RAF PRU Pink?

[Jazzie]

34 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

As suggested, why would paint not have been important?  

Why would paint, as stated both for concealment and corrosion control not be part of the supply chain? 

 

It was also during WW2  made in vast quantities. 

 

In one of @Mike Starmer  books on armour camouflage he points out that alone required 8,000 TONS of paint a year.   That's the army, not the airforce or navy.  

 

It was a massive amount of materials and time.   This is one of the reasons the USAAF dropped camouflage and as much painting as possible in late 1943,  the airframes were not expected to last a long time, and if camouflage was needed, it could, and was field applied.   

 

Back to the UK,  It was very important, and demand for certain pigments to make green was such, with aircraft getting priority over the army and navy, who had to stop using green pigments mid war. 

 

What is hard is making up specific matches, and the actual colours used very carefully worked out, with subtle but important hues.   I found this out after finding very few RAF acrylic paints were anything like the RAF museum book chips.     

 

Hope of interest.,

Troy,

My initial comments were in reply to someones comment which i believe were about stores getting to the front line, and while paint is important, the quantities an aircraft manufacturer requires make their supply a top priority, MUs are next and front line bottom of the list as other supplies are more important. 

 

You mention 8000 ton of paint for the army, but how many Litres does that equate to? 3.15 to 7.25m? If similar quantities are supplied to the Air Ministry, that all of a sudden becomes quite small when the sheer numbers of new aircraft and repair sections being churned out are considered. 

 

Im not one that is too hung up on the difference between model paint manufacturers attempts at replicating colours, although i stopped using Hu30 a long, long time ago. There are so many things that have an effect on a real finish coat that start with what base you use, but i believe in WWII, most paints were cellulose based, and things can be starkly different through 2k, acrylic, other water based, and we of course use enamels, acrylics, lacquers, acrylic-laquers and im sure there are more on both sides!

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

6 hours ago, Jazzie said:

stuff

 

I feel your arguments are based on incredulity rather than any evidence. Indeed I've seen no evidence that paint supply wasn't a priority.

 

Now, to be clear, there ARE differences between touching up and repainting.

 

We can clearly see in certain contexts, that paint was not universally a priority.

 

The roundel above has been touched up with red rather than blue. It's probably just red dope on a fabric patch to make the aircraft airworthy, actually. In this very limited context, paint was not a priority and make do and mend was the approach. The bomber was not sent to an MU, stripped of all its fabric, reskinned, redoped and repainted because of a hole in the wing.

 

The thing is that's not scalable. Indeed there is precious little actual evidence of "make do and mend" full scale repainting.

 

There are certainly some examples of significant efforts and they tend to stand out because they look rubbish. These could include crap repaints on Hurricanes which are subject to at least one famous photograph, there are D-Day stripes of course, and there are the improvised/bodged spaghetti schemes added to certain British fighters in North Africa. I've seen photographs of the Fairey SeaFox aboard HMS Ajax during the Battle of the River Plate which had bodged camouflage added to the metal skinned parts only using something from the ship's paint locker.

 

There are many, many claims of improvised paint use but the quantities necessary to perform the claimed tasks are extremely challenging in their own right. The need to weigh the aircraft after every big paint job and recalculate its CoG remains a very valid operational concern in wartime too - especially when unsuitable paint tends to erode away from the front of the aircraft first. Paint coming off a spinner painted with some random stuff found at a car body shop is one thing, but a whole aircraft with a significant weight of paint added systematically unpainting itself from the nose inflight leading to a rather tail-heavy aircraft is not something the aircrews are going to thank the plucky ground crews for - assuming they survive - a tail-heavy aircraft is certainly no joke of a prospect.

[SafetyDad]

I'm very much enjoying this fascinating discussion - great to have Jamie, with his background in paint manufacturing, as part of it.

 

SD

[gingerbob]

10 hours ago, Jazzie said:

Was it a priority though? Britmodeller is littered with paint threads where at some point along the way, anecdotes of paint supply issues crop up...

