Spitfires repainted in India - Brown vs Dark Earth

[Aidrian]

Malcom Laird refers to Alan Peart saying the 81 Sqn Mk VIII Spitfires were repainted from the desert scheme to a Dark Green and Brown over light blue scheme soon after the Squadron arrived in India. The process took rather  longer than it woudl have in most other places - the RAF base in Karachi where they were painted was apparently still largely keeping to a peacetime routine, including weekends off and officers being expected to dress for dinner. 

 

Peart remembered the brown colour as being very different to the European Dark Earth, being more of a chocolate colour.  Does anyone have any ideas about what this or the light blue could have been - did India have a sligthly different set of colour standards perhaps using locally sourced pigments?  The RAAF foud the RAF colours tended to fade and chalk badly in tropical and semi-tropical climates and developed their own standards; paint that didn't last well in Australian conditions would be very likely to have the same issues in India, but I dont recall ever seeing any reference to other than standard Air Ministry shades being used.  

 

I've got an Eduard MkVIII coming towards the top of the pile...  

[Graham Boak]

I've seen vague reference to such, but also (I think) comment to the effect that RAAF paint didn't get out there.  In view of the difficulties in transport this can be understood.  There's no good reason why paint shouldn't have been made in India, the value of saving precious shipping space would encourage that.  But this does not add up to any confirmation.  Sadly decent colour film also failed to make that precious shipping space, and surviving b&w photos are often not too brilliant: or at least not brilliantly reproduced in books so far.  It does seem that the DE is darker than one might expect... but this is not proof.  However, just what colour was chocolate?  Specifically wartime and prewar.  Implicitly what we would now call dark chocolate, I feel.  Given that model paints offer a bit of variety in the shade of DE, I'd be inclined to choose a darker one and point to the reference. 

 

Have you got one of the Eduard Mk.VIIIs with the broad chord cannon bulges?  (I ask because I haven't, despite wanting to do one of the options provided, which did.)  It's perhaps an open question whether 81 Sq's examples did or not.  Their aircraft in the desert war surely did, but I suspect they were re-equipped before transfer.

[Stefaan]

Hi.

As a general Rule Lewis & Berger from South Africa supplied paint to India, according to the AMO specs from the UK.

If there was a shortage anything could have happened.

 

[Aidrian]

Thank you both

 

Graham, 

Chocolate to me suggests a purplish shade of brown rather than a yellow- or red- brown; Cadbury's had been selling milk chocolate since Edwardian times, so I might not use my better half's fancy cooking chocolate as the ultimate colour reference. However it is still based on someone's memory long after the fact, though it clearly was different enough in colour to make an impression. 

 

Wings ...If I had one I woudl offer a swap, but on checking I'm sorry but both the Mk.VIIIs in my stash have the narrow cannon fairing. Would it be possible to very carefully excise the whole cover with wider bulge from an early Mk.IX?  I am reasonably sure the 81 Sqn machines all had the narrow fairing as these were all brand new machines collected in Cairo on their way to India 

 

Stefaan

 

Your mention of Lewis and Berger jogged a memory of something you posted earlier with regard to SAAF colours in east Africa; one of these orders refers to "Dark Brown" rather than "Dark Earth"; it might be a simple clerical error but all the other colours are given their usual names which suggests that Dark Brown was not *necessarily* quite the same as Dark Earth.    If the Karachi painters use SA sourced paint, then perhaps the light blue might be more toward Sky Blue than Azure Blue.  

 

[Scimitar F1]

11 hours ago, Aidrian said:

repainted from the desert scheme to a Dark Green and Brown

Interesting- the logical way to repaint would be to overpaint the Middle Stone with green and keep the Azure blue and DE. They may have needed a repaint. 
 

To be honest I would be surprised if you can find anything definitive. There are colour photos of SEAC Thunderbolts that may help - they do show a DE looking brown.

 

Bottom line if you can justify it to yourself go for it - it is unlikely you will come across someone who actually knows.

