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Accuracy of AMMO by Mig Jiménez RAF WWII Colours


Nobby Clarke

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2 minutes ago, JackG said:

Golden High Flow paints

I would be interested to see how they work with models. They may well be the answer to certain colours that are well documented but hard to find as acrylic paints. I was recently struggling with something close to True Blue for a PT-17 and they could have provided it. Similarly some Italian colours are hard to find.

 

In the UK I notice that they are supplied by Jacksons art suppliers. I may well do a couple of tests in the next few months.

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I've read discussions on the correct shade of paint on various forums over the years from model railways to scale tanks.

Having served in the RN I can honestly state the colour of the paint depends on who was mixing it, which factory, and probably what day of the week it was, and how much of a rush was on that day. Even to this day in the RN there is a Devonport grey and Portsmouth grey.

In the case of model railway engines, BR green for instance depended on where the engine was serviced, it could be one of many shades.

In the case of military colours, in all my time in the hobby I've only seen one colour given a reference umber and that is SCC15 for tanks and vehicles.

 

As WW2 aircraft had so many manufacturers, who never got their paint from one definitive source, the chances of all the browns and greens being exactly the same were virtually nil.

So if you have slightly different shades between your spits and lancs, I would argue that is more "real" than them all being the  same shade !

 

NB:

Comparing colours using a computer screen is worthless fro proving a colour, unless everyone has set the white balance correctly, we will see different shades on our screens.

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1 hour ago, JackG said:

Well what Nick Millman did was measure with a photospectrometric device in L*a*b* and then converted to sRGB for his pdf document.  So I have is an inaccurate product?   Good to know, so no point in investing in a new paint brand and mixing colours.  Sorry for the waste of time.

 

regards,

Jack

 

Nobody said his document wasn't accurate. Far from it. The majority of WWII RAF colors in the RAF Museum volume do fall within the sRGB gamut, but a few (3) do not. Nick also gives Munsell and FS395 references where applicable, along with qualifying text about the accuracy of those matches. I strongly suspect sRGB was included because Adobe uses it in .pdf production, and it is the most common colorspace used on computer displays, allowing owners to view facsimiles of the colors on screen. Had it been a print-only document, it's entirely possible that sRGB values would not have been given. His "Combat Colours" volume on the A6M Zero, for instance, gives comparisons to FS395 colors, but not to sRGB. 

Edited by Rolls-Royce
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If you email Nick and let him know you have his "Combat Colours" volume on the A6M Zero, he will send a free pdf document with updated colours.  Apparently the printers forgot to include the changes.  Anyhow, with that pdf file, you can use an eyedropper tool to read his swatches and obtain RGB values.

 

regards,

Jack

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8 minutes ago, JackG said:

If you email Nick and let him know you have his "Combat Colours" volume on the A6M Zero, he will send a free pdf document with updated colours.  Apparently the printers forgot to include the changes.  Anyhow, with that pdf file, you can use an eyedropper tool to read his swatches and obtain RGB values.

 

regards,

Jack

Thanks, Jack. I already got that correction from him. I was going to mention trying an eyedropper tool to fubar57, but some sources end up dithered, especially scanned materials, and the sRGB values can change - sometimes considerably - from pixel to pixel as the eyedropper moves over the swatch.

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Yes, the pdf is required to be viewed in a program that deals with vector files, as opposed to say photo software that views images as jpegs, in order for Nick's swatches to remain as solid colours and not screened.  Don't know if it's possible with all photo software, but with Corel Photo paint, and using the eyedropper from the Fill tool, the eyedropper tool can travel across the screen monitor to the pdf opended with Adobe Acrobat Reader, and is able to read the RGB values.

 

regards,

Jack

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3 hours ago, Test Valley Models said:

I've read discussions on the correct shade of paint on various forums over the years from model railways to scale tanks.

Having served in the RN I can honestly state the colour of the paint depends on who was mixing it, which factory, and probably what day of the week it was, and how much of a rush was on that day. Even to this day in the RN there is a Devonport grey and Portsmouth grey.

In the case of model railway engines, BR green for instance depended on where the engine was serviced, it could be one of many shades.

In the case of military colours, in all my time in the hobby I've only seen one colour given a reference umber and that is SCC15 for tanks and vehicles.