 

That says a lot more about us than it does about the historical reality.  I don't think anyone would argue that for every thread discussing the most precise "match" for regulation colour X, there's a thread trying to understand/justify/speculate on some anomaly that lets us do something just a little bit different. Or a lot bit!

 

 

2 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

There are certainly some examples of significant efforts and they tend to stand out because they look rubbish. These could include crap repaints on Hurricanes which are subject to at least one famous photograph, there are D-Day stripes of course, and there are the improvised/bodged spaghetti schemes added to certain British fighters in North Africa. I've seen photographs of the Fairey SeaFox aboard HMS Ajax during the Battle of the River Plate which had bodged camouflage added to the metal skinned parts only using something from the ship's paint locker.

 

The need to weigh the aircraft after every big paint job and recalculate its CoG remains a very valid operational concern in wartime too... a tail-heavy aircraft is certainly no joke of a prospect.

 

And yet Jeffrey Quill talks at length (in his book) about the problems that Spitfire Vs ran into when more and more equipment was called for, much of which went, at least partially, in the fuselage aft of the cockpit, and the chain responsible for doing the work and keeping the aircraft in an airworthy condition failed to heed the weight & balance instructions.

 

As to the examples you cite, they each have a specific setting/reason, and in many cases are intended to be temporary expedients.

 

Another problem that occurred to me about this "run off to the hardware store" trope is who would be paying for the paint?  I can't see the typical airman pulling out his wallet in trust that he'd be reimbursed by the very government agencies that he was circumventing.  Let alone having the sort of ready cash to be able to pay for it in the first place.

Edited April 8, 2022 by gingerbob

[alt-92]

11 minutes ago, gingerbob said:

Another problem that occurred to me about this "run off to the hardware store" trope is who would be paying for the paint?  I can't see the typical airman pulling out his wallet in trust that he'd be reimbursed by the very government agencies that he was circumventing.  Let alone having the sort of ready cash to be able to pay for it in the first place.

I believe it more likely those 'locally acquired paints' are paints ordered to specifications but manufactured locally/regionally. 

Formulations and base materials are known entities. 
 

[Giorgio N]

11 hours ago, Jazzie said:

 

I note the earlier comments about stores getting to the right places, but dont think paint would have been a top priority and make do and mend while listening to "dont you know there is a war on!" comes to mind. I would expect in this case that an amount of "special" mixes would be created to find the right shade which would then be batch produced under a UOR order.  Not even these days do 2 batches come out the same!

 

Now first a disclaimer: this one is a pet peeve of mine, so I do sometime react in ways that may sound excessive... so please do not take it personally.. 🙂

 

This is not how production work ! In any aspect of engineering there is nothing like "coming out the same" or being identical, in engineering everything HAS TO FALL WITHIN A SPECIFIED TOLERANCE !!!!!!

It's the same for paints, manufacturers are given by their customers tolerances within which each batch has to fall, anything within will be accepted and anything outside will be rejected or, in some cases, accepted if the manufacturer accepts a reduced payment. If a product is not made to a specific customer request, the manufacturer will decide on their own tolerance knowing that certain applications will call for stricter tolerances and others will care less.

Something like generic household paint may well exhibit not so small variations between batches but other applications call for extreme precision in the colour. Luxury items manufacturers for example are very strict and if you have to sell to Prachanarmaucci (or ask a lady for other names) something for some of their top lines they will only accept your stuff if you can guarantee the colour of various batches to be so similar to each others to be indistinguishable to the human eye. Companies who do this not only have to implement very strict process controls, they also have to request paints/inks/dyes to very strict tolerances and still they often have to allow for something like 20/25% of the completed items to fail the quality check (that partly goes to explain the high cost of the top level luxury stuff).

Where do military use paints fall ? Sure not at the luxury items end of the range, some documents specify the tolerances (IIRC the French AFNOR does), others don't. I don't have any MAP document for WW2 Britain so can't comment on these specifically

 

[gingerbob]

18 minutes ago, alt-92 said:

I believe it more likely those 'locally acquired paints' are paints ordered to specifications but manufactured locally/regionally. 

Formulations and base materials are known entities. 

