Buffalo I/D bands colour?

[JohnMacG]

OK.... one more time!

I'm juat about to start masking my Tamiya 1/48th scale Buffalo: I intend to do it as a 243Sq a/c.

Which brings us back to the never-ending question about the colour of the fuselage I/D band. Just how SURE are we the the I/D band actually was 'sky' (or something close to it)? Do we have any documentary proof that RAF Malaya Command actually ever received stocks of 'sky' paint?

All I can tell from b&w pics is that the I/D band is lighter than the Light Blue paint used on the rest of the undersides.

(Speaking of which, the most recent research I've seen on this colour is in Ian Baker's 'Aviation History Colouring Book #71' where he suggests the following colour matches for this blue :-

Methuen - halfway between 24 B 3 & 24 B 4 - slightly darker than MAP Sky Blue

FS - no real match possible. "What you would need is *5299 lightened back to around the tonal value of *4518.)

So Mark & Graham B (and others), what's your opinion.

[mhaselden]

My opinion...and it's no more than that...is that the undersides were probably closer to Sky (but a US equivalent, not Air Ministry-provided paint) and that the fuselage band and spinner fronts were painted in the same Sky Blue shade that we saw applied to the 27 Sqn Blenheims in the LIFE pics. I see no reason why 2 units at the same station (RAF Kallang), operating in the same role and wearing the same ID markings would apply different shades for the fuselage band.

Do I have conclusive proof? Nope...and others will cite Peter Bingham-Wallis's recollection of the undersides of 67 Sqn Buffalos being a pale blue colour. My counter is that the US Sky equivalents were in that hazy divide between pale blue, pale green and pale grey and hence, depending on personal perception and lighting conditions, could be perceived as a pale blue.

My problem with the premise that the Buffalo undersides were a pale blue colour from the factory is that it would have to be a darker shade than the Sky Blue applied for the fuselage band...and that seems to stretch the bounds of compliance with the RAF's order. The FAA Museum's Wildcat does have light blue undersides but they're not too far removed from Sky Blue so that doesn't really provide an answer for the tonal difference we see on Far East Buffalos between the band and the underside colours.

Again...this is all conjecture but I think there's some logical consistency to it.

Cheers,
Mark

[JohnMacG]

Mark,

that all seems logical to me. I'm not sure about the Buff's underside colour tho'.

I suppose we'll have to wait until somebody pulls a reasonably-well-preserved Buff wreck out of the Malayan jungle to know!

Edited July 23, 2014 by JohnMacG

[LDSModeller]

My opinion

In a perfect world

The fact that we see photograhic evidence, that the Buffalo's were wearing the fuselage band and a Sky coloured spinner, would tell me that the orders were received to apply them, it would seem logical that the Sky paint would have either acompanied or followed the orders arrival in the Far East.

Real world-

There is also the possibility that instead of Sky Type S as fuselage band/spinner colour, Sky Blue could have been used, until stocks of Sky Type S arrived.Whilst man power and supplies arrived in the Far East they, (to me ) were sometimes a little slow in arriving.

As far as the colour for the undersides go, this P 40E at MOTAT is wearing what I would call the DuPont copy of RAF Sky, the Buffaloes would have worn similar (Fullers )colours - note the tonal differences with the light as commented by Mark Blueish-Green on the intake - light blue on the Landing gear housing - to gray on the oil cooler outlet vanes

If the Buffaloes wore Sky Blue band/spinner, then there would have a been a tonal difference (as seen in photo (not the best though)).

(from IWM Collection)

As far as overall colours go, the Fullers colours would have to have very close to the Air Ministry colours, when 488 Squadron took over it's twenty Buffaloes from 67 Squadron, the 67 Squadron codes would have to be painted over to allow for the 488 Squadron codes. The Fuller Brown/Green/Sky would have to be a very good match, to not see a horrid mismatch of Brown on Brown, Green on Green and Sky on Sky - which I doubt the 488 Squadron Equipment Officer would have had happy with, not to mention the Kallang base Equipment Officer.

