Seahawk Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 Can I, please, interject a note of caution into this desire to discredit Moore? He was an accomplished artist, with, at least, 30 years experience of painting "portraits" of aircraft, starting from WWI, and was also a leading light in the modelling world, with original designs of his own, etc., so was fully aware of what modellers needed, in the way of information. His paintings can be found on the front covers of many between-wars Aeromodeller Magazines, and were used, by modellers, as criteria for their model paint schemes, plus he was given ready access to full-size aircraft. He was also considered highly enough for the Imperial War Museum to put on a display of his work/techniques during the 1970s; no clue can, so far, be found as to what happened to that exhibition. His technique was to mix colours, using an ordinary paintbox, match them to the originals, paint them onto wooden sticks, then, when at home, match them to official colour samples. Personally, if he says that the undersides were Ocean Grey, I prefer to take him at his word, and try to think of reasons why, not reasons why he was "wrong." Edgar Quite agree. In fact I believe I said the same thing, at considerable length, in post 12. That doesn't change the fact that some things are easier to believe than others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miggers Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 just found this and thought you might like it Neil I posted this and a few other links to YouTube clips that might help our collegue in his quest to build a B.I (Special) on page 1!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fatalbert Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 I posted this and a few other links to YouTube clips that might help our collegue in his quest to builda B.I (Special) on page 1!!! Sorry Miggers,didnt realise that.....Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted May 10, 2012 Author Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) Thanks for everyones input on this. It'd be nice to say that I feel I know which direction to head now but as often happens, contradictory/confusing issues creep in. Edgar, I certainly was not trying to discredit Moores observations. I completely believe that he was accurate in his observations for the planes he examined. In this post in the link Mark put up to the Singapore Blenheims thread, if I can take that as an accurate quoting of the Moore article, Moore states that there were only 3 Grand Slam aircraft, YZs-R,Z & T, that would appear to contradict the IWM photos that again Mark put up showing, as I would understand, YZs-O,M,B & J as Grand Slam aircraft. This does make me wonder if R,Z & T were the only Grand Slam aircraft on squadron strength at the time of Moores visit & if his undoubtably accurate observations can also be back dated to earlier aircarft as I'm guessing we're seeing in the IWM photos. Without wishing to let the wrigglies out of the tin, the view of YZ-J & B in those pictures APPEARS to me to have the same upper shades as the accompanying tallboy aircraft, in the side view of YZ-J the underside, such as is visible, APPEARS to me to have a greater contrast to the uppers than I would have expected from a plane camo'd in LE/LG/OG. It would be tempting to argue for DG/DE/MSG finish from these photos but I won't because I don't know enough to go down that road. This does though raise some doubt as to which way to go re finish. If I could get the appropriate yellow codes then maybe a R,Z or T would be the way to go, but with the codes I have on the way I'm going to have to ponder this & hope for other information to surface, I suspect unlikely after this time. At my rate of modelling, I'm likely to have plenty of time for pondering. Steve. Edited May 10, 2012 by stevehnz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Posted May 10, 2012 Share Posted May 10, 2012 (edited) Memory is hazy, but I believe that there's a photo of Grand Slam aircraft being used on tests, in preparation for the aircraft (never sent) of "Tiger Force," which were to go to the Far East; one of the possible uses was to bomb the bridges connecting some of the Japanese home islands. Edgar, I certainly was not trying to discredit Moores observations. Steve, I wasn't having a go at you, just a general malaise that seems to affect this hobby, too often, when, if it seems unusual, the standard ploy is to attack the report(er,) rather than to spend a little time discussing it (rationally - hah!) I've seen accusations of colour-blindness, companies ignoring Air Ministry orders, A.M.O.s being wrongly written out by junior officers, etc., etc. Edgar Edited May 10, 2012 by Edgar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 (edited) In this post in the link Mark put up to the Singapore Blenheims thread, if I can take that as an accurate quoting of the Moore article, Moore states that there were only 3 Grand Slam aircraft, YZs-R,Z & T, that would appear to contradict the IWM photos that again Mark put up showing, as I would understand, YZs-O,M,B & J as Grand Slam aircraft. This does make me wonder if R,Z & T were the only Grand Slam aircraft on squadron strength at the time of Moores visit & if his undoubtably accurate observations can also be back dated to earlier aircarft as I'm guessing we're seeing in the IWM photos. Aye, there's the rub: I'm afraid you can't take it as an accurate quoting of the Moore article - a few key words have been edited out. The article draws on 2 main elements, his own observations of PD121 and an interview he had F/L Rawes, who had been PD121's pilot on several Grand Slam missions. The quotation is taken from a description from Rawes of the "Gaggle" formation which allowed 617's other Lancs to cover the GS aircraft, accompanied by a sketch of a specific Gaggle formation. In full the quotation runs as followed (restored edits underlined): "In order to lift the 22,000 lb. bomb, all armament, including the dorsal turret, but excepting the tail turret, had to be sacrificed, thus leaving the aircraft particularly vulnerable to fighter attack, it was therefore the duty of KC aircraft to look after the YZ aircraft. It will be seen in F/L Rawe's 'Gaggle' diagram that only 3 aircraft in this gaggle carried a 'Grand Slam', YZ-R PD128, YZ-T PD119, and YZ-Z PD121, all the rest were KC aircraft carrying internally the 12,000 lb. 