 

I was referring to the "locally sourced on our own initiative" story, not "get your standard RAF camouflage paints (or as near as you can) from manufacturing sources in theatre".  The latter makes perfect logistical sense.

 

[Giorgio N]

11 hours ago, Blimpyboy said:

The pedant in me says ‘not quite’.
 

With regard to combat platforms, the primary role of most final-coat (my term) colour paints is to provide a desired camouflage effect - otherwise, aircraft could be painted in the most effective/cheapest corrosion-preventive primers and secondary coatings, which would, in many instances, be counter to the desired optical/electrical battlefield effect. In fact, most final-colour coats (my term, again) are typically described as being principally "for desired optical properties".

There are any number of coatings that can be - and have been - applied easily and cheaply, for effective corrosion control, but which have not gone through an expensive and time-consuming military-specific colour development and trials process! Needless to say these are not always good for camouflage purposes!

 

Don’t get me wrong, paint is definitely a factor in corrosion control, but final-colour coatings are but one consideration - and the tip of the iceberg - in any proper, multi-layer corrosion control coating programme/regime.

One could just leave F-22s, UH-60s, etc. in several layers of bright blue or yellow-green anti-corrosion primer coat, sealed with an excellent - and cheaper - series of clear top coats; however, I’m not sure one would want to necessarily fly those suckers in combat, up close and personal with the enemy…!

 

 

 

 

Of course the choice of the colours are important for the camouflage side, and recent examples like your F-22 add the RCS reduction on top of that, while IR signature reduction properties have been important for decades but the top coat is itself part of the overall corrosion protection element, so much that all documents discussing the preparation of each paint layer are very specific in what has to be done for each layer depending on the material. The colour used would depend on the camouflage requirements, the type of paint and the preparation however is still part of the corrosion control process. That was my point about the importance of the use of paints made to certain specifications

 

[Blimpyboy]

On 3/11/2022 at 2:26 PM, FG2Si said:

The late Edgar Brooks managed to find a sample of the PRU Pink in an archive.

 

On 3/11/2022 at 7:43 PM, Andy Fletcher said:

In reality PRU Pink was little more than an off white and is often described as white in various documents.

 

On 3/12/2022 at 4:46 AM, fishplanebeer said:

So a very, very pale 'pink-ish' of sorts for low level sorties by FR.IX's

 

On 3/14/2022 at 10:30 AM, Dave Fleming said:

 

 

 

I don't suppose there are records of trials of the camouflage, or the effectiveness thereof. That would be an interesting read!

 

 

[Jazzie]

3 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

I feel your arguments are based on incredulity rather than any evidence. Indeed I've seen no evidence that paint supply wasn't a priority.

 

Now, to be clear, there ARE differences between touching up and repainting.

 

We can clearly see in certain contexts, that paint was not universally a priority.

 

The roundel above has been touched up with red rather than blue. It's probably just red dope on a fabric patch to make the aircraft airworthy, actually. In this very limited context, paint was not a priority and make do and mend was the approach. The bomber was not sent to an MU, stripped of all its fabric, reskinned, redoped and repainted because of a hole in the wing.

 

The thing is that's not scalable. Indeed there is precious little actual evidence of "make do and mend" full scale repainting.

 

There are certainly some examples of significant efforts and they tend to stand out because they look rubbish. These could include crap repaints on Hurricanes which are subject to at least one famous photograph, there are D-Day stripes of course, and there are the improvised/bodged spaghetti schemes added to certain British fighters in North Africa. I've seen photographs of the Fairey SeaFox aboard HMS Ajax during the Battle of the River Plate which had bodged camouflage added to the metal skinned parts only using something from the ship's paint locker.

 

There are many, many claims of improvised paint use but the quantities necessary to perform the claimed tasks are extremely challenging in their own right. The need to weigh the aircraft after every big paint job and recalculate its CoG remains a very valid operational concern in wartime too - especially when unsuitable paint tends to erode away from the front of the aircraft first. Paint coming off a spinner painted with some random stuff found at a car body shop is one thing, but a whole aircraft with a significant weight of paint added systematically unpainting itself from the nose inflight leading to a rather tail-heavy aircraft is not something the aircrews are going to thank the plucky ground crews for - assuming they survive - a tail-heavy aircraft is certainly no joke of a prospect.

