Colour Film of SAAF Gladiators (Also Bombay) (Link)

[Dave Fleming]

Broqwsing the SAAF site that gingerbob posted in another thread, I found this:

SAAF Gladiators in East Africa

Stills here:

http://johnguguhewitson.yolasite.com/film-screen-shots.php

Let the colour debates commence!! :-)

[Graham T]

Gauntlets too. Nice find!

[Nick Millman]

Looks like Dark Green and Light Earth (or Midstone), e.g. the Tropical Land scheme.

Who would have thunk it!

[Mark Mackenzie]

On 9/3/2012 at 7:16 PM, Nick Millman said:

Looks like Dark Green and Light Earth (or Midstone), e.g. the Tropical Land scheme.

Who would have thunk it!

n/m

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie

[Nick Millman]

Tropical Land scheme was Dark Earth and Mid Stone as quoted by Robertson in 1954 and as given in the clarification to AMO513/41 issued to HQ No 41 Group on 3rd August 1941, 3 weeks after the July AMO was issued.

No, that was Desert scheme and we have been through all that. You began by claiming that Tropical Land scheme never existed officially and accused Graham of inventing it! These Gladiators do not appear to be in Desert scheme . . .

[Paul J]

The Gauntlets look like to be in green/ earth as too the Bombays with black lowers. But the film quality is very old and faded. Digitally remastering the film will help with colours but not 100%.

I'll have to go back and watch it all through at lunch time purely for entertainment though.

Not really full colour though is it.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Paul J

[Dave Fleming]

Looks like Dark Green and Light Earth (or Midstone), e.g. the Tropical Land scheme.

Who would have thunk it!

I'd say it looks like Temperate Land Scheme, allowing for the age of the film. Undersides are interesting.

[Nick Millman]

I'd say it looks like Temperate Land Scheme, allowing for the age of the film. Undersides are interesting.

I wouldn't.

[Super Aereo]

Great find, thank you for sharing.

[Mark Mackenzie]

n/m

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie

[thx6667]

I can't believe one of those guys didn't hold up an FS swatch as they were being filmed, I mean its not too much to ask for is it?

Well one wing underside appears to be black so I think we can all agree on that. Other wing? White or washed out sky or perhaps even light blue?

[Nick Millman]

I can't believe one of those guys didn't hold up an FS swatch as they were being filmed, I mean its not too much to ask for is it?

Very few of the MAP standard colours have close or useful FS equivalents despite what you might read on "comparison sites" even before you factor in paint degradation. Without examining the painted surface how it looks in the film is just how it looks in the film.

[johnnyboy]

Many thanks for posting this, Did anyone notice the crashed P40 looked very similar to the recent discovery in the Desert in Egypt even down to the damage to the nose and how the propeller was placed...

[Test Graham]

Just to remind people that a biplane should have both Dark Earth and Light Earth visible.

[thx6667]

Very few of the MAP standard colours have close or useful FS equivalents despite what you might read on "comparison sites" even before you factor in paint degradation. Without examining the painted surface how it looks in the film is just how it looks in the film.

I was being a shade facetious.

At least no one has said that footage is clever CGI fakery.

[Dave Fleming]

Just to remind people that a biplane should have both Dark Earth and Light Earth visible.

SHOULD being the appropriate word (although from memory, the 4 shade upper colours was fairly short lived)

[Test Graham]

It is visible in at least one photo of a 615 Sq Gladiator after the return from France, so that puts in into mid-1940 at least, and that's in the UK. I don't offhand have a date for the official removal of the "shadow shading", but then neither do I know for sure just how Gladiators were painted in the Middle East. There are a number of photos showing what appears to me more than two colours on uppersurfaces/sides, so for those that retained Temperate Land colours then the "shadow shading" appears to fit those photos best. There remains the problem of what, if any, "shadow shading" was used for Gladiators repainted in Dark Earth/Mid Stone.

[thx6667]

There is "should" and "did" as in Eagle's Sea Venoms in Suez should have had black/yellow stripes, but some of them did have roundel blue/yellow.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Jonathan Mock

[Mark Mackenzie]

On 9/4/2012 at 6:16 AM, Graham Boak said:

There remains the problem of what, if any, "shadow shading" was used for Gladiators repainted in Dark Earth/Mid Stone.

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie

[Hornet133]

Mark II Gladiators were painted at the factory in the 'Shadow Shading' scheme and there are plenty of photos (such as the 3 Sqn RAAF ones) showing that the scheme was retained in the M.E till at least early 1941.

