occa Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) 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 I noticed this photo too, that must be relatively fresh DG/DE ... 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. LOL, I had the same thought ... Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) I mean there are bounds and lots of uncertainties, but only cause there isn't a known directive does not mean it never existed. If I hold color chips next to the example photos I posted (posts #35 and 39) they much more match LG and LE than DG and DE. Also faded DG for example looks greyish and dead very unlike to the rich green of LG. Also we have a thorough analysis from an eyewitness Seahawk posted on post #12. What more do we need to to trust our eyes? Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty Python Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 A very good mate of mine who passed away last year served as ground crew on 617sq and later on, on 627sq, at Woodhall Spa. Whilst with 617sq, they were doing tests with the Lancs to see if the runway was long enough to allow the grand slams to be used from there. Obviously ballast weights were used instead of the bombs themselves. Because regular crews were not needed for the trials, ground crews were used to make the numbers up, as the flights were mostly just circuits. My mate was on one of the very first trial flights and on this flight the aircraft only just lifted off in time to clear the tree line, or so they thought. It turned out they clipped the trees with the undercarriage. They retracted ok but would not come down again. They had to lower the u/c by hand and as he said, 'muggins here had to do most of the donkey work'. For some reason he wasn't all that keen to do anymore trial flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selwyn Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) I mean there are bounds and lots of uncertainties, but only cause there isn't a known directive does not mean it never existed. If I hold color chips next to the example photos I posted (posts #35 and 39) they much more match LG and LE than DG and DE. Also faded DG for example looks greyish and dead very unlike to the rich green of LG. Also we have a thorough analysis from an eyewitness Seahawk posted on post #12. What more do we need to to trust our eyes? What we need is images taken seventy years ago from stable colour film stock that after all this time hasn't colour faded or changed in any way. That way we would be able to match colours exactly. (and thats not not taking into account any fading on the painted surface itself!) but I think that you will be looking a long time! I have got colour images of aircraft from the 1970's that have colour faded and bleached over the years, the Colour film stock from WW2 could hardly be any better. The documentary evidence is that Bomber command aircraft were painted DG/ DE, the colours that this aircraft was painted in. I will not accept that any other colours were used until I see documentary evidence, Not prints from unstable colour images seventy years old. Selwyn Edited January 4, 2014 by Selwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) That's just sticking to a principle against all reason and evidence. The pics that were posted here (not only by me) are far from being faded and bleached ... Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selwyn Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 That's just sticking to a principle against all reason and evidence. The pics that were posted here (not only by me) are far from being faded and bleached ... You will of course provide certified perfect colour images from seventy years ago to compare to the posted images to prove this? Selwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 You act as if it was a color war, why otherwise would you have it necessary to patronize? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) I tend to agree. Note that there is a couple of repair patched of "DG" just below the turret. These patches you mention appear lighter than the surrounding DG, was fresh DG lighter than lets call it 'settled' DG? On closer examination I'd say these patches are LG actually ... Edited January 4, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selwyn Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 You act as if it was a color war, why otherwise would you have it necessary to patronize? Im sorry you feel that I am patronising you that was not the intention and I apologise for giving you that impression. Its not in any sense a "Colour war." It is commonly known that colour film in all its forms was still in its in its infancy at the time (WW2) and is notorious for being very colour unstable, and was quite rare (even in the US at that time!) because of this to try and match a WW2 colour image to a military colour standard is nigh impossible. Instabililty in colour film stock is well known even now. To muddy the waters some images from that period are "Colour restored" by computer which can really make a difference to the colour hues. I have in front of me as I speak a colour picture I personally took in 1980 of a Harrier GR3.Looking at it as It stands I could make a really good case of saying to an uninformed observer that it is painted in Slate Grey/ Medium Sea Grey and I could produce the image to back up my argument, but I know for a fact it is in the standard RAF green grey colours, I know, because I was there when the picture was taken. The only factual things the colour images posted above really tell you is that the aircraft was Brown and Green painted on the