P-51D stars and bars

[Andre B]

Hello,

Wonder a little about Lifelike P-51D decals and those stars and bars used on some aircrafts. It seems that the white paint was omitted or washed out and/or the ensignia only painted in dark blue. Whats the story behind this?

 

http://www.hyperscale.com/2018/reviews/decals/lifelike72038reviewdc_1.htm

 

Cheers / André

 

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

White over painted with light gray? Not that unusual procedure on VIII AF P-51 B and C types to minimize contrast between insignia white and camouflage paint. It does not make sense on NM aircraft although these Mustang could have been originally camouflaged and OD and NG paints removed later. Cheers

Jure

[silberpferd]

Hi,

 

As Jure said, toned down national insignias were very common on camouflaged aircrafts, fighters or bombers, in Europe, and somehow the practice survived on NMF aircraft, but to a lesser extent.

 

 

Laurent

[Andre B]

Toned down insignias together with D-day markings and yellow or red nose and/or tail doesn't make sense on an NMF aircraft. And why only the fuselage insignias and not the bigger one at the Wing?

 

But it makes possibillities for another different P-51D to build. And where they all painted blue and (neutral) grey? Was there blue and NM ones as well?

 

Nice pictures Laurent!

 

Cheers / André

[silberpferd]

2 hours ago, Andre B said:

 And where they all painted blue and (neutral) grey? Was there blue and NM ones as well?

I don't think I ever saw an insignia with blue and natural metal, always with white or grey.

 

Laurent

[thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Andre B said:

Toned down insignias together with D-day markings and yellow or red nose and/or tail doesn't make sense on an NMF aircraft.

Ahhh...that presupposes that everything military organizations do makes sense. Not exactly my experience of the phenomenon!

As to the insignia...I have of course seen only the white stars and bars applied to sea-blue naval aircraft...but that was the Navy. I've never seen Air Corps aircraft with anything but the full deal, regardless of background, at least until after the war.

As to the toning-down of the white areas of the insignia, I will offer the following...for whatever it may be worth.

An ex-fighter pilot in the ETO once explained to me that 'toned-down' insignia was more a matter of visibility to your own fellow pilots than to the enemy. From a side or profile angle, your guys are going to instinctively recognize your a/c type...so less need for high-contrast insignia to keep from getting 'friendly fire'; and toning-down might conceivably make you less of a target to the 'bad guys.' Seen from above or below, however, you want that ID as clear and quick as possible to your own forces...who might be getting ready to dive on what they think is an unwary target.

Can't say whether all of the above was some kind of well-informed 'doctrine' he was taught, or just a cock-eyed personal opinion...but he was closer to the argument than I was.

 

Cheers

 

[Toryu]

Grey bars are simply less visible from a distance, even on natural metal aircraft, therefore you find them rather on the side markings than on the top ones.

Btw, NM is not such a bad 'camouflage' as it sounds.

Cheers, Michael

[Andre B]

For sure Lifelike Decals has given us decals for some colourfull and different aircrafts compared to the more seen and familiar aircrafts as Big Beautiful Doll and Lou IV from the same squadrons and groups.

 

Cheers / André

Edited December 16, 2018 by Andre B

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

I just realized there may be more to this than I first thought;

A well known colour photo of Ferocious Frankie. Insignia white of the national marking looks a bit stained, perhaps fading towards ivory a bit, but certainly not gray. Upper part of the first white invasion stripe, visible just right of wing's trailing edge, shows the same, or perhaps even worse signs of wear than the national marking.

Another photo, taken a minute or so later during the same photo session.

BW version of the previous photo. White of the national insignia looks gray, although, judging by the previous two photos, this is not possible.

Any thoughts? Cheers

Jure

 

 

 

[Andre B]

1 hour ago, Jure Miljevic said:

Hello

I just realized there may be more to this than I first thought;

A well known colour photo of Ferocious Frankie. Insignia white of the national marking looks a bit stained, perhaps fading towards ivory a bit, but certainly not gray. Upper part of the first white invasion stripe, visible just right of wing's trailing edge, shows the same, or perhaps even worse signs of wear than the national marking.

Another photo, taken a minute or so later during the same photo session.

BW version of the previous photo. White of the national insignia looks gray, although, judging by the previous two photos, this is not possible.

Any thoughts? Cheers

Jure

 

 

 

Looks like fuelstench from the cap behind the cockpit. There is also stench of hydraulik fluid (?) from the hole in the fuselage (in the White D-day band i front of "H").

 

Cheers / André

[Jure Miljevic]

Agreed, André, but by examining the third picture only one could easily mistake dirty insignia white for light gray or neutral gray or even think national insignia consists of blue outline only, as apparently was the case with Lifelike decals. Well, I guess this makes our hobby interesting. Cheers

Jure

[11bravo]

FWIW, I recall reading about this subject ages ago in a long defunct airplane magazine.   Supposedly, the grey painted stars were favored by southern pilots to celebrate their confederate heritage (grey was the color used by confederate troops during the US civil war).   No idea if this is true or not but to be honest, I'm kinda leaning towards this.   Simply greying out the fuselage stars on a brightly painted, NMF aircraft really does nothing to reduce it's visibility. 

 

If 8th AF was really concerned about this, they would have eliminated all the bright colors used on noses, fins, flamboyant personal markings, etc. 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2018 by 11bravo

[Bedders]

I'm not really convinced by the idea that stars were painted grey. I think it's more likely to be 'grime' accumulated over weeks or months of service. Invasion stripes appear white because they were fresher paint, as too is the white H on the rudder in one of the photos above.

