Yak-7b Soviet winter camo finish

[Smudge]

Just looking for a bit of help with my Yak-7b. I am ready to do the winter camouflage, which I believe is a semi temporary white over the standard green top colour. I have painted the green camo top colour and hope to be able to show the white as quite worn, with the green coming through.

Question is:

Should I put the red Stars on first and roughly mask them off, or paint the white and put the Stars on afterwards. Also the aircraft I wish to model has a lot of red writing/patriotic slogans on the sides, would this have been painted over the white?

It seems to me that the finish would be quite roughly applied around the Stars etc, but most references I have show a very neat application of the Stars, and slogans etc.

Am I wrong?

[Troy Smith]

first Smudge

the uppers would be a disruptive pattern of black over green. Overall green is pre 1941.

read this

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1941-43/1941-43.html

will have detail of the pattern

this has some details on winter painting

http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/winter/winter.html

this is a good example of a winter finished Yak-7,looks to be in the spring thaw

You might want to post details of the specific scheme.

There is some evidence for the use of aluminium paint uppers as winter paint, as seen in this shot

The site I linked is the best source of information on VVS colours in English, there are a lot of misconceptions or plain wrong information still floating about though.

HTH

T

[Smudge]

Cheers, Troy. Thanks for the reply and all the information.

It would seem that although it weathered quite quickly and became very scruffy, a great deal of care was taken over the application of the Winter camo ie masking around national insignia and the various codes and slogans.

Thank you.

[warhawk]

When You mentioned "Yak-7", "slogan", and "winter cammo" in the same sentence, a light bulb just came on.

I am 90% sure You are making this question regarding this particular aircraft:

source: airfield.narod.ru

I am also keen on building that particular machine, so I have already started a discussion a while ago at Soviet Warplanes forum (please see HERE).

As You can see, the slogan looks painted over the white paint. Did it wash away with it on spring? Nobody knows, as there's only one photo in existence, and it shows a brand-new (or almost brand-new) aircraft.

As I am quite keen on messy winter cammos (and since the nose is not shown in any photos), I plan to finish it in a '50-50' manner - front fuselage with some weathering and paint washed away, and rear almost untouched (my logic is that most wear occurred on the surfaces at the front, since they were most exposed to airflow). The box-art of this kit sums up my point rather nicely (although I will remove less paint to make less contrast to the back)

 

Or maybe something even more subtle, like on this box (a re-box of the same kit)

 

Regards,

Aleksandar

Edited May 19, 2022 by warhawk

[Smudge]

Hi Warhawk, I am very impressed. Yes that is the aircraft I am attempting to model. I have the DAKO boxing which you have kindly posted above. Obviously it is depicted as being very 'weathered' which has inspired me to try and replicate this.

Thanks for the link, very interesting. Now I know what the slogan says! Some interesting points discussed.

I was not going to post these pictures because I have made a bit of a school boy error. I have seen some colour profiles which depict the upper surface colours as a green and very dark green. I now suspect that I should have gone with black as given in the kit instructions (and as pointed out by Troy).

Anyway, as you have been kind enough to show an interest, here is how I am getting on:

I have used a flash on my camera to take these shots, the colours are much darker. I will have to go over the dark green with some black. Then I intend to experiment a little with the 'hairspray method' to try and get some weathering effects.

Hopefuly I'll post some pictures in the RFI section when she's done.

Thanks for your help.

[Smudge]

Now looking much better in the black and green.

Obviously this will all be painted over with a coat of white. The white will then be chipped and rubbed away to reveal some of the underlying colours. So I think it is worth getting the colours correct.

Thanks for the help.

[warhawk]

Nice progress so far. Do remember to seal the underlying summer cammo with a coat of gloss varnish, because weathering that white distemper could damage the colors underneath.

Regarding very dark green, it is sometimes possible to find this on some early-war aircraft. Supposedly, some green was added to black at the front when camouflaging prewar solid green aircraft (mostly Yak-1s and LaGG-3s) to reduce the contrast of camouflage scheme.

No evidence of this dark green is documented of factory-painted machines...

But most photos of soviet aircraft appear to be taken with some kind of potato (the quality is awful), or are heavily retouched for printing process.

So it is near impossible to distinguish field-applied dark green from faded black.

[Smudge]

Cheers Warhawk. Thanks for the tip, a coat of varnish certainly won't do any harm.