Speaking of Colours have you taken into account that the RAF Roundels would be Fullers colours most likely Insignia Blue/White /Red/Yellow?

Regards

Alan

EDIT: Have crossed out Fullers as paint manufacturer.

Edited July 24, 2014 by LDSModeller

[John M]

Alan,

The Fuller paints may have been a good match but to my knowledge Fuller was a west coast company that only supplied paint to west coast aircraft manufacturers.

Cheers,

John

[LDSModeller]

Alan,

The Fuller paints may have been a good match but to my knowledge Fuller was a west coast company that only supplied paint to west coast aircraft manufacturers.

Cheers,

John

Thanks John,

I had a look back at a Colour pallette (saved as Fullers) I saved from a previous discussion on Buffalo schemes that mentioned Fullers having a connection to Brewster. Probably got a little ahead of myself in my thinking there

Regards

Alan

[Graham Boak]

The Dupont Sky Type S Grey would show a similar contrast with Sky Blue, Sky Blue being a particularly light colour. I wouldn't be particularly surprised to find a US-sourced light blue that was darker that MAP Sky Blue, but think that one of the US paint companies' approximations to Sky is much likelier.

[mhaselden]

As far as overall colours go, the Fullers colours would have to have very close to the Air Ministry colours, when 488 Squadron took over it's twenty Buffaloes from 67 Squadron, the 67 Squadron codes would have to be painted over to allow for the 488 Squadron codes. The Fuller Brown/Green/Sky would have to be a very good match, to not see a horrid mismatch of Brown on Brown, Green on Green and Sky on Sky - which I doubt the 488 Squadron Equipment Officer would have had happy with, not to mention the Kallang base Equipment Officer.

Speaking of Colours have you taken into account that the RAF Roundels would be Fullers colours most likely Insignia Blue/White /Red/Yellow?

There is evidence from 453 Sqn Buffalos of mismatch between overpainted areas on aircraft reallocated from 21 Sqn to 453 Sqn prior to hostilies, the best example being AN189. To an extent, it depends how the overpainting was done. Note that 488 Sqn's codes differ from the other Buffalo units in the region. They put the NF forward of the roundel and the individual letter aft of the fuselage band. The net result is that the area previously occupied by 67 Sqn's single airframe letter now is overpainted with 2 letters and if care is taken to just paint over the old letter, the overpainting may be hard to detect. The only area where it would be visible is in between the roundel and the fuselage band. Also note that 488 Sqn seems to have used the same colour as the fuselage band for its code letters, hence the lack of any lettering on the band itself.

As to national markings, there is some evidence that US manufacturers used decals rather than paint for the roundels. I don't think there's any direct evidence of this technique on Buffalos but it was certainly used on P-40s.

[JohnMacG]

OK Mark, I've been mulling over the above with my afternoon coffee, and here's my thoughts.which

Let's start with tyhe Blenheims; I can't but wonder if that 'Sky Blue' was a local mix., using whatever paint was to hand. You could make something very similar using Roundel Blue and (a lot of) Roundel White. I seem to recall similar things being done in oyther parts of the world.

Now the Buffalos; I think we have to go with Bingham-Wallis's description of a "pale-blue under-colour" with "the sky tail band a shade lighter....." After all, he was there! The trouble is 'pale blue' and 'sky' are very inexact references for modellers Which pale blue? Which 'sky'?

So I wondered - if you can make a pretty good 'sky blue' from paints readily available in S'pore, could you do the same with 'sky'? Well I got my paint pots out and had a go, and I think you can. What you need is Roundel Blue, Roundel Yellow, Roundel White & black. All of which would have been in ample supply, surely. And it would explsin

Take some yellow (this is NOT going to be exact!), and the tiniest smidgen of black, so that you have a khaki-ish colour, add LOTS of white until it's about the right lightness for 'Sky', and then finish off with a dab of blue, and voila, something very close to sky - at least the Xtracolor sky I'm using. Now I'm NOT saying RAF S'pore did this, just that they COULD have produced a pretty good 'Sky' this way. And it might explain those 'Sky' I/D bands & spinners.