 

As WW2 aircraft had so many manufacturers, who never got their paint from one definitive source, the chances of all the browns and greens being exactly the same were virtually nil.

So if you have slightly different shades between your spits and lancs, I would argue that is more "real" than them all being the  same shade !

 

NB:

Comparing colours using a computer screen is worthless fro proving a colour, unless everyone has set the white balance correctly, we will see different shades on our screens.

 

So, close enough for government work.

 

 

 

Chris

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I know that for some people attempting exact colour fidelity is important and researching it is one of the ways they get enjoyment from the hobby.

 

However, without a time machine none of us will know for certain the exact shade of paint used on our subject with the particular manufacturing, servicing, operating and lighting conditions of the day.

 

I like my models to conform to what I saw when I first set eyes on the subjects in Airfix catalogue, which will forever define for me what is correct.  Humbrol 29 & 30 are very good for this.  I know this doesn't help with the OP's question, but it may provide an alternative way of looking at the problem. 

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When you factor in scale colour, weathering, real time manufacturing and everything else mentioned above, at the end of the day, if the colour is close....close to what I want, I'm happy. If it looks off on someones computer screen, that's OK by me too. I live with it

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Ok, need to have a rant here.....Yes, there were many factories and different paint manufacturers and depends on the guy who mixes the paint and so on and so on and this and that and the other...

But when it comes to new production stuff the term "close enough for government work" does not equate to "give them any s..t you can  make and they'll be happy with it". There are standards and there are rules, and whenever a company does not supply a product conforming to the requirements, they are not paid the full amount... and companies do not like to be paid less than expected, reason why they generally try to supply stuff that respects the specifications. With some exceptions...

 

Were all batches of paint identical ? Sure not, but they would have been "identical" within the specified tolerances. Same for the all the variables that may occurr during the painting process: no two aircraft may have shown the same identical finish but they would have all been within a certain tolerated variation spectrum. Afterall all aircraft factories in WW2 Britain had representatives of the Air Ministry assigned to verify that the finished products satisfied the requirements, I doubt that any of them would have accepted a Spitfire in light brown and pea green...

The reality is that yes, there were variations but these were small and really most of us would not even be able to tell one from the other unless they could see one paint right beside the other.. and maybe many of us would not even be able to notice that. Again with some exceptions that are however generally known, like US Olive Drab in WW2.

Just to prove this, a few months ago I posted a colour picture of the wreck of a Macchi MC.202. This featured the fuselage from a Breda built aircraft and a replacement wing from another aircraft, this time built by Macchi... try look for it and then see if you can tell the difference between the base brown used on these parts. To me they look the same and yet we're talking of parts from two different aircraft, made by two different companies at different times, so for sure using paint from different batches and probably even paints from different manufacturers.

Now someone will say "just look at pictures, they show all kind of tints....". Problem is: how much of the variation is in the actual colour and how much is in the picture ? The fact is that the variables that can affect the colours in a picture of the time are even more than the ones that could have affected the colour on the real thing ! I've seen different copies of the same picture where the colours were all different from the other, which one should I trust ?

The above applies to aircraft off the production line, once a type is in service dirt, weathering and other elements can change the finish... at least if the aircraft had time to suffer from such effects, considering that many of our beloved subjects only served for a few months before being lost or replaced. Another aspect to consider is the effect of repaints after the entry into service, as local MUs did not always get all paints exactly as they should have been. Again though, many of these exceptions are known.

 

So what do I mean in the end ? The hobby is one thing, and we can all enjoy it as we like. Someone wants to paint a Spitfire with a certain green because he likes it ? Go for it, your model your choice. Someone follows the "scale effect" philosophy ? Not a problem, he'll lighten the paint. Others will do something different again, great.

The way aircraft production worked however was a different thing and I struggle to see why we should try and justify personal choices by bending the truth to give us an aura of "credibility" that nobody asked for. Someonw wants to paint their brand new Spitfire in puke yellow and pea green ? Not a problem, it's just a hobby, but don't try and apply the "paints are never exactly identical to the standard specified.." logic, makes no sense.

 

Ok, rant over, I feel a bit lighter now... even if I'll see this again and again and again....

 

Edited by Giorgio N
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On 31/03/2021 at 19:11, Test Valley Models said:

In the case of military colours, in all my time in the hobby I've only seen one colour given a reference umber and that is SCC15 for tanks and vehicles.

