Help needed: Malta Spitfire MkVc reference pics

[Putty Animal]

On 05/04/2021 at 22:44, alt-92 said:

Figures. A repaint, dockside or MU, would have been more time consuming and - fair to say - a good bit neater, likely using spray guns. 

The hangar photo of BR124 shows brush strokes. 

 

I was thinking about that.  I imagine a carrier captain would be reluctant to allow his hangar decks to be filled with explosive spray paint fumes in a war zone and would opt for brushes instead.  
Likewise a station commander probably would not look too kindly on aircraft in his care being painted by hand with the biggest and ugliest brushes.  

[alt-92]

I was thinking more along the lines of not having the time before sailing (tight schedule!) to wait for a respray of all the aircraft - possibly already onboard. 

There are spray guns onboard for normal maintenance work I'd guess, for partial repaints of serviced USN a/c... why they didn't use these on the trip out to Gibraltar is probably due to having to shuffle aircraft around. And with an extra complement of Spits without folding wings on board, that would have been near impossible to do.

[Graham Boak]

Gibraltar is irrelevant here, Wasp sailed direct from Glasgow to the launch of the Spitfires.  I believe that she did visit Gibraltar after at least one of the two trips, which needs confirming, but not on the way out.

 

To answer a (much) earlier point, the articles covering Wasp's trips are in the December 2015 and January 2016 issues of SAM,   Articles on later supply are in October and December 2018, but with rather less reliance on primary sources.  Sorry for the delay but I was convinced that the excerpts I had did include the issue reference.

[alt-92]

41 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

Gibraltar is irrelevant here

Not suggesting they dock there. You have to sail past Gib to get into the Med, then the fun really starts.

 

So, hypothetically speaking, the time to use spray guns and reshuffle the aircraft is on the part of the trip from Glasgow, through the Irish Sea, out towards the Bay of Biscay, well before you come into range of possible sustained air threats.

[esaum]

I am working on a series of Beurling’s Malta spits and searched quite a bit about colour schemes... I tend to side with Paul Lucas on most stuff. There are two pictures of BR128, a Bowery delivery, floating around—one is actually BR12x but the same scene from another angle shows the full serial–and on these the plane was visibly roughly overpainted. Overspray marks show on the roundel for both light and dark colours. And when one looks at other planes in the background, BR128 definitely appears to have been sprayed in a much darker colour than the surrounding spits dark shade. I think this points towards Dana Bell’s suggestion that a dark blue colour was tested while the lighter colour oils have been the non-specular blue. Presumably both these would have been available as aircraft grade paint. These pics would definitely line up with that theory.

 

 

 

[Graham Boak]

The aircraft were not painted on the carrier but before loading.  Read Paul Lucas. research, from the National Archives including the actual correspondence about colours.   The idea that a crowded carrier hangar could be used for complete respray jobs is unrealistic.

 

Non-specular Sea Blue was not available until one year later.  The photos that show Spitfires and F4Fs together show the F4Fs in a much lighter shade, completely consistent with the standard USN Blue Gray, as also seen on the bombers offloaded to be based at Hatston.

[brewerjerry]

1 hour ago, esaum said:

I am working on a series of Beurling’s Malta spits and searched quite a bit about colour schemes... I tend to side with Paul Lucas on most stuff. There are two pictures of BR128, a Bowery delivery, floating around—one is actually BR12x but the same scene from another angle shows the full serial–and on these the plane was visibly roughly overpainted. Overspray marks show on the roundel for both light and dark colours. And when one looks at other planes in the background, BR128 definitely appears to have been sprayed in a much darker colour than the surrounding spits dark shade. I think this points towards Dana Bell’s suggestion that a dark blue colour was tested while the lighter colour oils have been the non-specular blue. Presumably both these would have been available as aircraft grade paint. These pics would definitely line up with that theory.

 

 

 

Hi 

     instead of non-specular blue, came into use in 1943 

       maybe  you are thinking of Blue-Grey (FS 35189) 

 

  but personally i follow dana bell's suggestions regarding US paint 

 

  cheers

    jerry

[Dana Bell]

Hi Graham,

 

Just a note - I can still be wrong about US Navy paint being applied to Spits, but we're not talking about Non-specular Sea Blue.  In addition to the well known standard Blue Gray camouflage, the Navy was standardizing a color called Dark Blue to replace Blue Gray (which was considered too light).  Thousands of gallons of Dark Blue were produced and applied, though the color is not yet mentioned in any known popular books on Navy aircraft camouflage.  Two things support the possible use of Dark Blue on Spits: Wasp was one of two carriers supplied with quantities of Dark Blue as part of the original experiment and page 200 of Chris Shores' Malta: The Spitfire Year notes that the application of blue paint was still underway when Wasp sailed.

 

I don't claim that the Spits were painted Dark Blue, but since other sources were unaware of the existence of the paint or its presence on the carrier at that time no one could include its use as one of the possibilities.  It certainly bears consideration.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dana

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Dana Bell said:

the Navy was standardizing a color called Dark Blue to replace Blue Gray (which was considered too light).  Thousands of gallons of Dark Blue were produced and applied, though the color is not yet mentioned in any known popular books on Navy aircraft camouflage. 

hi Dana

 

is this anything to do with the chips in the  

The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide

Vol 2 1940 - 1949

John M. Elliott Maj. USMC(Ret.)