Most (if not all) the 3 Sqn RAAF airframes retained their original colours until they were replaced by Hurricanes in Feb 1941.

Steve Mackenzie

[Mark Mackenzie]

On 9/3/2012 at 7:38 PM, Nick Millman said:

No, that was Desert scheme and we have been through all that. You began by claiming that Tropical Land scheme never existed officially and accused Graham of inventing it! These Gladiators do not appear to be in Desert scheme . . .

n/m

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie

[Test Graham]

The use of the term "Desert Scheme" to describe Dark Earth and Middle Stone uppersurfaces is clear, unambiguous and most of all official. The term "Tropical Land" is linked in AM documentation with Dark Green and Middle Stone. As we have a need to describe such a set of colours, however they came about, and no need to double up with a name for the Desert Scheme, I see no advantage and considerable risk of confusion if we use the term "Tropical Land" when we mean "Desert".

It is still possible to remember that those before us may have used the terms differently, and bear that in mind when consulting period comments. However, clarity of communication must be placed first. Like in the use of the term "duck egg blue", contemporary terminology is not always unambiguous.

[Mark Mackenzie]

On 9/4/2012 at 9:58 PM, Graham Boak said:

The term "Tropical Land" is linked in AM documentation with Dark Green and Middle Stone.

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Mark Mackenzie

[stevehnz]

Well heck, I thought I knew what I meant but now I'm not so sure. FOR THE SAKE OF THIS POST, I shall refer to the dark green/middle stone scheme as Tropical land because it doesn't seem to have another name & it sure isn't desert scheme & .......I really don't want to go down that road.

Looking thru the stills from this clip, I'm seeing quite a number of Gladiators (frames 48,103 & 112 with an (what appears to me) obvious horizontal demarcation which I'm assuming to be a Temperate Land scheme with shadow colours, ie dark green & earth on the top & light green & earth on the lower. It does appear to me to be a fairly high demarcation & I'm wondering if the shots from in front (frames 25 & 26) that I think are the ones that Nick is refering to are the lighter shades of this scheme appearing to be the reputed Tropical Land Scheme. Just wondering.

Steve.

[Nick Millman]

Nick the terms "Tropical Land Scheme" and "Desert Scheme" were both used to refer to the same colour scheme of Dark Earth/Mid Stone . . . etc.

But you have not established that Tropical Land scheme and Desert Scheme referred to the same thing except by intimation. I really don't want to go all over this again because you persistently disregard the points I make and just continue to insist on your own interpretation of what is incomplete evidence. At first you insisted that there was no officially stated Tropical scheme and that it was a term invented by Graham. Now you are insisting that it was a term used to describe the Desert scheme. It might have been used that way by some but not in the AMOs.

You need to ask yourself why AMO A.513 of July 1941 only uses the term "Tropical Land scheme" to describe Dark Green and Midstone and refers neither to Desert Scheme nor to a combination of Dark Earth and Midstone. Then, following the correction, AMO A.664 of July 1942 insistently clarifies the "desert scheme" as being dark earth and middle stone at Para 3 (iv). No mention of Tropical Land scheme. Why not just reiterate that Tropical Land scheme was in fact Dark Earth and Midstone? That would have been easier to follow since the A.513 table had already used that term. It is clear however that the one term was meant to supercede the other, whether or not the colours were originally intended to be the same. The correction suggests that there was confusion at the receiving end and one might surmise that the two terms were perceived as being different colour combinations (rightly or wrongly) and the AMOs were attempting to eradicate a misperception. There is such a thing as tropical desert but somehow I don't think the Air Ministry meant that at the time.

The settlement of Temperate Land as a viable overseas or "tropical" scheme might have been rooted in the practical discovery that Dark Green and Midstone offered little advantage over Temperate Land once that scheme had weathered.

Bruce Roberston was dealing with bomber colours, not the colour of fighters but even so the second paragraph in his account is slightly ambiguous. He states that Dark Earth and Midstone suited desert terrain in North Africa and then says that "at the Eastern end, in Iraq, Palestine, Persia, etc., a tropical scheme was suited and used". Why make the distinction? Why not just say that Dark Earth and Midstone was used everywhere in the Middle East except Gibraltar?

A belief can be formed and a convention arise in practice without it being enshrined in an order. Besides, A.513 specifically permits local permutations. There is just not enough evidence for the conclusion you are trying to establish, not least from a superficial recognition that 'tropical' is not 'desert' and A.513 referred to 'overseas'.