(I started this yesterday and got distracted....  )

Military colours? 

Then you need to look harder. 

https://www.mafva.org/british-vehicle-camouflage-1939-45/?v=79cba1185463

In the case of British Armour,  from just pre war to post war,  Bronze Green. Khaki Green G.3, SCC2, SCC.15, Bronze Green, with a list of all the disruptive patterns or the desert or Jungle colours.  All listed in linked with names and numbers.   

 

Or do you mean all military colours?  There are plenty of RAL numbers for German colours as well.

  

On 31/03/2021 at 19:11, Test Valley Models said:

As WW2 aircraft had so many manufacturers, who never got their paint from one definitive source, the chances of all the browns and greens being exactly the same were virtually nil.

So if you have slightly different shades between your spits and lancs, I would argue that is more "real" than them all being the  same shade !

 

From https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235049761-british-olive-drab-no15/page/2/

 

 

But there were paint standards.   From those we have the RAF museum paint chips.    

 

Sure, they did fade in service, and some variation occurred, but the point here is trying to start from what they should have been.   That is what the chip chart shows.

   

In the case here, the model paint does not resemble the standards.  

 

 

The wartime vs peacetime is also an interesting point, as there were so many more planes etc made in the war,  paint batches were just so much bigger.

There is documentary evidence about the variety of shades of US Olive Drab, but in the many discussion here there has not been wartime documents complaining about  British paint colour standards.  

Exactly the same shade, no, but certainly within a reasonable level of nearness to the standard, and has been mentioned by @Graham Boak aeroplane paint is not any old paint, by it's very nature it is a high quality.

 

As an aside, has anyone got any idea how many paint manufacturer's there were in the war?    

 

But back to the point of the thread, British Dark Green is dull olive green when new.   

The Mig colour is a bright yellow hued green. 

Humbrol 30 is a Blue Green. 


 

Some model paint companies, as alluded to by Jamie, use a 'near' green they have in their range,  or just don't know what they are doing,  Mike Starmer, in relation to the AK colours 

 

"Regarding the AK book.  To be honest I am livid and disgusted at the way they published the British section.  My submitted original text was requested to be shortened, which I did.  They then edited that without my knowledge. I sent complete sets of camouflage diagrams with copies of the official orders.  These orders were totally ignored.   Then redrew some of the disruptive diagrams in their own style and colours transposed onto mostly American vehicles, apparently the British didn't have any of their own.  To cap it they then applied a disruptive pattern from one tank type onto another type, it doesn't fit of course.  The ultimate was putting the pattern for the Greek based A10s onto a Crusader which never carried the design nor deployed to Greece.  Samples of their paint were sent to me for assessment.  None were accurate, not even close, which I reported back with larger samples.  New samples then arrived for testing, still not right.  In discussion I discovered that they were matching under 'daylight' lighting!  FGS are they not sharp or what?  I gave them up as a waste of my time, I told them that too.  Rant over."

 

In this specific case the MIG colours look awful, remind me of being 7 and doing a Hurricane in Humbrol 10 Gloss Brown and Humbrol 2 emerald green.... 

 

These are the Mig colours

 

51016524865_3157659e49_b.jpg

 

 

This is painted in Vallejo English Uniform for Dark Earth and Xtracrylix Dark Green, both are good visual matches to the RAF Museum book chart, taken in natural light, and the Dark Green in this looks a bit blue-grey, though the fabric parts got scrubbed with some light grey pastel to try to show the lighter fabric appearance seen on early war Hurricanes, *

 

40570325573_bf6fcfa07a_b.jpg

 

 

wartime Life magazine colour

 

3052829500_f050f88a61_b.jpgSpitfire in England by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

lighter fabric appearance seen on early war Hurricanes,  look at the wing, and note the lighter colours on the fabric vs metal areas, not sure if this is due to the fabric being a more matt surface, and photographing differently, or the paint fading on the fabric.

2527541716_722f54a43f_b.jpgHurricane by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

 

I appreciate you are reasonably 'new' here, so I hope I'm not coming over as too much of a twonk,   As @Giorgio N says, what a modeller does is up to them. 

