpit green. I’m sure you can find lots of interior greens around, but it’s very easy one to mix. Just take some yellow - a very small amount, and start putting green into it with an eye-dropper. You’ll come up with something unpleasant pretty quick. Or you can die with your boots on: put some yellow in a cup and start very slowly adding blue. When you’ve got a nice green put it aside: take a small amount and add more yellow for yuck green. Add a little more blue or even black to darken it or a little extra white or yellow to lighten it. Lot of fun.
Might add that Japanese aircraft had dark cowls but they were about a 50% blend of blue and black.
For Japanese aircraft junkies there are two books out there. An interesting volume is by my old friend James Gallagher : “Meatballs and Deadbirds: A Photogallery of Destroyed Japanese Aircraft in World War II.” This book (about $10 used) is a fascinating photo collection of wrecked and abandoned Japanese aircraft as they existed in the weeks right after the war - mostly at Atsughi air base near Tokyo. The text is witty and very interesting. Modelers delight. In the “Must have” category is Rene Francillion “Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War.” This book, published in 1987 by Naval Institute remains in print and is a model for this kind of book. It’s loaded with charts, graphs and photos. It also has a 30 page chapter on Japanese paint schemes, including representative examples of all types. And, to make it sweet, the book includes color samples on the inside of the cover. True, it’s $65 or so new, but it’s also nearly 600 pages long. When I was writing I stole like bandit from Francillion.
Eric
Not an expert on the Zero by any means, but I believe most Japanese aircraft used an interior color known as aotake.
Gregg Cooper’s Gekko build article over on Hyperscale goes into this (and many other fascinating things) at great length. Highly recommend checking it out.
I’m no expert either, but a) I agree about XF-12, or Floquil “old concrete”. Sometimes this color is called Ame Iro (amber), which is not accurate I believe; otherwise given as IJN color J3 or FS 36251 : and b) the interiors of Japanese aircraft vary as much as those of US did. Every factory and every manuf. used something of their own concoction, availability and changed. The IJA/ IJN experts I read usually warn away from anything too blue, more like a clear lacquer over aluminum with just a hint of pigment.
I quit trying to figure it out after my second trip to the looney bin. I studied for months, before starting on either of mine and near as I can tell, or at least what I settled on right OR wrong is EBergerud’s use of his mentioned Tamiya XF-76 for the exterior
and XF-71 cockpit green inside
DoogsATX mentions aotake which I have read with interest some discussions on how this was actually applied to the real Mitsubishi built Zero, and it was pretty much decided that through pieces of wrecked zeros that were found, aotake was indeed a blue-greenish tinted clear varnish over bare metal. Tamiya makes a recommendation for Tamiya X-13 Metallic blue in places where aotake is called for.
You can see it if you look carefullt at the inside of the landing gear doors on my as of yet unweathered attempt: In actuality, the paint straight from the jar has an “aqua” tint to it, and not a true blue.
Another lively discussion I read in on was the one about Ame Iro that bondman mentioned. The general concensus was again from recovered pieces of actual zeros, this is an amberish varnish sometimes applied hurriedly as an anti-corrosive protectant due to paint shortages. This made some of the IJN planes of all types look —I dont remember how they put it— kinda like— uh…
Anyways it made the Greenish-Grey look brownish grey.
That’s my un-educated opinion[2cnts], perhaps no one will ever know for sure, but I’m happy with the way mine turned out. (My wife is gonna have a cow when I weather it, she likes it the way it is) But I’ll keep it light since the IJN planes were in great condition when sailing for Pearl.
I’m rather partial to the way that Testor’s Model Master Camouflage Grey (FS 36622) looks on early Zekes and other IJN birds… Interiors, I paint with MM Green ZC lighten with a bit of white and with a wash of metalic blue…
Eric, I looked for a new copy of Francillion’s book. Take a deep breath: new copies go for over $130!