So I think I'll go with an underside blue slightly darker than 'RAF Sky Blue' and 'Sky' I/D bands & spinners.

One last Buff question - honest

The Buffalo lightening programme - removing cockpit clutter, replacing the wing .5 guns with .303s (and were the wing blisters covering the butts of the .5s removed too) and removing the aerial mast - was this limited to the RAAF squadrons or did all surviving Buffs go through this process?

[Graham Boak]

Why go to the bother of mixing paints when the relevant colours will be available? The war didn't break out in Malaya until December 1941 - that leaves a long time to continue the normal process of restocking: I've seen it said (by Nick Millman?) that under normal circumstances the shelf life was only regarded as two years anyway.

These guys were not hobbyists, mixing paints whenever they liked to get whatever effect they liked. They were service personnel obeying orders and withdrawing the paint from stores. If they were going to mix paints, why should there be any difference between the undersides and the trim?

We can generate all sorts of options, but in the end Occam's Razor says believe the simplest: the aircraft came with US versions of the standard paints, and had Sky Blue added to match existing types.

Edited July 24, 2014 by Graham Boak

[mhaselden]

I s'pose anything's possible but that opens the aperture too much for my liking. I have a hard time believing that 243 Sqn would use a different colour for its fuselage band when 27 Sqn, which had the same role at the same airfield, used something akin to Sky Blue. I don't think we can definitively state that the blue applied to 27 Sqn's Blenheims was Sky Blue or a locally-mixed shade - the amount of under-exposure evident in the images coupled with the potential for additional changes as the original images were scanned makes it a tough call one way or the other...and neither can be totally (dis)proven.

I don't mean to be dismissive of Peter Bingham-Wallis's recollections but we all know how fallible memory can be (including my own). I think his "darker pale blue" could equate to something like the Du Pont Sky equivalent shade which would align with my general thesis...although I accept I may be reaching a little. On balance, though, I am inclined towards Sky Blue fuselage bands on Far East Buffalos.

To John's second question about Buffalo lightening, AFAIK this was only done by 21/453 Sqn. There are no known photos showing all the modifications so much of the following is deduction rather than proven fact. The antenna masts were removed, as illustrated by the photo of W8163, 'GA-P', after it was captured by the Japanese. Replacement of the wing bulges with flat plates would make sense. The bulges were there to accommodate the recoil of the 50cals and, since the .303 was a shorter weapon, there would be no need for the bulges so why not replace them with flat plate and reduce drag a little. Not sure what is meant by "removing cockpit clutter" other than the heater and associated ducting (which weren't needed) and the flare chute which was actually near the tail of the aircraft and was a sizeable hunk o' metal.

[LDSModeller]

As to national markings, there is some evidence that US manufacturers used decals rather than paint for the roundels. I don't think there's any direct evidence of this technique on Buffalos but it was certainly used on P-40s.

The Curtiss P 40E's recieved in April 1942 to the RNZAF, from RAF Stock ex USA had their roundels painted on in DuPont Insignia colours

Replacement of the wing bulges with flat plates would make sense. The bulges were there to accommodate the recoil of the 50cals and, since the .303 was a shorter weapon, there would be no need for the bulges so why not replace them with flat plate and reduce drag a little. Not sure what is meant by "removing cockpit clutter" other than the heater and associated ducting (which weren't needed) and the flare chute which was actually near the tail of the aircraft and was a sizeable hunk o' metal.

Certainly ridding the aircraft of the Flare chute (Mark's "hunk O' Metal ) would save weight

Cockpit clutter

The heating was direct from the engine and piped to the cockpit, with a splitter to guns and cockpit heating vent. The cockpit heating duct could be removed, don't know how much weight would be saved.

The ducting splitter & ducting would still need to be retained to heat the guns, and I would imagine even replacing with .303 MG's the heating component would need to remain for them.

Not sure what else you would remove from the cockpit without compromising the aircraft systems needed to operate.

Armour plating was a must.

The oxygen bottles and cage perhaps, if you were not going to flying above a certain altitude- most of the IJAAF flew reasonably high - so oxygen would be a must.