upper surfaces with a Black underside. To take it a step further from there you have to go to WW2 documentation, which are the official orders given on painting RAF Bomber aircraft. So my take on it is unless there is documentary evidence that orders were issued to paint the uppersides of these aircraft LE/LG I must go with the established documentary evidence that DE /DG were the colours that these aircraft were ordered to be painted, and the posted images as they are support that assumption. Again sorry for any offence given, it was unintentional. Selwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JagRigger Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Back to the start of the thread. There is a Korean trader knocking Airfix B1 Special Grand Slams for £25.50 posted right now ( customs etc excluded ) on e-bay. I left you some ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 There's a great positive to all this discussion on colour....doesn't matter if you're a shade or two out on your build, the variation in real life was probably more anyway! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 (edited) There's a great positive to all this discussion on colour....doesn't matter if you're a shade or two out on your build, the variation in real life was probably more anyway! I hear you woody, the problem is that no one took up any of the points I was making with these photos, what I got was just that it must not be cause it cannot lol. Cheers !! Edited January 5, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody37 Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 I'm confused TBH. The picture of the Halifax looks like one fresh off the production line. Either it isn't DE/DG or the colour has been lost in 70 years of translation which I personally believe to be the case. I've seen images ont' internet of photographs looking very different in colour between two images of the same one. My comment was more around pictures of the same aircraft with very different colours after touch up though. All part of the fun of modelling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
occa Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 (edited) I see. Re that photo you mentioned ^^ I just cannot imagine a patch of relatively fresh DG would be considerably lighter than older partly faded DG. Not to speak that the patches have the distinctive effect of LG which is a somehow richer and certainly lighter green with less grey in it than DG. Fading and bleaching would affect all colors in a photo and is not able to reverse a lighter to a darker green in a comparison between two greens. Even a thorough analysis of an eyewitness (post #12 here on this thread) is doubted only cause the colour police deny it could even be. I will leave it at this, I've made my point, obviously I am alone in my interpretation that they often used LE/LG instead of DE/DG. Edited January 5, 2014 by occa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 (edited) I think there are two issues here which are getting confused: the colours used in the day camouflage scheme used on Grand Slam Lancasters and the use of alternatives to Dark Earth and Dark Green more widely in Bomber Command. To take the second first: back during WW2 people were inclined to obey rules/instructions, not slavishly but, if you didn't, you would expect Authority to challenge you on why you hadn't and would need a damn good reason. If you didn't, you were inclined to end up on a charge at the very least. For this reason I am disinclined to believe in the widespread use of colours other than the prescribed DE/DG unless there was documentation giving dispensation to do so (cf that missive that went out saying (I paraphrase) that PRU aircraft might be camouflaged in all sorts of weird colours). If the use of alternatives was anything like on the scale that some here are now suggesting, that instruction would have had to be fairly widely disseminated, which would make its complete disappearance without trace after the war rather odd. Until proof (not surmise) of the existence of such an instruction is produced, my planning assumption is that DE/DG were used exclusively. That is not to say that there were not variations caused by fading, indifferent mixing, different thickness of coats, patch-ups, etc. Nor does it deny that that in photographs reproduced sometimes without proper care and attention from aged films the colours may look different. But I'm in the "rules was rules" school on that question. The Grand Slam day camouflage scheme is a different matter. Here we have a scheme which may have been introduced explicitly to make the aircraft look different from other 617 Sq aircraft in DG/DE/Night (see my post 12 and Edgar's post 20): which provides a reason (maybe even a damn good one!) why the colours may have been different. Now we modellers are aft to muse from time to time "Wouldn't it be nice if we could have gone walked through that row of WW2 aircraft with our FS595 (or whatever) colour charts?" In this specific case that is exactly what happened: read my post 12. An artist specialising in aviation subjects visited an airfield specifically to gather information for a colour painting of Grand Slam Lancasters. He examined an actual aircraft using colour charts he had compiled from an official set of MAP Colour Standards issued in August 1944. He explicitly rejects the notion that the upper surface colours were DE/DG: "...the colours were changed. 