 

 

 

the last 3, all Blue Gray,  the  middle one of the three is the darkest/bluest one [labelled 3 on the chart]  the color you are referring too?  It looks bluer than the Sea Blues and Insignia Blue under artificial light. 

 

Or is this another color as well?

[ilj]

Related to these Malta spitfire colours questions...

 

is there any evidence for Malta 1942 spitfire Vs having the 'FAA temperate sea scheme' (dark slate grey and extra dark sea gray over sky, or thereabouts)?

 

if yes, what is this evidence?

[brewerjerry]

Hi

    An interesting ipms canada 2002 thread

 

  well worth a read 

 

it mentions aircaft painted on board 

 

https://www.ipmscanada.com/2002/01/02/malta-aircraft-colour-discussion-take-two/

 

   cheers 

      jerry 

[Dana Bell]

15 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

hi Dana

 

is this anything to do with the chips in the  

The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Aircraft Color Guide

Vol 2 1940 - 1949

John M. Elliott Maj. USMC(Ret.)

 

 

 

the last 3, all Blue Gray,  the  middle one of the three is the darkest/bluest one [labelled 3 on the chart]  the color you are referring too?  It looks bluer than the Sea Blues and Insignia Blue under artificial light. 

 

Or is this another color as well?

 

Hi Troy,

 

I never spoke with Jack about the three Blue Gray chips in his book, so I don't have details about what he found.  When Jack got out of the camouflage writing business he passed me his documents and reference materials, but I never found anything discussing the chips.

 

That said, Chip 1 looks very much like the November 1941 chips seem in the National Archives.  Chip 4 resembles Sea Gray/Extra Dark Sea Gray, which specified as a substitute for Blue Gray in the ANA agreements; I've never seen proof that the substitution ever was or wasn't made at factories or in the field.  Chip 3 may be derived from Dark Blue, but I can't compare Jack's book to the tiny chip of Dark Blue at the Archives.  Dark Blue was a richer purple-blue than Sea Blue or Blue Gray, lighter than the Sea Blues and darker than Blue Gray.  However, by December 1941 the Fleet was complaining that Blue Gray was too light to be effective leading to many attempts to find a darker camouflage paint - Jack's Chip 3 might be one of those attempts or a reasonable match for Dark Blue.

 

There are many color photos of Navy aircraft in a darker camouflage paint over Light Gray undersurfaces - these pix might have been poor representations of Blue Gray or they might have shown Dark Blue.  While I've seen records showing extensive use of Dark Blue, I still can't point to a photo and say - with any certainty - that we're seeing Dark Blue instead of an over-saturated color photo.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dana

[Dana Bell]

4 hours ago, brewerjerry said:

Hi

    An interesting ipms canada 2002 thread

 

  well worth a read 

 

it mentions aircaft painted on board 

 

https://www.ipmscanada.com/2002/01/02/malta-aircraft-colour-discussion-take-two/

 

   cheers 

      jerry 

 

Hi Jerry,

 

I hadn't seen that discussion before - a great thread.  It is significant, though, that no one (including myself) was aware that Dark Blue was so widely available at the time, or that it was stocked on Wasp.  The more documents that we find at the Archives, the more we realize that not everything we know is true.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dana

[Troy Smith]

36 minutes ago, Dana Bell said:

Chip 3 may be derived from Dark Blue, but I can't compare Jack's book to the tiny chip of Dark Blue at the Archives. 

At present, or just not feasible.

36 minutes ago, Dana Bell said:

Dark Blue was a richer purple-blue than Sea Blue or Blue Gray, lighter than the Sea Blues and darker than Blue Gray.  However, by December 1941 the Fleet was complaining that Blue Gray was too light to be effective leading to many attempts to find a darker camouflage paint - Jack's Chip 3 might be one of those attempts or a reasonable match for Dark Blue.

 

at bottom of page 191, notes on blue gray chip 3, 

Listed in text but believed to be an interim color in the preparation of the three tone scheme and not used for the two tone scheme.   in the 'remarks' section just above (3) 5.5PB 2.6/3.3

which is a Munsell reference.  

"Dark Blue was a richer purple-blue than Sea Blue or Blue Gray, lighter than the Sea Blues and darker than Blue Gray. "

Having taken the book outside,  the above is a good description on 'Blue Gray 3' chip.     

 

on a personal aesthetic note, it's a very pleasing color to my eye, and I'd quite like the look of a Spitfire in this.

[brewerjerry]

On 8/14/2021 at 6:45 AM, Dana Bell said:

 

Hi Jerry,

 

...................

 

On 8/14/2021 at 6:45 AM, Dana Bell said:

The more documents that we find at the Archives, the more we realize that not everything we know is true.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dana

Hi Dana 

                I fully agree

                   cheers

                     jerry