CR 42 Falco - Silver or Grey Undersides?

[Crimea River]

I'm well into building my 1/48 Italeri CR 42 and will depict it as the kit option MM4462 flown by Maggiore  Ferucci Vosilla in the summer of 1940. I have read a number of documents to determine the correct underside colour but remain hung up as to whether the colour was Grigio Mimetico or Silver (Aluminum).

 

The STORMO Colour Guide website identifies the above two colour possibilities but seems to only associate the use of the Aluminum colour underside with the C1A scheme as shown in this table:

 

 

The one period picture that I've seen of this aircraft shows convincingly that it carried the C1 scheme but contains no hints as to the underside colour, though the above table would suggest that it would be Grigio Mimetico. The Italeri instructions recommend a light grey as does a profile of this aircraft in the La Bancarella Aeronautica publication "#1 Ali E Colore FIAT CR 42".

 

My question arises because I understand that the use of the silver colour (possibly Auminum Butyrate dope) was a practice adopted in the manufacture of early CR 42s. MM4462 was built in November or December of 1939 according to my references and yet later production variants were reported to sport the silver undersides. In this document, British crash reports for both  MM5701 and MM6976 report that these aircraft had silver undersides and both were built in 1940. MM5701, now displayed at Hendon, has been repainted with Grey undersides. The recently revealed example at Duxford, painted as MM6976, appears to be grey as well judging by photos only (wish I could see it in person!). However, the restored CR 42 in the Italian Airforce Museum displays silver undersides and carries the s/n MM5643 and it was also a later production specimen than MM4462.

 

I can find no evidence to support the use of Grigio Mimetico on my aircraft other than the above table and this is not conclusive either. Does anyone know if there is more definitive information on the likely underside colour for MM4462?

Edited October 15, 2018 by Crimea River
Correction made

[Giorgio N]

You are touching a subject that has caused a lot of discussion in the Italian modelling community..  the 3-colour scheme is generally known to have had grey undersides but there is clear evidence that the CR-42s at least initially carried aluminum painted undersides. The reports you mention are part of this body of evidence but there are others.

Some are convinced that Fiat continued using aluminum undersides for longer than they were supposed to do and not only on the CR.42 as the BR.20s seem to have had the same aluminum undersides. Others will deny that aluminum undersides were ever used on the Falco.

Back to proper hard information, it is a fact that aluminum paints from two companies are included in a list of approved paints dated March 1940. A later table (second half of 1940) states that land based camouflaged types must have grey undersides... however in the same document it is stated that seaplanes must have overall grey surfaces and we know that no seaplane had overall light grey surfaces while they generally had aluminum surfaces. It is possible that this relates to the common use of the term "grigio alluminio" (aluminum grey) for the aluminum paint previously used.

The last bit of info is not too clear however there are clearer bits of info: a note sent to SIAI in February 1940 mentions the use of aluminum paint for use on the undersides of military types. Then in Sheet nr. 22/31624 issued by the direction of aircraft production, dated April 1941, it was stated that matt aluminum was to be prohibited from use on exterior surfaces, meaning that it was still in use even if grey was supposed to have replaced this.

Regarding the tables in the Stormo website, they are not official tables but are the result of the hard work of a number of researchers who started publishing their results in the mid '70s. They are extremely useful but all these schemes are classified for ease of interpretation by the modellers, there never was a scheme known as C1 in the '40s. Most information on the use of aluminum after the start of the war was unearthed in more recent years.

Based on the evidence above and discussions with other modellers who studied the matter more than I did, I believe that aluminum undersides were used for longer than previously thought. For a BoB CR.42 I would most likely go with this colour rather than grey.

 

 

[Crimea River]

Giorgio, this is a great summary and very useful to me. Thanks so much for this. It looks like I will go with the Aluminum undersides which is what I was hoping for anyway as there also seems to be a number of wide-ranging interpretations of what the Grigio Mimetico looked like. I can avoid all that now!

 

Thanks again.

 

Andy