 

I'm lucky enough to have paint chips and good colour vision to do visual matches

 

You can have a quick check of your colour vision here

https://www.xrite.com/hue-test

 

"The X-Rite Color Challenge and Hue Test

Are you among the 1 in 255 women and 1 in 12 men who have some form of color vision deficiency? If you work in a field where color is important, or you’re just curious about your color IQ, take our online challenge to find out. Based on the Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue Test, this online challenge is a fun, quick way to better understand your color vision acuity.

Just remember, this is not a replacement for the full test!"

 

The test used to have more squares, and was hard.   To get 0 I had to do it on a decent monitor.   

 

Hope of interest/use

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Giorgio - I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. 

 

I would like to add a comment about how hard it is to get as close to the original colour (when new!) as possible. The usual approach would be to get some "official" paint chip chart and mix your colours accordingly. Some universally recognized  sources of WWII paint chips are e.g.:

 

- The Official Monogram USN & USMC Aircraft Color Guide Vol.2 (1940-1949) [for USN/USMC] Published in 1988.

- British aviation colours of World War Two: the official camouflage, colours & markings of RAF aircraft, 1939-1945 [for RAF] Published in 1976.

 

These books have been out of print for ages. If you can get them second hand, they tend to be quite expensive, and so is the shipping. (If, and that's a big if, the seller is willing to post to your country. Many sellers do not ship to EU, or, as in my case, to Central Europe.) And buying second hand, you never know if the paint chip chart hasn't been removed from the book. Moreover I do not care much for the books, having access to other sources, I just want the paint chip chart. This has been extremely frustrating for me personally - see e.g. my recent post on USN paints: 

 

I do not trust paint manufacturers to get the colours right. (With the exception of Colourcoats, which are, however,  basically unobtainable in my country 😢.)

 

What we really need are accurate paint chip charts made widely available for a reasonable cost. So far the best I can do is mix colours using the "Real Colors of WWII - Aircraft" book as a reference, which is (to me) far from optimal.

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I'm going to point out some facts about real-life paint manufacture and either the reader will understand and "get it" or will not understand and are in no position to contradict me.

 

1) Usually camouflage colours are fairly low saturation colours because these blend in better with nature. They're seldom bright and bold. Low saturation colours are normally manufactured by adding coloured pigments to a base made from inexpensive white or white and black pigments.

 

2) Colour pigments are expensive. The expense varies depending on the specific pigment, but they're expensive.

 

3) The only way to over-saturate a colour so much is to substantially over-dose your base with the expensive colour pigments. I'm not talking about a few percent more or less - that causes minor differences which you only confirm the presence of with one swatch adjacent to another - I'm talking more in the order of a double dose to get something you obviously look at and think "woah".

 

4) In the case of colours like dark olive, these are mostly white, black and ochre (which is relatively inexpensive for a colour pigment) sometimes further tinted with a bit of red or green (which are often very expensive).

 

5) There can certainly be variances in a manufactured paint, but these tend to be greatly overstated, i.e. used as a ready made excuse for all sorts of mistakes. Ultimately, the only way a manufactured paint can end up so oversaturated is to have dumped in a vast amount of the expensive pigments, if not adding in new additional pigments in large quantities not expected in the recipe. Frankly, it's difficult to see how any manufactured paint could end up so drastically off target, particularly in the over-saturated sense, by any business that wasn't actively trying to bankrupt itself by roasting through obscene quantities of pigments like chrome green which were already expensive at the start of the war and in particularly short supply during.

 

6) I'd venture that most of the "there was a war on, you know" type apologists for such spectacular errors probably don't have any actual experience of what is and isn't possible when mixing different proportions of 2,3 or 4 pigments when 2 of those are usually black and white just to make your base to tint. You simply cannot end up with a Humbrol 30-esque bluish green using only the ingredients to make olive - i.e. you'd actually have to sabotage it by introducing if not blue then an obviously bluish green. Same goes for that bright green Spitfire above - you can't achieve that with black, white, ochre and a touch of red - you'd need to fire in a lot of bright green pigment in to get that saturated on an overly-light base. It would be more tan-like just using the basic olive green ingredients which only turns obviously olive when tinted enough with black. Put another way, with a fixed number of pigments in various ratios you WILL end up somewhere within a certain envelope, and usually when colours like this bright green are discussed it's because it's well outside that envelope.

