John Thompson

Agreed! Especially some of the ones from 1/72 set No.24, USSR WWII aircraft. Others may have their own preferences... John

Comparing AMT-11 and AMT-12 from the Hataka Blue set with the same colours from the Akan aqueous acrylic range, Hataka AMT-12 is nearly identical, maybe just a tiny bit lighter than Akan. Hataka AMT-11 is also slightly lighter (more bluish) (anyone watched Yellow Submarine lately? "Are you Bluish? You don't look Bluish...") than Akan, but that's not a bad thing - apparently these colours faded quickly in service. John

I don't know about hanged paint mixers, but I do know Russia had colour tolerance limit samples. I don't recall whether these were available during the GPW, or whether they only came into use with the Albom Nakrasok in 1948. Massimo will be able to answer that question, as I'm sure so will Kari and Psy. John

Especially surprising, considering that Jan Polc's other job/side hustle is Avalon Decals. John

That certainly seems to be a good idea, but good luck getting your hands on one - my understanding is that only two copies exist. John

Sour grapes - instead of splitting up the Tempest pie three ways among them, why couldn't one of them be really imaginative and release a series of - yes, you guessed it - Yak-9/VK-105s, or I-16s? Or both? John

Interesting, and expensive! John

If you're not on Arma's newsletter emailing list, you wouldn't have seen this request, which might be of interest to you - your kind thoughts will be appreciated by them: "One of our distributors asked me to describe Arma Hobby kits in one sentence in English. It is tough for me as I am not a native speaker, and because I am generally not good at writing. Maybe you can help me and send your proposals by email? It would be so helpful." John

Wait - what?! A Nazi copy of an Ilyushin Il-2, with a weird tail? With that pedigree, this just might have been the superweapon that turned the tide, had it reached production... John

Unless I'm mistaken, that would be the book by Migliardi and Hornat, "Colors of the Falcons", previously recommended by Graham Boak, although IIRC Migliardi and Hornat might have made some minor revisions. My understanding is that this was closely based on a translation of the work of Vakhlamov and Orlov, a link to the original of which was posted by Sergei Nikitin. Regarding the He-115 paint analysis linked by Troy, it's too bad Nick Millman no longer posts here - his input might be helpful. I know nothing about paint chemistry; my only comment is that Colour No.6, "Mystery Bright

The purchase quantities keep climbing - looks like Arma will have to hire an extra shift to run the molding machines! Who said, "A new, accurate 1/72 P-51B/C would be a licence to print money"? Seems they were right! John

The 1/72 P-51B/C - at last! Good choice, Arma! And check out the detail on that 1/48 Hurricane - very impressive! John

Here's a very useful reference that provides all the necessary basics, by Massimo Tessitori, from his Sovietwarplanes.com site: https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/colors/quickguide/quickguide.htm John

This book was based on Sergey's second link, by M.V. Orlov and V.S. Vakhlamov: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1C6tmax8U1g-WTOi-u8ScJtQ3YMMnCCAe?usp=sharing ...and quite useful, even though it's not in English. Thank you for the link, Sergey! John

Probably due to the use of two different types of paint on wooden or fabric surfaces (AIIz) and on metal surfaces (A-19). This is particularly visible on some "Operation Barbarossa" photos of early MiG-3s. John