God bless Google[t$t]
The closest 61 in this shot looks like it is OD/NG, while the other two certainly look black…
It will de a Dakota, as the Bondo collection already has a Skytrain. Same old 1/72 Italeri kit though. I like your idea about the camo USAAF scheme very much. And I’m ignorant of the other differences, but that’s what makes this hobby fun- research.
Reckon a year is about enough time.
You prompted me to pull down a book, perfect Saturday morning activity now that I am home on weekends. Looks like the 422nd arrived at Charmy Down on March 7, 1944. Transferred to Scorton on May 6th. They received eight O/D P-61A-5s on May 10 at Speke. Because the aircraft had no turrets, their gunners were mostly sent to the 423rd to fly in A-20s. During the training period before they became operational July 7th and flew their first mission on July 15th, they were reprinted in gloss black. I think that was before June 6th, as there’s lots of pictures of them in black with invasion stripes. Don’t know if aircraft kept getting stripes after D-Day?
The 425th landed at Charmy Down on May 26th and played catch-up with the 422nd, transferring to Scorton on June 12th and receiving A-10 Widows. They became operational at the same time as the 422nd.
These two, along with the 414 and 415 in the MTO, we’re the only USAAF squadrons in Europe to receive the Widow before the end of the war.
It’s an attractive scheme. All black, with stripes on the bottoms only of the wings and tail booms. Also, the 422nd birds, because they were reprinted in the theater, had all manner of strange radome paint. Yellow, red and oxide red are some. This could be fun.
Look up Bondo, look up!
The stripes were a Theater Identification mark all thru summer of 1944. Any replacement aircraft arriving at an operational unit during that time should have had them applied. While they were removed from the upper wing surface about 6 weeks or so after the initial assault landings, many aircraft had them on lower surfaces throughout the rest of the war.
Hans looks great to me! If you want to add more great but I think this one gets the point across quite well.
All Allied Tactical Aircraft were ordered to be painted with the stripes about June 4-5th (Dad told me that they painted the stripes on all the Squadron’s aircraft overnight… He walked out to the fliightline at 0400 on the 5th and the ground crews had them done ) This would also apply to Widows that weren’t yet operational for Overlord, if my info is correct…
The Allied tactical aircraft were also repainted temporarily for Operation Market-Garden, IIRC…
At any rate, an OD/NG P-61 with full “Ovelord” invasion-stripes on 6 JUNE 44 is quite possible…
So would a black one with stripes then. Next to figure out if any had stripes on top. Only a photo will prove that, and my bet is not.
I have spent the past 30 minutes twice trying to get this photo laden post up only to have it lost once by my own bone up, second time my computer ate it… this is my last attempt.
For you Bondo, a fully striped Widow
Secondly, photos of stripes being applied to various aircraft immediately prior to D-Day
and late summer 1944 when the upper stripes had been removed
I had a LOT more explanation written but after losing it twice I am too pissed to write it all again…
This is roughly what my “Striping the Widow” diorama looks like…
This one is unusual, having the “Greyed-out” US insignia…
I’ve got a good reference book that that shows, possibly, ONE “full-striped and black” Black Widow, BTW… “Wings of Fame”, vol15… It shows a black P-61 (Double Trouble, assigned to 1LT Robert Bolinder) that appears to have, at least on the booms, full stripes (can’t see the top of the wings, it’s in a 80-degree vertical bank)… Also, for the OD/NG version, it has a nice, full-page 3-way profile of “Borrowed Time”, P-61A-5 (No turret) s/n 42-5547, assigned to 442nd night-fighter ace Herman Ernst as it appeared after Overlord, flying out of A-78 (Florennes) in July, 44…
The order to remove the top stripes from all Allied tactical aircraft came on 6 July, 44… Naturally, it takes time to get around to taking things off operational aircraft, and it would likely only happen when the aircraft came up for its 100-hour checks or a similar maintenence function, or if the crew-chief had nothing to do (unlikely)…
I’ll try to scan it, but my scanner is a bit persnickity about scanning photos with any writing on 'em. Dunno why that happens…
I just love how the photos show that we modelers make the invasion stripes appear much neater and nicer than the real deal in most cases (the Widows above being obvious exceptions). The (sloppy) ones that I painted on as a kid look more historically accurate.[;)]
I was thinking that as well. I think if i have do a kit with the stripes, i may just brush paint them. I like the third photo with the position of the stripes marked out with what i assume is chalk. A nice Dio idea.
Way ahead of ya… [;)]
This one’s at about 60%, so it won’t be in the GB… I got a LOT of figure-work to do, plus finish the P-61… This is a more of a “Mock-up” at this point than a diorama, but y’all get the idea…
.
It’s important to remember with invasion stripes, as with so much else WWII-related, the only accurate answer is “it depends”. There’s plenty of evidence of really sloppily-done invasion stripes, and plenty of evidence of carefully-done invasion stripes, and all ranges in between.
For example…some done with more care than the Spitfire shown above.
I imagine it was probably a matter of several factors - advance notice, availability of masking materials, of spray guns vs. brushes, persnicketiness of the crew chiefs, etc.
Remember that the order came down overnight and the various crews did what they could do, however, it’s quite likely that most of the stripe-jobs were “tightened-up” a few days after the 6th, when the OPTEMPO slowed a bit (and the crew chiefs decided they couldn’t stand to look at sloppy stripes anymore)…
One that was initially sloppily-applied could easily be properly masked and repainted starting around the 9th or 10th… In reality, it doesn’t take but a couple/three hours to paint them on, depending upon the size of the aircraft… Obviously, a Spitfire or Mustang can be done quicker than a C-47, Sterling, B-26, etc…
Was looking through that Wings of Fame issue again, and that photo’s in there… The OD bird is “Hustlin’ Hussy”, and the decals for it come in the Monogram kit…
Yup… D-Day was originally scheduled for June 5th (a Monday) and was postponed for 24 hours on the evening of the 4th (a Sunday). So the original orders for the stripes had to have come down around on the 3rd or so to have the aircraft marked in time. Now this is just a SWAG, but its the weekend, all passes off base have been canceled because of the upcoming mission, and you are handed buckets of paint, brushes and told to go paint stripes on planes. Do you think you will be overly happy and doing your best work at that point?
I heard a rumor that the world might end this December, if it doesn`t, count me in!
Len
Yeah, they couldn’t give the order to paint the stripes too far in advance, not with Jerry still flying photo-recon missions and suddenly seeing hundreds of aircraft appear with black & White stripes on 'em… The weather DID work in the Allies favor for that particular thing…
Oh, I can just hear the belly-achin’ goin’ on from the ground crews, with the exasperated line-chief finally telling his P/O’d crew-chiefs and armorers, "I don’t CARE about you and your effin’ passes bein’ canceled, just go paint the the effin’ stripes on the planes…
NOW, dammit!"…
Grumble-mumble-mumble-grumble
After thinking about it, I decided that your’re right, but will go with the one Allied, and one from the German POV:
!(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/HansvonHammer/Group Builds/GermanMGonbeach-SPR-DerLangsteTag.jpg)
Doogs, persnicketiness, really. I thought you were making that up, but no, its a real word. What you do, swallow a bloody dictonary [:)]
Suits me on the GB badges Hans, can get a bit to much with to many. That German one is spot on [Y]
~bump!~ Listening to CBC Radio with a special report on the infamous Dieppe Raid. Apparently there was another objective beyond just a trial-run for Overlord.