 

The point of all the above? In essence it's harder to make a credible explanation for how such a colour might have been arrived at in a real-life paint manufacturing environment than it is to demonstrate that someone would have had to go to a lot of trouble to get it so far wrong. That is harder to rationalise than just getting it closer to correct.

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Personally, I would like the colors I use to begin as the closest things to the originals that the manufacturer can make, if reference samples exist (in this case, they do). The manufacturer should allow me to make the decisions on lightening, darkening, tinting, etc from that point.

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Interesting test @Troy Smith. I'm 63 and scored a "0". I'm using an HP laptop. Looking at your bottom two photos, the Spitfire green looks green and the Hurricane green looks a darker shade of grey. I just finished this last night using Tamiya XF-81 Dk. Green 2 (RAF) and Mr. Hobby Aqueous H72 Dk. Earth. I'll say straight up that the lighting is off but the colours are close to what I really see, a wee bit darker but not by much

 

blackadder57_210401_606555725a0bf.jpg?v=

Edited by fubar57
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There has been a lot of interesting discussion in this thread about Dark Green, but frankly I have more of a challenge with creating acceptable Dark Earth. I would really like to get a hue that resembles the DE in the colour photo of the Spitfire from LIFE magazine that @Troy Smith pasted in his post above. 
Does anybody have a paint good choice for Dark Earth with the yellow/orange tint which this photo exhibits?

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2 hours ago, Nobby Clarke said:

but frankly I have more of a challenge with creating acceptable Dark Earth. I would really like to get a hue that resembles the DE in the colour photo of the Spitfire from LIFE magazine that @Troy Smith pasted in his post above. 
Does anybody have a paint good choice for Dark Earth with the yellow/orange tint which this photo exhibits?

posted on page 1

 

Vallejo Model Color 70.921 English Uniform is a very good match for Dark Earth

70.873 US Field Drab is a bit redder, and it the one on the right.

32651236687_e7b4c9f041_b.jpg

 

left - English Uniform, right, US Flat Earth

33716726818_7fc0961a12_b.jpg

  

The image shows the English Uniform as being slightly orange as opposed to the slight green hue of the chip, but to the eye they look closer.    I don't know of a closer out the bottle Vallejo,  my paints are not to hand, IIRC there is another that is close, but slightly more 'biscuity' which maybe good for lightly faded Dark Earth.

 

Gunze H72 is rated

comparison courtesy of @Tail-Dragon

"

I did some tests with Tamiya and Gunzie a while ago ...

 

Tamiya Acrylics - RAF Dark Earth paint mix - comparison

 

I have been trying different mixes to get an acceptable Dark Earth color with Tamiya Acrylics, and have come up with one that satisfies me, see what you think.

A is Tamiya XF-52 Flat Earth
B is Gunzie H72 Dark Earth
C is Tamiya custom mix that appeared in Hyperscale, of 1:XF-72, 1:XF-49, 1:XF-55
D is my mix of Tamiya 2:XF-49 Khaki and 1:XF-52 Flat Earth
E is Tamiya XF-81 RAF Dark Green

The tops and bottom of the test card are brush painted, the center darker portion is after a coat of Future.

For comparison, I'm using the paint chips in the RAF museum's book "British Aviation Colours of World War Two". Photos were taken under natural cloudy sunlight 

49510560393_696cf2c798_z.jpg

"

 

 

there is a comparion under incandescent light in the link.

 

 

HTH

 

 

 

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9 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

I'm going to point out some facts about real-life paint manufacture and either the reader will understand and "get it" or will not understand and are in no position to contradict me.

 

1) Usually camouflage colours are fairly low saturation colours because these blend in better with nature. They're seldom bright and bold. Low saturation colours are normally manufactured by adding coloured pigments to a base made from inexpensive white or white and black pigments.

 

2) Colour pigments are expensive. The expense varies depending on the specific pigment, but they're expensive.

 

3) The only way to over-saturate a colour so much is to substantially over-dose your base with the expensive colour pigments. I'm not talking about a few percent more or less - that causes minor differences which you only confirm the presence of with one swatch adjacent to another - I'm talking more in the order of a double dose to get something you obviously look at and think "woah".

 

4) In the case of colours like dark olive, these are mostly white, black and ochre (which is relatively inexpensive for a colour pigment) sometimes further tinted with a bit of red or green (which are often very expensive).