I tend to agree with you about the quality of soviet photography. Interesting point about the field applied dark green, worth remembering for other projects, as I do have some Yak-1's and LaGG-3's to do.

I must admit I was originally sceptical about the solid black colour, but as you say, probably more of a faded black, so difficult to tell by looking at poor quality old photos.

Thanks, all the best.

[Troy Smith]

Cheers Warhawk. Thanks for the tip, a coat of varnish certainly won't do any harm.

I tend to agree with you about the quality of soviet photography. Interesting point about the field applied dark green, worth remembering for other projects, as I do have some Yak-1's and LaGG-3's to do.

I must admit I was originally sceptical about the solid black colour, but as you say, probably more of a faded black, so difficult to tell by looking at poor quality old photos.

Thanks, all the best.

3 points

1 - You are as likely to see a German photo, or more so, of early VVS planes, due to massive losses and lots of private cameras. These tend to be better quality and some are in colour.

There is a book on this, Barbarossa Victims: Luftwaffe Kills in the East

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/8373000658

also http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1940-1941/1940-41.html

2 - I don't know about 'dark green' Is there any proof of this? None that I know of.

This page deals with repaints http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1941-43rep/1941-43repainted.html

3 - The Finns used black and green, it works well and dispersal and low level camouflage.

The VVS switched to the AMT-11 grey/ AMT-12 dark Grey later on when the moved into more offensive operations, in the same way the RAF switched from Dark Green/Dark Earth to Dark Green Ocean Grey when the moved over to offensive operations.

There is still confusion about VVS colours, due to long standing mis information and then the work of one 'researcher'

If this is new to you, read this

http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1071.0

this is the book in question

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Soviet-Force-Fighter-Colours-1941-1945/dp/190322330X

Join the Sovietwarplanes site if you want more information on specific schemes.

[warhawk]

Hello Troy,

1 - You are as likely to see a German photo, or more so, of early VVS planes, due to massive losses and lots of private cameras. These tend to be better quality and some are in colour.

I agree, but for anything post-1942 it is a completely gray area. An example which first comes to my mind are late-war Yak-3 and La-7 fighters with single color upper surfaces. Debate on whether it was green or grey (and which green or grey) is still on... Not to mention that only recently it was discovered that there actually were Il-10s with cammo other than plain single-green upper-surfaces.

2 - I don't know about 'dark green' Is there any proof of this? None that I know of.

This page deals with repaints http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1941-43rep/1941-43repainted.html

Proof? No, but please read the description along the Lagg-3 photo on the page You have posted:

"It's undiscussed that the base color is green (probably gloss AII green) and the darker one is black, but it's not clear if other bands are made by faded black or dark green, possibly obtained by mixing paints, or fresh AII green."

So, when it comes to solid green aircraft that were already in service when the green/black cammo directive was introduced, anything is possible. My guess is that all units received the order to camouflage their aircraft with green and black IMMEDIATELY, but received official templates much later (when the hasty paint-job was already done). I have been following SovietWarplanes for a while now, and there are loads of interesting and one-off improvised schemes available on this site (e.g. Mig-3, Pe-2 and DB-3s).

Regards,

Aleksandar

[Smudge]

Just reviving this thread after putting it on the back burner, due to a bit of a kerfuffle here and there, trying to get this weathered look sorted.

 

Here's a link to the other thread I started in the WWII section. I posted a couple of pictures of my efforts, and asked for some input/advice. This was duly forthcoming, thanks chaps.

 

www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235004627-soviet-winter-camo-weathering/#comment-2398403

 

Following all the helpful suggestions, I decided on the following plan. Gloss coat of varnish over the camo scheme, light coat of acrylic white sprayed over the camo, not too much because as noted it looked too white before. Leave it for a few days to harden off, then I used a small piece of green scouring pad to gently rub away at the white, in the direction of airflow. I also invested in a fibre glass burnishing pencil tool, which was very good for scratches. Some weathering powders for exhaust stains. I also went a bit OTT on some muddy wheels (not sure about that). So here are a couple of pictures of the more or less finished article.

 

 

 

 

 

I am quite pleased with this now, much better than my original effort. I will be doing a few more, and a nice Il-2 on skis is next on the list.

 

Thanks for looking.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi all, 

the links to the old Sovietwarplanes site have gone. 

Now the site is here:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/index.html

the forum is here:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php

and here is a page about winter painting:

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/colors/winter/winter.html

 

Regards

Massimo