Jim
I gave Francillion’s book a google and found several copies available for lesser amounts: used as low as $38. (You’d want a guarantee that it has the book jacket because that’s where the paint chips are.) Try www.alibris.com for a starter. This was book was a Naval Institute classic which is probably why it’s out of print. (NIP has the distinction of turning down Tom Clancy’s second novel - their profits from Red October weren’t enough to get them to take a risk. I’ve dealt with a lot of publishers throughout the years and am very glad I’ve never worked with NI - they seem to gain little love from their authors. I used Francillion’s book for professional purposes, never thinking of it as an aid to modeling. There is simply nothing like it in the field. An equally good book (no colors sadly) on US fighters that is still in print is America’s Hundred Thousand by Francis Dean. It’s $40 on Amazon but bigger than the Manhatten phone book. Diagrams are encyclopedic and it has the best overall listing and explation of performance figures I know of. Dean’s a wonderful guy and an ex-Boeing engineer. This book and another more technical volume edited by Dean were indespensible for my last project “Fire in the Sky: Air Warfare in the South Pacific.” Rivet counters need this book and it’s a steal considering its size - 600 plus pages of oversize paper with a million or so photos.
The Osprey “Modelling the Mitsubishi A6M Zero” goes into colors with some detail. I’m not sure whether I like his results: strikes me that there’s too much green, but color reproduction is always iffy. The author Robert Oehler recommends for acrylics Floquil’s “old concrete.” White ensign has Misubish Grey-Green ACJ16 but the author prefers a mix of Model Master flat white, Sac Bomber Tan and Zinch Chromate. I’m not sure whether the Tamiya or Gunze colors I referenced earlier were available when this book was published in 2006. Japanese aircraft fans might want to check this one out. To me it fits into the category of “watch me build kits and learn” and spends a lot of time on resin, scratch build and other stuff. (The highlight build is a “scalloped” metalizer version of a captured Zero. It’s heroic model building no doubt. I personally don’t think even museum planes with a metal finish has the gleam of a hot rod, but I don’t write for Osprey. I actually had what I thought was very good luck using Floquil aluminum as the base color for an Oscar: course there was a lot of green mottling on top.) That said, there are color samples for the Zero which were pretty much the same for all IJN aircraft. Might be worth a look for fans of the Empire’s lovely planes. Never could figure out why the bad guys made such beautiful planes. The Zero is absolute tops in my book and I can’t think of an ugly German plane off-hand. Kind of like Star Wars: the Emperor’s stuff was spiffy. Lucky for us big and burly worked pretty good in real live fighting.
Eric
Eric
Funny you should mention that… While reading Mark Hanna’s article,“Flying the Bf 109”, in Airpower, he mentioned that, “After I got the wheels up and continued my climb-out at about 180 kmph, looking out over the wings and seeing those big, black crosses there made me feel instantly aggressive…”
The Bf 109, IMHO, reminds me of a shark making those bold, fast, slashing attacks, whereas the Zeke looks more like a “Wind Dancer”, if that make any sense… Conjurred up in my mind’s eye, the Zeke does slow rolls and sweeping S-turns, while the 109 is a fire-spitting blur of grey/green with black crosses and that “sinister” swastika…
I was never a big fan of Jap aircraft, except for the Zeke and Jack (I built those two 1/32 Revell birds back in like 1970 or so) and, other than the Monogram Zeke, that was about it for the Empire’s aircraft in my collection. Recently though, I started expanding that with the Fujimi and Arii kits… Got a couple (Arii) Tonys, another dash 2 Tamiya Zeke, two (Fujimi) Vals and a Jill (vacuform) in the stash… Gonna wait for Tamiya’s Betty to hit the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby though… 70.00 is way too much, and the 40% coupon still doesn’t take it down far enough for my cheap azz…
Agree about them Imperial birds lookin’ “spiffy”… I like the black uniforms (which Lucas wanted for that reason)… If you notice, the primary colors used by the Empire were Red, White, and Black… That wasn’t coincidence, and neither was the term “Stormtrooper”, lol… Maybe since the “First Galactic Empire” being the “bad guys” applies to WW2 Japan, the Third Reich and Star Wars you make that connection?