'LIGHT GREEN' replaced 'Dark Green' and 'LIGHT EARTH' replaced 'Dark Earth'." and explicitly says that the undersurface colour was Ocean Gray. What more do you want, short of sending our revered Nick Millman back in a time machine? Of course we can say the guy was a liar or that he was colour-blind or we might be more charitable and surmise that maybe only PD121, the aircraft he examined, was in those colours. Or we can say that a professional artist making a visit specifically to collect accurate colour data actually did as professional a job as the times permitted and actually knew what he was talking about. As a "rules was rules" type of guy (see above), I would feel a whole lot easier if the GS Lancasters had been in more normal colours like DE/DG/Medium Sea Grey. But I keep running aground on the rock of the eye-witness testimony of an informed observer with a proven track record doing a thorough, detailed colour comparison against a specific actual aircraft at the time. Edited January 12, 2014 by Seahawk 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Test Graham Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 A great thread, but there are a couple of additional points found by Paul Lucas in his researches that have to be considered. Firstly, the official AM request for a daylight scheme on these particular aircraft called for DG/DE over MSG. So it is not just a matter of using whatever the standard night or day colours were - the standard day bomber camouflage called for DG/DE with Sky undersides. Secondly, the initial five deliveries of these aircraft in February 1945 were in the standard night scheme. This doesn't leave a lot of time for operations - I've seen a mention of only one, so that mission with three described above should be readily identifiable by those with appropriate records. Assuming the photo shows an operational mission at all - this seems to have been taken for granted but may not be the case. In what has been said by those quoting RC Moore I see no reference for fading, yet (as shown in many photos) this must have been considerable given the time interval. I have no problem in believing that the colours he saw were best matched by his belief/interpretations of LG, LE and OG. I don't believe he wandered around with the colour chips in his hand, but I do believe he had a lot of experience and an artist's eye for colour. This doesn't mean that those were the colours in which it rolled out of Avro's paint shop, or flew in on that April 1945 mission (if it did). From such evidence as I've seen,and accepting its limitations, Dark Green tends to fade either to a chocolate brown or to a lighter, brighter, green depending presumably upon its manufacturer or date, or both. There are a number of photos of Lancasters showing the latter to be the case, some already shown in this thread. Dark Earth did appear to have considerable variety even when new, and again lighter tones are common in photos. As for the underside - I'd refer you to the number of discussions on light shades of Ocean Grey, had I bothered to record them. To model the aircraft he saw on that day, as they were on that day, using standard paints, I'd confidently go with his descriptions. (OK, I'd probably lighten the OG from the "new" state, but I don't see that as a serious difference, if any.) To model an aircraft as it was operational during WW2, I don't think he's as reliable a guide simply because he didn't see them then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edgar Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 I will leave it at this, I've made my point, obviously I am alone in my interpretation that they often used LE/LG instead of DE/DG. Experience indicates that, for that to happen, there would have to be a mention of it, somewhere, and, so far, it hasn't turned up. 617 had to ask for permission to paint over the black on their Tallboy aircraft, which they got, and it's on file. A Lancaster was stripped of paint, before going to the U.S., and signals were sent warning of its appearance. Tempests were flown, unpainted, and units were warned to be on the lookout for them. In a file, on the Meteor, which I read on Saturday, a signal warns that aircraft would be seen all-white, and another warns of all roundels having yellow surrounds. It's possible that, on the airframes that Moore examined, the green and brown had faded (DTD517 synthetic paint was notorious for that,) but it doesn't explain how the underside was darker than the already-permitted MSG. If you ever get the chance to look through the books of Air Ministry Orders, preserved in Kew, believe me you'll be staggered at just how tightly the Air Ministry controlled every aspect of RAF life, from telling airmen how to dry out wet boots, to telling WAAFs how, precisely, they should mark their handbags with their initials, so it's inconceivable that they wouldn't have controlled colours just as much. Edgar 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selwyn Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 I see. Re that photo you mentioned ^^ I just cannot imagine a patch of relatively fresh DG would be considerably lighter than older partly faded DG. Not to speak that the patches have the distinctive effect of LG which is a somehow richer and certainly lighter green with less grey in it than DG. Fading and bleaching would affect all colors in a photo and is not able to reverse a lighter to a darker green in a comparison between two greens. Even a thorough analysis of an eyewitness (post #12 here on this thread) is doubted only cause the colour police deny it could even be. I will leave it at this, I've made my point, obviously I am alone in my interpretation that they often used LE/LG instead of DE/DG. To judge the degree of colour washout on this picture all you have to do