 

5) There can certainly be variances in a manufactured paint, but these tend to be greatly overstated, i.e. used as a ready made excuse for all sorts of mistakes. Ultimately, the only way a manufactured paint can end up so oversaturated is to have dumped in a vast amount of the expensive pigments, if not adding in new additional pigments in large quantities not expected in the recipe. Frankly, it's difficult to see how any manufactured paint could end up so drastically off target, particularly in the over-saturated sense, by any business that wasn't actively trying to bankrupt itself by roasting through obscene quantities of pigments like chrome green which were already expensive at the start of the war and in particularly short supply during.

 

6) I'd venture that most of the "there was a war on, you know" type apologists for such spectacular errors probably don't have any actual experience of what is and isn't possible when mixing different proportions of 2,3 or 4 pigments when 2 of those are usually black and white just to make your base to tint. You simply cannot end up with a Humbrol 30-esque bluish green using only the ingredients to make olive - i.e. you'd actually have to sabotage it by introducing if not blue then an obviously bluish green. Same goes for that bright green Spitfire above - you can't achieve that with black, white, ochre and a touch of red - you'd need to fire in a lot of bright green pigment in to get that saturated on an overly-light base. It would be more tan-like just using the basic olive green ingredients which only turns obviously olive when tinted enough with black. Put another way, with a fixed number of pigments in various ratios you WILL end up somewhere within a certain envelope, and usually when colours like this bright green are discussed it's because it's well outside that envelope.

 

The point of all the above? In essence it's harder to make a credible explanation for how such a colour might have been arrived at in a real-life paint manufacturing environment than it is to demonstrate that someone would have had to go to a lot of trouble to get it so far wrong. That is harder to rationalise than just getting it closer to correct.

Jamie, this is one of the best posts I have read on here in a while for joining up bits of information, some I knew,  but not seen put into a coherent description like this, which was one of those magic eye moments, when a picture appears when you finally look at the right way...

  

It's very easy when dealing with 10 ml bottles or cans to forget the real paint came in gallon cans,  and real aircraft are rather large,  so the sheer amount of paint need is a colossal use of raw pigments, let alone other petrochemicals.    

Just a visual reminder,  think of the amount of paint just on the planes visible here

 

5502318916_299bd29732_o.jpgLancaster production. by Etienne du Plessis, on Flickr

 

and then think that 7,000 + Lancaster were built, let alone other bombers, 22,000 Spitfires, 14,000+ Hurricanes  and then amount of paint needed becomes a vast undertaking. 

 

The nature of a limited amount of pigments in use is a great point, the plane folks maybe be interested to know the army was forced to changed their tank colour from Khaki Green G.3 to SCC 2 brown in 1942 in order to conserve green pigments for the RAF!

 

I know you now about pigments, from having made up samples of RN colours for your research,  but I'd not then shifted that over the world of aircraft colours, what pigments do what, how much they cost and the effect on colour saturation. 

 

This would be worth a separate pinned thread for reference in these occasional bunfights, especially for the  ""there was a war on, you know" type apologists for such spectacular errors probably don't have any actual experience of what is and isn't possible when mixing different proportions of 2,3 or 4 pigments when 2 of those are usually black and white just to make your base to tint."  

 

 

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I fully agree with Jamie's post above regarding the (lack of) variety in actual war-time colour applications. And for me the answer to the original question remains that these Ammo colours are awful - especially the green is not only wrong but a very unpleasant green.

 

One thing I would like to add though is that in 2017 there was a build of a 1/32 F-104 Starfighter on a Dutch modeling forum, and the guy obtained some actual paint that used to be used to paint these aircraft. He managed to get these paints to work quite well for applying them to a model, but the model ended up looking all wrong - all colours appeared too dark. Thread is here (not making it up ;) ) but unfortunately the photos have disappeared: https://www.modelbrouwers.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=49223&start=60

 

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Not just the Army but also the Navy had to drop the use of green in their camouflage schemes, particularly the Western Approaches.

 

I must  heartily agree with Claudio, and my particular hate is the "good enough for government work".  This appears to be the exact opposite of the truth: government contracts include standards that have to be maintained.  In the civilian market any kind of shoddy product or workmanship can be offered to the customer.  Of course at a lower price, and indeed often greater variety.  Not of course at the level of airliner production (which is largely "government" controlled anyway via legislation or agencies) but in the general consumer market.

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