The Axis had some great aircraft, but I wouldn’t discount the allies. Yeah the Wildcat looks like a sausage with wings, but I’d put the P-51, P-38, Corsair, Spitfire and Mosquito in the beautiful category. The P-47, too, but in more of a pig-ugly beauty versus agile grace.
Until the advent of the F7F Tigercat, Grumman birds, asthetically-speaking anyway, were pure brute-force and functionality, IMHO… The Corsair always intrigued me and looked fast even when cruising, but when building it, it always seemed to look better with everything “Down & Dirty”… You know, flaps & gear down, Cowl flaps wide-open, canopy back… Dunno why, just does…
Dad flew P-38s when he first got to England, but when his group transistioned to P-51s, and believe it or not, he preferred the Lightning to the Mustang… Mostly because of the second-engine, I’d reckon…
But one can only imagine the feelings of some, like the 4th FG pilots the day they got introduced to P-47s after being in Spitfires, lol… Nothing like trading a thoroughbred for a big ol’ plow-horse, lol…
Also, the area of the fuselage under the canopy is the same black as the cowl color, both under the windshield and the rear canopy. The props were natural metal front and black rear faces on the Zeros early in the war.
As far as aotake, you won’t find it in the cockpit, but in the fuselage immediately behind the seat bulkhead and the gear wells and inside the gear doors. I have had good luck with painting these silver enamel, then overspraying with a home brew. I use Testor’s Jade Green Metallic and Sapphire Metallic. Let the sparklies settle to the bottom, and draw off some of the tinted clear carrier and mix the two colors together. I do it randomly, and come up with a different shade every time. Airbrush multiple light coats and it looks pretty good!
Taste is not easily explained. My wife can’t stand mustard - never could get that. In a sense all aircraft have a kind of beauty because the necessity of getting them off the ground requires certain characteristics like streamlining. Generally warplanes are prettier than other aircraft because they’re built for performance over utility (of course their utility was found in high performance but that only makes sense if you’re going to shoot someone down.) Ditto with warships. Same reason that most people would find a yacht more pleasing to the eye than a pontoon boat.
What draws my eye is the proportion and clean lines. Here’s where the Zero simply rests in its own league. The relationship of the long sweep of the fuselage/tail and the wing is perfect. (The Zero design team knew this and it made the aircraft a challenge to build.) Why the German planes - I’d rank the FW190 as high as the 109, or, for that matter the ME262) - were so clean isn’t clear to me. The LW did favor planes with high wing loading and small dimensions - that’s a combination that would punish anything inhibiting airflow. (I’ve seen the Smithsonian’s 109 and FW190 and one wonders where the LW got all those midgets to fly the things - been told however that the 109 isn’t as bad as it looks. That’s one reason why Euro planes had poor range - the things are small and there’s no place to fit big fuel tanks.) Even some of the late model Italian planes are very clean.
I don’t see the exceptional beauty in either the 51 or Spit. The Mustang’s airframe was a technical jewel, but that big air scoop sitting right under that pointed nose makes the thing look like a guppy. The Spitfire’s huge elliptical wings just don’t look right to me - a little like a big diamond wrecking a lovely ring. The P-38 is really an acquired taste. Look at it - it’s basically two planes glued together. It was a much better fighter than the ME110 but the Germans knew where to put the engines relative to the cockpit. One of the many names US pilots gave the Corsair was “hose nose” and it fits. Vought wasn’t the only company that decided to jam the biggest possible engine into the smallest possible airframe but nobody else was trying to jam a PW R-2800 into a coin purse. The result was the huge nose, huge prop and those gull wings: no wonder the USN gave it an initial thumbs down for carrier use. Anyone who likes the other US fighters probably thinks tanks are beautiful or George Foreman is the ideal male form. Americans approached weapons like they did Ford Model Ts or As. Make sure it works and screw anything else. The result was planes that were very fast, or very rugged (or in the case of the P47 both) and could dive like a brick. And bristling with MGs. And, in their time and place, after 1943 the best US aircraft were the best in the business. (Some unenlightened folks would plug for fighters like the Dora or the late model Spits, but when you realize that WWII air combat was not a joust, and that aircraft had to get to their target, the P-51 puts any Euro-plane to shame. Range didn’t bother the LW of course because they had a “target rich environment” inbound every day the weather was clear. But when those LW fighters found escorted US bombers they’d usually be looking up at brutally fast escorts. No wonder it was almost a death sentence to fly fighters for Marshall Goering.) I talked with Francis Dean about this and both of us agreed that the US aircraft that had wonderful lines were the early B-17s and the C-47.