'Tallboy' bomb. In the heat of battle the different codes proved insufficent identification. Therefore the special Day Scheme evolved to be used only by the special 'Grand Slam' carrying YZ Lancasters." Quote as verbatim as my proofreading allows. Underlining mine, otherwise punctuation and emphases as original. From the information, apparently from the ORB, in A Hell of A Bomb, it should be possible to work out which particular raid he is depicting but I haven't done that yet. As you have picked up, the statement that only 3 GS aircraft can confirmed in the day scheme is demonstrably incorrect. From photographic evidence [*] PB996 [C], PD112 (S) and PD113 (T) were in the standard scheme but PD114 and all subsequent aircraft in the day scheme. Aircraft I have been able to confirm in day camo are PD114 (, PD118 (M), PD119 (J), PD129 (O), PD133 (P) and PD139 (L), to which we can add Moore's PD121 (Z). NB serials are rarely legible in photos so code/serial correlations are taken from photo captions and/or book text. And yes, there is an unresolved conflict with Rawes' information above: PD119 is fairly well attested as YZ-J. The next paragraph describes what happened to the GS aircraft when taken over by 15 Sq: "After delivery to No. 15 Squadron, the 'Grand Slam' aircraft taking part in the bombing of Heligoland had their code letters changed to those of their new owners: LS but they retained the old individual letter, however the colour and style changed to large white block letters. The roundels below the wings and the squadron letters on the tailplane were obliterated and when LS-V PD131 appeared at Bovingdon for the Press release, to do with 'Operation Ruby', large white letters had been painted below the wings." All of which makes me wonder whether Moore examined YZ-Z or "the bomber formerly known as YZ-Z", (but by now possibly LS-Z). But he says categorically he examined YZ-Z PD121, so that's where the matter lies for me. To answer directly the implicit question in your final sentence, Flower in A Hell of A Bomb says (p. 290) that by the time of Operation Ruby 15 Sq had only 6 Lancasters, 4 of which were B.1 Special. Robertson (p.203) and Holmes (p.232) give the following serial/code correlations for 15 Sq B.1 Specials: PD127 LS-S, PD129 LS-R. There's also PD131 LS-V of which a photo accompanies the Moore article and another is on Holmes p.232. Maybe the 4th was PD121 LS-/YZ-Z. In addition to examining PD121, Moore watched 2 other GS Lancasters take off carrying Tallboys. He doesn't say that their colours were any different from those on PD121. If they had been, I think it would have been sporting of him to have done so. NB also that, if all the aircraft he saw had been recoded LS by the time of his visit, he would have taking Rawes' word on the code colours and would have been unable to comment on whether the reversal of codes (red outlined yellow to yellow outlined red) had been applied to aircraft other than PD121. Sorry to be so anoraky about this but, with the power of the internet, I was worried that one slight edit might set off a whole new wild goose chase. [*] References: Mason: The Avro Lancaster, Robertson: Lancaster, Holmes: Avro Lancaster, Osprey Elite: 617 Squadron, Lancaster At War 2 & 3, Flower: A Hell of a Bomb (Tempus, 2002). Edited May 12, 2012 by Seahawk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Mackenzie Posted May 11, 2012 Share Posted May 11, 2012 (edited) Â n/m Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted May 27, 2012 Author Share Posted May 27, 2012 Great excitement this morning when the postie van dropped in a big box from the USA. It contained an Airfix Lancaster Bi Special Grand Slam kit, off ebay in the US & even with post being more than the kit, about half what the last one I saw go in the UK, $NZ 62.00, when the Lancaster BI/BIII kits sell in LHSs for about $75. I was impressed with the look of it, much finer rivets that I'd imagined & as it has a reputation for accuracy I'll probably make it pretty much OOB. The decals were a bit out of register, especially the Roundals & red/yellow codes. Just as well I've got some RAFdec ones now. Interestingly the tail codes measure exactly 1/2" or a scale 36" so I can see a sheet of the smaller RAFdec ones winging this way too. With out wanting it to be seen as a comment on the above discussion re colours, I was interested to see that YZ-J 617 sqn Scampton March 1945 is given as 30/29/165 or DG/DE/MSG, whereas LS-V 15 sqn Mildenhall May 1946 with white codes has colour calls of 86/93/165 or what is Airfix's version of LG/LE/MSG. It would be interesting to know what their research was for this but other than MSG for OG it isn't too far away from some of the discusion above. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 I quote all this to illustrate that IMHO this guy was being as scientific as the technology of the day permitted. Anyway, at the end of all this, he explains in 4 paras of detail the colours: "...the colours were changed. 'LIGHT GREEN' replaced 'Dark Green' and 'LIGHT EARTH' replaced 'Dark Earth'. Undersides were 'Ocean Grey', including the bomb-bays, undercarriage legs and other accessories. .... Squadron markings and the individual code letter, both sides of the fuselage, Trainer Yellow outlined Indian Red. The YZ was to the left of the roundel on both sides. The Squadron letters above and below the fixed tailplane were 'Trainer Yellow' only." [He had earlier explained that merely outlining the red codes in yellow still did not make them sufficiently visible visible so the colours were reversed to yellow outlined red: no date given for the change.] So there you are: a trained artist, with a 30-year pedigree of interest in aircraft colours and with the avowed purpose of collecting data for a colour painting, visits an actual aircraft in the field with field cards based on MAP colour charts and gives you his detailed findings. What more could anyone want? Perhaps if he'd been a High Court judge or Archbishop as well? Personally I find such testimony, however implausible it may sound, hard to discount. But others are perfectly entitled to apply normative logic 60 years after the event and say the aircraft ought to have been in DE/DG/MSG and that from the photos they appear to be so finished. If I wanted to apply logic to support Moore's findings, I could note that he says earlier that, with the Grand