Regards

Alan

[Graham Boak]

Nothing wrong with a bit of pedantry, but in this thread Mark and I independently postulated the existence of a US "darker pale blue" as one way of "squaring the circle": of reconciling Bingham-Wallis's observations with the observed fact that the underside was darker than the trim. Your description of Dupont 71-061 shows that this suggestion has some merit. It doesn't have to have come from the Dupont company - other US paint companies would have prepared their own matches to the UK requirements so an equivalent is only to be expected (though its precise appearance is quite another matter).

[mhaselden]

Hi Nick,

Agree this is a thorny one. There are extant colour photos of P-40s and P-39s with pale blue undersides (IIRC you have a P-40 so marked on the header to your blog). The examples I've seen appear very pale and certainly not deep enough to provide the contrast we see between the fuselage bands and the underside colours, although I accept this is just my own highly subjective perception.

My nagging doubt about a darker sky blue shade is that it falls well outside the specified colour for the time the Buffalos were built (late 1940). There is evidence that Brewster was inspected and made changes to their markings - the underwing roundels for the first 60 or so airframes had oversized red centres but this was corrected on later airfames. I just struggle to see such a non-standard shade as a dark sky blue being acceptable. That doesn't mean it's impossible, I just think it far less likely.

One thing I've noted about US equivalents for Sky is that they all tend more towards blue-grey rather than the marked greenish tinge we commonly associate with MAP Sky. Is it possible that the US Sky equivalent applied to the Buffalos was perceived by Bingham-Wallis as a darker shade of sky blue? I wonder if that is a sufficient answer (and perhaps also accounts for the "AVG P-40s had grey undersides" mantra (sorry...realise that's another can o' worms opened!))? Maybe not but I fear we may never know definitively unless someone finds Brewster documentation or an artifact that can be used to prove positively what actual colour was used.

Cheers,
Mark

[mhaselden]

Hi Nick,

I'm probably not explaining myself very well. To my eyes the Du Pont colour reference chart shows 71-021 as having a markedly less green hue than MAP Sky. I'm not saying 71-021 is a blue-grey shade, merely that it's more blue-grey than MAP Sky. I've been told that Tamiya Sky is a decent match for 71-021, albeit the Tamiya shade is a little too dark...and compared to other Sky shades it, too, seems much less green.

I believe I'm correct in saying (given all the usual disclaimers) that the greater green content of MAP Sky generally makes it appear darker than Sky Blue on monochrome images. Given that 71-021 is more green than Sky Blue (albeit not as green as MAP Sky), then logically it, too, ought to be darker than Sky Blue on monochrome imagery...although, again, if my original premise about the appearance of these shades on monochrome imagery is incorrect then I don't really have a leg to stand on.

To my perception, 71-021 appears to match available colour photos of Hudsons, Bostons and P-400s in RAF markings. However, there was at least one RAF-marked Airacobra that had an unusual demarkation and an underside shade that looks rather different from other P-400s. The image below isn't the greatest but it illustrates the aircraft in question (it also appeared in one of Jeff Ethel's books):

I know the colours on the above image are out of whack but the version in Jeff Ethell's book shows it as a very pale blue. Part of the problem is that most paint charts for US equivalent colours date from 1942 or later. I've yet to see one from 1940 so it's really tough to extrapolate what colours were actually applied.

One final thought...if Brewster had used a stock shade that was darker than Sky Blue but not a direct equivalent for Sky, wouldn't other airframes from other manufacturers also appear in that shade? Using a stock, approved colour has to be cheaper than mixing your own...and Brewster was well known for doing things on the cheap (unless they asked for an equivalent to Sky but got a cheap knock-off...but, again, why didn't the same problem afflict other manufacturers?).

Sorry for the slightly rambling reply but your post asked a lot of questions...and I fear I'm still not explaining myself very well.

