Italian markings questions (SM.79 Sparviero)

[TonyOD]

I don't suppose we have any experts on WW2 Italian markings here?

 

I've bought the Italeri SM.79 Sparviero kit and I fancy the all the green scheme at the bottom of the pic below, but there a couple of things that aren't clear.

 

1. There are two pairs of fasces roundels for the wings, one that's transparent and one with a white background. There are five schemes included with the kit, all of which have white roundels on the upper wings (like the one at the top) except this one, which the callouts show as having transparent roundels. It doesn't ring true somehow. Is this a mistake?
2. There's a fuselage band that is shown to have a speckled pattern on it, but no indication as to what these colours are. Normally I avoid mottles and speckles like the plague but this is quite a small area so I'll give it a go. Any thoughts on what colours might be involved.

 

Any advice gratefully received! Grazie in anticipo! 

 

 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

The fasces with white background were the original markings at the start of the war. At some point these were replaced with the version in black only for better camouflage (I have to check a book to find when this happened). So there's nothing wrong in having both in the decal sheet, early war aircraft would have had the white background while later in the war the black type would have been used. An aircraft with dark green uppersurfaces would have been relatively late in the war, so the clear background fasces sound right... and there's proof of this in this colour picture, showing one aircraft from the same 279a Squadriglia as the option proposed by Italeri:

 

http://www.ww2incolor.com/italian-forces/S79-279-GADURRA.html

 

This picture also shows the dark mottling used to reduce the visibility of the white band. The caption mentions the use of charcoal to reproduce the mottles and this likely refers to the use of the so-called "nerofumo", that is carbon black pigment that was used for various things by the Regia Aeronautica. It is perfectly plausible that this was indeed used on these aircraft as there are indications of the same being used for the same purpose on other types. You can find anbother picture of a 279a Squadriglia aircraft with a similar treatment of the band among these pictures:

 

http://www.eaf51.org/Photo_22_S.79.htm

 

As you can see in this link, the band was not always mottled ans in general we can think that at some point all aircraft had a clean white band, meaning that you can probably leave the band in white and claim that this is how the aircraft was when first repainted in green... Speaking of green, the use of the same green paint for the mottling can not be excluded, however other pictures of aircraft where the band was completely obliterated seem to show a darker colour compared to the green of the upper surfaces. I have on a book a better copy of the colour picture above but it's still very hard to tell the colour used on the band, may be green or may be black. The fact that Verde Oliva Scuro 2 is a very dark green does not help

Edited March 22, 2021 by Giorgio N

[TonyOD]

This is fantastic, @Giorgio N, many thanks. The amount of expertise out there on BM (and people's willingness to share it) never ceases to amaze me.