Slam Lancasters' armament reduced to just the tail turret, it was the responsbility of KC-coded Lancasters to afford such protection as they could. That would explain the distinctive YZ codes and the emphasis on making them visible: using LE and LG on the upper surfaces might, rpt might [my speculation] might have been a way of making Grand Slam Lancasters more immediately distinguishable from above. To which it might reasonably be objected that the colour difference between DE and LE and between DG and LG was pretty marginal and that, on the evidence of the B+W photos, it didn't work very well. NB also that Moore was viewing the aircraft in 1946, more than a year after the war had finished. OTOH the squadron was being disbanded so it's unlikely that too much effort had gone into repainting the aircaft recently. Sorry for bringing this up again. I was going to simply paint DE/DG in my current build and from looking at the pictures in this thread, it's very hard not to believe otherwise, however this reputable report indicates that this simply insn't correct. It also mentions that the u/c legs & other accessories were grey, could we expect the gear bays to be grey also ? Might just add some white to the DE & DG! It can be interpreted which every way by the viewer then once complete! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 (edited) Don't shoot me but many high quality color photos of Lancs suggest they actually have LG/LE on top and I mean those with Night undersides. Pic is from Etienne's photostream Edit: There's some interesting info about Group 101 SQ in this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8270787@N07/8685606534/in/set-72157605269786717 Same on this Halifax I: http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/301/media-301252/large.jpg Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honeybee Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Now that is a great photograph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galgos Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 The variations in tone and colour are a modeller's delight! I've never seen a picture with such heavy staining from the engines on the upper wing surface, also love the rather botch-job around the SR code letters, a bit of over-painting applied rather quickly it seems. Wonderful. Max Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hovering Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Don't shoot me but many high quality color photos of Lancs suggest they actually have LG/LE on top and I mean those with Night undersides. Pic is from Etienne's photostream Do we know the origin of that photo? It looks colourised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Do we know the origin of that photo? It looks colourised. I have no clue where that came from. All I can say it's by far not the only photo that tells me they often used LG/LE especially later in the war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hovering Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Im quite interested to find a colour photo of this.. The caption for that photo is from June 43 and is a Handley Page aircraft for their experimental works, so maybe not representative of squadron use? There is this one from 42 though so pretty early in the war.. so too early to consider them using Light Earth?.. or is the general consensus is that its Dark Earth? http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205188200 Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) Im quite interested to find a colour photo of this.. The caption for that photo is from June 43 and is a Handley Page aircraft for their experimental works, so maybe not representative of squadron use? There is this one from 42 though so pretty early in the war.. so too early to consider them using Light Earth?.. or is the general consensus is that its Dark Earth? http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205188200 Greg Good question, I tend to say that's LE too but it's not to a hundred percent clear Edited January 3, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaddy Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 So what are the thoughts on this one? http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205188284 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) So what are the thoughts on this one? http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205188284 IMO that's faded DG/DE Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 I'm happy to be corrected, but as far as I'm aware, all bomber Command night schemes were DE/DG, so those colour pics are certainly Dark Earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) I'm happy to be corrected, but as far as I'm aware, all bomber Command night schemes were DE/DG, so those colour pics are certainly Dark Earth. Officially and as long as no lost directive shows up The green in the photos I posted are much too bright to be dark green, the brown colors much too light and also too rich to a certain degree to be DE ... Edited January 3, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaddy Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 IMO that's faded DG/DE I tend to agree. Note that there is a couple of repair patched of "DG" just below the turret. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hovering Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Yeah.. it's always a subjective minefield interpreting colours in photos.. especially old ones. Anyway, this is an interesting one for touched up green (TR 1554/Queen visiting Warboys) http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205188822 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 That's a really interesting (and great) photo, looks as if the front has had a recent repaint, but compare the faded dark earth further down to the front shade, incredible difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevehnz Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Thats a good point there Woody, you don't think they might have just done the bits the Queen might see & left the rest. Steve. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaddy Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 There are quite a few interesting pics in that series of colour transparencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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