 

 

 

[spitfire]

More discussion on this subject here

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Graham Boak]

It's an interesting question about the upper wing bulges, but not one with an easy answer as far as I know.  Yes, 81 Sq. collected new-to-them Spitfires in Cairo, but if they came out of ME store (as they surely did) then that doesn't mean they were any newer airframes, just hopefully unused.  They did however appear to have retained the extended wingtips.  I haven't seen any description of when the bulges changed, nor when the wingtips reverted to standard on production, but the change to LF would seem to be a reasonable time for the latter. (The mod number for the bulges was issued 1 month ahead of that for the M66,  (November 1942 to December 1942.)  The first airframe with the Merlin 66 was JF663, although a fair number of examples were built with the M63 later in the JF batch.  So I'd look at the serials in these aircraft to provide some kind of hint. 

 

81 Sq was to write off (or at least rewing) a number of these Spitfires after their first over-confident encounter with the Japanese, so the question then becomes whether this same paint was applied to all Mk.VIIIs in the theatre - which seems a good assumption to me.  I'm inclined to believe his comment despite the delay in noting it, but would point out that if the Cairo-issued Spitfires had been waiting around in the desert for some time, then they could be a wee bit faded.  This might call for a new paint overall, and new paint, even if to MAP standard, might well look darker than what he'd been used to.

 

None of which is an enormous amount of help, but can provide justification for a variety of options, including using the kit straight off without changes.

 

Thanks for the thought, but I do have a number of surplus blisters from other kits.  I'm not sure whether they will be quite as accurate as the ones Eduard provide, but I'm sure that they'll do.  Removing the upper blisters is pretty basic kit-modding.  If all these fail there's always Milliput.

[Stefaan]

Hi Aidrian.

The document that I posted before did mention names but I don't have it at hand--- sitting at work. The colours used by us were the same as the AMO specs  in MAP standard as used in the UK. I have only seen Sky Blue from Lewis & Berger's documents, never azure blue. Azure must have been used via stock that went to the Desert and Italy. Our local paints were used in our OTU's and Empire Training scheme. I am working through the orders and may come upon Azure. Sky blue underside  yes, and I am sure the 'Dark Brown' was Dark Earth, as those colours refer to their orders. If they used Dark Earth is another question. One should look in the Indian archives.

 

[Aidrian]

I hadn't expected a definite answer, but one of the joys of this forum is that someone will occasionally share some really obscure piece of information and be able to back it up with AMOs, factory mod numbers or extracts from log books.  I had half-hoped to find out that the RAF in India had inadvertently acquired large stocks of GWR chocolate paint due to a bit of a mix-up at the factory, but nice fresh paint versus badly desert-faded seems plausible.

 

The other "joy" is that someone else  will occasionally point out something you have completely missed despite it staring you in the face for several weeks; I am glad I asked the question now rather than waiting another couple of weeks due to an answer to an unasked question. On doing a quick sanity check, the 81 Sqn machine I had I mind probably did have the broad cannon fairings after all, and Eduard never offered this as an option on the Mk VIII.  I am now off to rummage though the spare parts bin. 

 

 

[Graham Boak]

My understanding is that one of the Eduard Mk.VIII options does provide the wide blisters, although I don't know how they achieved that nor which option.  Mine is the weekend RAAF/Desert option, but as a JF serial with pointy tips I'm pretty certain this should have the wide blisters.  This does leave me wondering whether Eduard offer Mk.IX variations that also should have broad blisters, or indeed should be the F. Mk.IX which differs in other ways.  Not that Eduard would be the only company to offer markings for a sub-variant that differs from the kit provided in some noticeable way: it is a sign of the progress made in the hobby that we notice these things and that companies are, at least to some extent, prepared to deal with them.  The more I study aircraft, the more I realise how much variation there was, even in mass-production types.  I know that not all modellers find this quite as fascinating as I do.

 

Not that there aren't times when I know that the model I'm making falls short of any ideal, but it is good to be able to adjust the kit so that they do match the history just a little bit better.