 

Justin

[Smithy]

Although not the broader USAAF I have an interest in the 4th FG and intrigued but this I've had a look through both of Fry's histories of the group, Hall's book, both of Speer's, Davis' book and Bucholtz's and there's not one aircraft with grey stars and bars. There are plenty of examples though of D models with stained insignia from operational use.

 

For the 4th FG at least I think it's safe to say that insignia were white and on long service airframes there could be instances of staining, but not deliberately grey painted stars and bars.

[11bravo]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

Although not the broader USAAF I have an interest in the 4th FG and intrigued but this I've had a look through both of Fry's histories of the group, Hall's book, both of Speer's, Davis' book and Bucholtz's and there's not one aircraft with grey stars and bars. There are plenty of examples though of D models with stained insignia from operational use.

 

For the 4th FG at least I think it's safe to say that insignia were white and on long service airframes there could be instances of staining, but not deliberately grey painted stars and bars.

While I think some of the pics above could be simply stained white stars, there are multiple examples of uniform grey stars and bars on 8th AF Mustangs.   Including this one (that was posted above):

I don't think there is any way you could make the case that Circle-H simply had dirty national insignia.   It's extremely uniform and there is no sign of that dark grime anywhere else on the fuselage.  Why would the hard working ground crew have taken the time to wipe off the metal fuselage and left the stars and bars filthy?

[Smithy]

As I mentioned I only have an interest in the 4th FG and from looking at examples in the published books relating to them it's safe to say that it almost certainly didn't happen in that group. Please note I wasn't speaking about any other FGs in the 8th, only the 4th.

[Smithy]

Not grey, but of special note in relation to a discussion of unusual star and bar insignias to the 4th FG is Lt Diamond's D of 335 on pg 64 of Fry's "The Debden Eagles" (1970). Perhaps it's the film but it's taken over the Ardennnes around Christmas 1944, so a stark snowy landscape, and what should be the white of the insignia is exceedingly dark, far darker than a medium grey.

Edited December 17, 2018 by Smithy

[silberpferd]

8 hours ago, Bedders said:

I'm not really convinced by the idea that stars were painted grey. I think it's more likely to be 'grime' accumulated over weeks or months of service. Invasion stripes appear white because they were fresher paint, as too is the white H on the rudder in one of the photos above.

 

Justin

 

you can see the difference between repainted insignia and stained invasion stripes on this pic.

 

Laurent

[11bravo]

11 hours ago, silberpferd said:

 

you can see the difference between repainted insignia and stained invasion stripes on this pic.

 

Laurent

Great picture!  Nice detail shot that shows the grey insignia and overall weathering.  That is a filthy bird and someone sure did a pretty horrible job painting that squadron ID!   

 

You can also see that the underwing insignia remains in it's original colors.  To me, this completely discounts the theory that painting out the star was done as a camouflage measure.   Why would they only paint out the fuselage insignia and leave the wings untouched?  

[Jure Miljevic]

Because it is, at least the one on lower surface, in a wing's shadow and thus not that conspicuous? Because ground strafers were keen to show their colours to friendly AAA as early as possible and some P-47 units, and if I am not mistaken at least some of P-51 fighters too, had oversized national insignia under both wings? I still believe that at least some toned down insignia were carry-over from days of camouflaged aircraft (or fighters, delivered in NM, and later camouflaged at group or squadron level with OD, MG, RAF DG or whatever paint they managed to get their hands on) but my guess is as good as anybody else's. As thorfinn indicated, expecting one universal answer to this question means attributing a level of rationality to military which it just does not posses. Cheers

Jure

[Andre B]

Or it is just a question of white in different shades? "Greyish" and "yellowish" white?

 

Sheers / André

Edited December 18, 2018 by Andre B

[Bedders]

Or perhaps different qualities of paints that fade/weather in different ways over time.

 

Justin

[noelh]

I pulled out my copy 'The mighty Eight in colour'. Which includes the photo above and several others of the Group and yes there is a distinct tonal difference in the insignia. 

But for the rest of the photos in the book it looks more like ingrained dirt. Some are pristine white, some look greyish. 

Even today it's hard to keep your whites from turning grey. 😉

 

I definitely think it's mainly a build up grime on a Matt white.  

 

[Toryu]

You find toned-down stars and bars in nearly every 8th AF Mustang group. The colour was either neutral grey or some light grey from British sources. White stars were very conspicious from a distance as I mentioned earlier, even compared with NM finishes. Top and bottom insignia didn't receive this treatment because the angle of fighter-to-fighter encounters would not reveal them too much unless you fly directly overhead. Other (white) markings were less problematic because only stars and bars would reveal the nationality and also make a perfect aiming point. This 'camouflage' was not a left-over from earlier olive/grey times but appeared on NM Mustangs. There are instances of olive-coloured bombers having toned-down stars on the upper wing because white destroyed the camouflage against the ground.

 

Cheers, Michael

 

[Smithy]

4 hours ago, Toryu said:

See two examples of grey stars below (4th FG and 7th PG) and compare with the conspiciousness of white stars on the picture of the 339th FG.

 

Cheers, Michael

 

 

I don't think you can definitively say that the insignia on Bucholz's Suzy is uniformly grey, rather the bow facing bar is miscoloured. Exactly the same can be seen on several 4th FG aircraft, two examples being: MacFarlane's VF-L (Fry, "The Debden Eagles", 1970, p.56) and Glover's VF-B (Davis, "4th FG in WWII", 2007, p.70). Both these are clearly caused by grime and staining from operational use. Suzy exhibits exactly the same characteristics as the other two and the darker colour is almost certainly due to staining. This is further reinforced by other photos of 4th FG Ds showing the same staining on the forward bar, eg Goodson's, Lines', Higgins' Willruth's, etc.

Edited December 19, 2018 by Smithy