is look at the aircraft markings. The Blue of the roundel, the yellow ring and especially the Dull red squadron codes demonstrate that the colours of this image are very suspect. Selwyn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Test Graham Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 (edited) Sorry Selwyn but the faces and the uniforms are not so "very suspect" at all. I don't see how such distortion can have been quite so selective - I think we are just seeing the effect of weathering/fading on a used aircraft. Consider the differences seen between upperwing roundels and fuselage roundels - the more exposed former are often much lighter than the latter - and much lighter than seen here. However, there is nowhere a suggestion that upperwing roundels should be painted different colours to the others. I would however suggest that the patch under discussion is Grey Green rather than Dark Green of any vintage. Edited January 15, 2014 by Graham Boak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrzeM Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 OK now: would you say, occa, that two of the propeller blades of this plane are dark green? This is clearly visible on this photo!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) One more thing that most of us seem to be not considering, even if we're aware of it (which most probably aren't). "Colour" on the internet is a highly variable thing. Some points to consider in your discussions. (I apologise that this became long-winded.) First point - unless your computer's monitor is correctly and recently calibrated for colour and brilliance, you won't have a chance of seeing accurate colour to start with. And the only way to do that is with a dedicated calibration tool - the inbuilt and online calibration thingies are useless (unless you are lucky enough to have an Eizo monitor, in which case you are either an imaging professional, or impossibly well-heeled for someone who just looks at the internetz. ), as they rely on human eye perception, which is not accurate, as we do not remember colour very well at all; that's the way we're made. Also, can your monitor even display the correct colours - a lot of them can't, especially cheaper ones, even when calibrated. Simply put, they run out of gamut and make it up, because most of the time, it doesn't matter. Second point - unless you are using a colour managed web browser (ie Firefox, if set up correctly. Safari barely manages colour (and then reluctantly), Internet Explorer and Chrome not at all) you won't have a whelk's chance in a supernova of seeing accurate colour. Even then, was the original you are looking at uploaded with its colour management ICC profile embedded? Without it, all bets are off. Again. Third point - was the source photo scanned in a colour managed workflow, by someone with access to the correct hardware and software tools to make sure things didn't change from original to scan? And did they then upload it with the ICC profile embedded? Fourth point - is the source photo in the book/whatever accurately printed? I doubt that it was, due to the limitations of presses and printable colour. Even high quality, expensively printed dedicated photo books aren't exactly right, which doesn't augur well for mass market reference books. Fifth point - is the original photo (ie the first generation image, printed from the negative or slide) accurate to real life colour - we can see colours that cannot be printed, even by the geewhiz digital thingummys we have now. Different photo papers give different tonal results. Also, photos were printed by humans, and humans make mistakes. (And there's a lot of other issues regarding accurate colour in chemical-based photos, as well.) Sixth point - were the colours even recorded accurately to begin with? Given the gamut limitations and in-built colour bias of different colour film stocks, I'd think it unlikely. Another thing is that different lenses render colours in different ways, and the glass used has a significant effect on the final colour as well. Let's not even mention black and white films as they have their own set of issues. Another point to consider is the issue of perception - what we see lit from behind on a monitor gives us a very different view to what we see when an image is lit by reflected light, such as when we view a printed photo. I've put a lot of effort into making sure that my own digital images are as correct as I can make them between screen and print. Even with a calibrated monitor, and armed with the knowledge I have, it's an effort to get prints to match screen to match my recall of real life. And all of that is without the possible corruption of the whole chemical film train. As we can see, there's many a slip twixt cup and lip. So be wary of calling 'definitive' on things you see in books, online, or even in the originals you see in person at the IWM (or wherever). Even comparing photos is fraught with danger, as errors creep in and the provenance is often unknown.I now return you to your lively debate. Edited February 7, 2015 by Rob G 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelldoc Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Here is my Airfix kit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/16238651755/ I used the colours from the instruction. modelldoc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveCromie Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Rob G LOVE the Douglas Adams/Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Reference DC 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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