[Seahawk]

12 hours ago, Aidrian said:

I am now off to rummage though the spare parts bin. 

 

You might need to rummage no further than the set of spare upper wings included with every Airfix 1/72 Spitfire Vc kit.  Disclaimer: have no idea whether the AX cannon panels will fit Eduard kit (and am currently marooned miles away from all things modelling) but we'll never know until someone tries.  An alternative source might be the upgrade set that Pavla (used to?) do for the Hornby-era Spitfire IX: that too included a set of broad blister cannon access panels.

[Giorgio N]

I've never seen an Eduard Spitfire VIII box with the wide blisters, the way they have moulded their kits would mean dedicated upper wing halves. Would be interested in one if they ever issued this variation.

Of course they made upper wing parts with the wide bulges for their Mk.IXc early, but these would not be 100% accurate for a Mk.VIII without modifications. At the same time they would sure fit perfectly

On my future early Mk.VIII I'm planning to remove the narrow bulge and use a spare part from the AZ kit but should an Eduard VIII with wide bulges exist it would make things much easier...

Edited February 19, 2021 by Giorgio N

[Graham Boak]

4 hours ago, Seahawk said:

 

You might need to rummage no further than the set of spare upper wings included with every Airfix 1/72 Spitfire Vc kit.  Disclaimer: have no idea whether the AX cannon panels will fit Eduard kit (and am currently marooned miles away from all things modelling) but we'll never know until someone tries.  An alternative source might be the upgrade set that Pavla (used to?) do for the Hornby-era Spitfire IX: that too included a set of broad blister cannon access panels.

Just done that: it is not a perfect fit but pretty near.  A small amount of work is required but not a lot more than removing the narrow spine from the Eduard would need.  Of course this assumes that you are not making your Airfix kit with the standard tip, but otherwise it would only need to saw off the Eduard tip and the job's done.  However the access panels are not moulded separately on either, perhaps you are thinking of the old Airfix Mk.Vc?

 

 

[FinnAndersen]

As @Giorgio N, I've not seen an Eduard VIII with wide cannon bulges in 1/72.

As a matter of fact my ignorance, I did not know that such aircraft existed. 

Of course, you cannot use the IXc early wing, as it doesn't have the wing tank, so I believe the best way is to use some modelling skills as I once did with a Hasegawa IXc in order to make a Vc. The shorter Merlin was homemade and the wide bulges came from a Red Roo (?) set.

 

/Finn

[Graham Boak]

Perhaps the M.IX early kit was what i was thinking of - it also wouldn't have the shorter ailerons but how many times over the years have they been sorted?  Did the kit also have the oil cooler inlet appropriate for the early Mk.IX and the short (but larger than Mk.V) air intake?  If it had these it really might be worth considering rather than having to bodge something up from another (lesser) Mk.IX.  But I am trying to reduce my stash size...

[Aidrian]

Sorry folks,  I should have been clearer right from the start that I was thinking in terms of quarter-inch scale. 

 

I could nobble the covers from an "early" Mk.IX kit which inlcuded a complete wing with the wide cannon bay fairings as an option, but my current stash of Mk. IXc Overtrees only includes "late" version with the narrow cannon fairings and the early version is listed as temporarily unavailable - not surprising given the recent fire. I think I have some left over bits from various ICM and SH kits in the pile; if they will work I will use those,  otherwise I'll wait for the Eduard early Mk.IX to become avaialable again.  

[gingerbob]

I had been thinking they did a special boxing in one scale, and looks like I was only half right:

 

(hopefully link will take you to quoted Eduard instructions, but the thread is worth looking at anyway, I think)

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/?app=core&module=system&controller=content&do=find&content_class=forums_Topic&content_id=235016173&content_commentid=3215848

 

Edit: no, it didn't- I was aiming for my post at bottom of page 2.  There's a comment on page 1 concerning Eduard's admitting they weren't doing the big bulge VIII wing.

Edited February 19, 2021 by gingerbob