Cheers,
Mark

Edited July 26, 2014 by mhaselden

[gingerbob]

I believe (caution!) that the Airacobra pictured is the first painted for the British. I don't know whether any others were painted in this anomalous scheme (pattern, at least). I would be very cautious about taking its appearance as any kind of precedent. It could just as easily have provoked an immediate reaction of, "Sorry, old boy, but that's really not the look we were going for..." and a correction for all subsequent- the evidence of P-400s in the Pacific being a good example, since they'd presumably be in factory paint.

bob

[mhaselden]

I was simply showing it as an example of an American-built aircraft prior to Lend Lease that has what appears to be a pale blue underside. There are similar photos of at least one "short nose" P-40 wearing a very similar underside colour. The shade appears to be lighter than the Du Pont version of Sky Blue although, as noted, I think the Du Pont colour card post-dates the time the Buffalos and this P-39 were painted. Essentially, it illustrates the conundrum that is US-equivalent colours in the period prior to Lend Lease.

[Nick Millman]

Sorry that I appear to have wasted mine and everyone else's time trying to unravel some of that conundrum.

Bye.

Nick

[mhaselden]

Nick,

You certainly didn't waste my time. I'm not dismissing your thinking, simply trying to explain my own train of thought. As I've said all along, I have no definitive proof...and neither does anyone else. I think the 2 options on the table for Buffalo undersides are (1) a darker shade of Sky Blue and (2) a US equivalent to Sky that would appear darker than MAP Sky Blue. Either provides a tenable argument so it's down to the individual as to which theory is preferred.

Cheers,
Mark

[JohnMacG]

Mark, thanks for clearing the Buffalo lightening process. It's odd that only the Aussie units did this to their a/c.

I'm also coming round to your opinion of 'light blue' undersurfaces with a slightly lighter blue (sky blue'?) I/D band. I think I'll test this first tho' before applying it to my Buff.

I'd also like to exzxplain a bit about what I said about 'sky' earlier. I doubt if RAF S'pore ever got any supplies of real 'Sky' from the UK. Britain couldn't ship out desperstely needed ammunition (see Mark's book & BS vol1 for the shortages), but they could ship out paint?Seems highly doublful. BUT, it has been noted in other blogs about how strict the RAF Staff in S'pore were about complying with RAF camo & markings directives. All I was trying to get across was that IF RAF S'pore wanted to, they had the paint stocks on hand to produce a very resdonable 'Sky'. I'm not saying they DID, but they COULD have if they'd wanted to.

[John]

I continue to be impressed that this intrepid paint, Sky Blue, unwanted and unloved in its original role has nevertheless managed to add the fighter and bomber aircraft of Singapore in 1942 to the times and places that it shouldn't be but has nonetheless turned up!

John

[JohnMacG]

Of course, as soon as I finished writing my last post, I found thid colour pic of wrecked Buffs!

http://www.adf-gallery.com.au/gallery/453-Buffalo/Brewster_Buffalo_W8156_destroyed_in_Malaya_via_Gordon_Birkett

The I/D on the wreck on the right looks to my (terrible) eyesight, very like like 'sky'

[mhaselden]

That's a colourised still from a Japanese monochrome film (I believe the colourisation is modern not contemporary to the film) so I wouldn't rely on the colours portrayed.

Edited July 27, 2014 by mhaselden

[jimmaas]

John MacG wrote: Britain couldn't ship out desperately needed ammunition ... but they could ship out paint? Seems highly doubtful.

Good point but I seem to recall that while 1st Airborne was in desperate need of ammunition at Arnhem Bridge, they got an airdropped canister of...red berets. Wartime supply can be quirky.

[Graham Boak]

re paint supplies: we know that they had Sky Blue in stock, because there are high quality colour photographs of Blenheims wearing trim in Sky Blue. As for steadiness of supply, no-one is likely to commandeer supplies of paint en-route by claiming higher priorities. The same isn't true about ammunition. However, supplies of Sky are only required if you happen to believe that the Buffalos were painted in it, which I for one don't. It doesn't matter whether they had it in stock or not. I suspect they didn't.

I find it rather sad that these lesser-quality US photos of P-39s and P-40s are being used again in this argument. The arguments about those underside colours have been defeated so many times.