I write military history for a living and have interviewed a couple hundred WWII pilots. It is remarkable how loyal pilots are (or increasingly were) to their old steeds. That said the planes that had utterly fanatic fans were the Mustangs and Jugs. 8th AF allowed the famous “Wolf-Pack” to keep their P-47s long after everyone else transitioned to 51s. Zemke’s guys were used to them. Some Jug jockeys referred to the 51 as the “Spam Can.” 51 pilots never seemed to see the need to defend their plane - it’s superiority was simply self-evident. (I once interviewed a 51 ace who started flying Spit Vs over North Africa. He said any pilot had to love the Spitfire as an aircraft because it was a gas to fly. But he reminded me that staying alive was more fun than flying and he embraced the much faster and “dive like a brick” P-51 immediately. A lot of pilots gave ruggedness and reliability the edge over performance - hence the many Grumman fans. Americans have always approached war like a business.)
The 38 was a case of its own. (So was the P39 - the one steed that rarely failed to disappoint.) 5th AF workmen loved the 38 for its range - a big deal in the Pacific where targets could be distant and getting lost was very easy and very dangerous. Robert DeHaven, who was, I think, our only double ace in a P-40, claimed the 38s range trumped everything but if in a dogfight he preferred his P-40. Understandable actually because in 1943 traditional “dog fights” were more common in the PTO than in Europe where “boom and zoom” almost always ruled the roost. But the 38 had very prolonged teething troubles. It was thought to be cold (the pilot wasn’t sitting on top of the engine), was very vulnerable to compressibility and it’s complexity made it a headache for ground crew. (That’s one reason that the USAAF decided to retire all P-38s in fighter units immediately upon war’s end.) The second engine saved many a life, but it also cost many too. As DeHaven noted, if Kelly Johnson wanted the P38 to fly with one engine he wouldn’t have given it two. Two engines and huge size made the thing an “iffy” ground attack plane, its principal role in the ETO. But it had its fans though even in Europe. The late model 38s were more reliable, had better roll, were very fast and could dive okay. So if a pilot really knew his business there were actually some real compensations - excellent gun platform, no torque and quirky but potentially brilliant performance at low altitude. But the 38 never matched its stable mates when you jammed the stick forward and opened the throttle. (If one wants to know why US fighters were so different than Euro breeds there are two fascinating sources. MG Benjamin Kelsey, the head of USAAF fighter development, wrote a wartime memoir for the Smithsonian Press called “The Dragon’s Teeth?: The Development of US Air Power in World War II.” Just as good and in print is Francis Dean (editor) “Report of the Joint Fighter Conference, NAS Patuxent River, MD, 16-23 October, 1944.” The second book includes the findings of a week-long conference and comparative “shoot-out” that included every major US fighter (including the Bear Cat and Tiger Cat) of the war (and a Zero and Spit V for fun) and the analysis of 200 of America’s top aviation engineers and military test pilots. Read it and you’ll get an insider’s view of weapon production, characteristics both good and bad, and “lessons learned” that would guide the new USAF in the postwar world. Fascinating stuff for aircraft geeks.)
Might add that the Brits always accused the US of over-building its planes, harming climb and maneuverability. The result was that the P51 and P47 were both given a “Euro” work-over that trimmed weight. The resulting models were extremely fast and boasted superior performance. They also sacrificed range and structural strength. As we transitioned to jets before Korea the Euro models were dumped in favor of the proven US style tough and long range models already existing. Thus clouds of P51s and Corsairs in Korea.
Eric