When hit with big words, i need to look up the meanings, and as i am not aware of knowing you personally or you me, i think that you are being a tad harsh to say im even a tad incredulous in this case. Being a doag unwilling to give up a bone i will give you, but i do actually see both sides of the argument in this case while others support the thinking that everything got where it needed to be, i have stories from servicemen and even a Navy Aircraft Painter that say that lack of supply issues cropped up even in peaceful times after the war. While i base what i am writing here on what i read in many threads on here, a man who i have tremendous respect for backs up the make do and mend side of the argument to the hilt! Your mention of D-Day stripes, my respected source was at Suez!

 

I believe your Wellington example has proved my point in a way as where the fabric patch has covered a hole probably caused by AAA, the red cellulose dope has probably not fully dried for the top coat to be applied, but "it will do" for the training/photo sortie. 

 

I dont know why you have highlighted the "make do and mend" full scale repainting as i have doubts as to that getting done at front line stations with the constant flow of new airframes to replace damaged and war weary aircraft. I think everyone would accept that the miracle workers focus would be on small repairs with whatever paint slapped on to get an acceptable number of airframes back on line. Getting into replacing whole sections i would expect would trigger a Weight and Balance check, something i was involved with in the early days of my time in Light Aircraft Engineering, and its obvious if an aircraft ends up back at an MU for major repairs, one of the last tasks is checking the weight and balance. I do think you are over egging how much loosing some paint affects the CofG, and i base that on whether 200kg of baggage goes in the front or the back as is my current connection with weight and balance.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

52 minutes ago, Jazzie said:

When hit with big words, i need to look up the meanings, and as i am not aware of knowing you personally or you me, i think that you are being a tad harsh to say im even a tad incredulous in this case. Being a doag unwilling to give up a bone i will give you, but i do actually see both sides of the argument in this case while others support the thinking that everything got where it needed to be, i have stories from servicemen and even a Navy Aircraft Painter that say that lack of supply issues cropped up even in peaceful times after the war. While i base what i am writing here on what i read in many threads on here, a man who i have tremendous respect for backs up the make do and mend side of the argument to the hilt! Your mention of D-Day stripes, my respected source was at Suez!

 

I believe your Wellington example has proved my point in a way as where the fabric patch has covered a hole probably caused by AAA, the red cellulose dope has probably not fully dried for the top coat to be applied, but "it will do" for the training/photo sortie. 

 

I dont know why you have highlighted the "make do and mend" full scale repainting as i have doubts as to that getting done at front line stations with the constant flow of new airframes to replace damaged and war weary aircraft. I think everyone would accept that the miracle workers focus would be on small repairs with whatever paint slapped on to get an acceptable number of airframes back on line. Getting into replacing whole sections i would expect would trigger a Weight and Balance check, something i was involved with in the early days of my time in Light Aircraft Engineering, and its obvious if an aircraft ends up back at an MU for major repairs, one of the last tasks is checking the weight and balance. I do think you are over egging how much loosing some paint affects the CofG, and i base that on whether 200kg of baggage goes in the front or the back as is my current connection with weight and balance.

 

I'm not really clear what your point is then. We agree that touch-ups were about air worthiness and less about appearance. It's very frequent to see evidence of partial repaints where an aircraft has been repaired in contemporary WWII photographs. Whether the obvious mismatches are due to fresh paint amidst weathered paint or whether it's just some paint to cover up the repair will differ case by case.

 

The discussion here is about how likely it is that whole units of photo reconnaissance Spitfires were painted in something which was locally sourced and they mixed it up themselves. That is doing it at scale, and there is very little evidence of this actually happening in real life relative to the number of claims of it happening. Yet, there are myriad of sound reasons why it shouldn't happen technically or is unlikely to have happened practically. @gingerbob's last sentences two posts above are a beautiful but very practical argument against all these claims of circumventing the armed forces logistics system - assuming in wartime when national paint production capability is swamped producing camouflage paints for the armed forces that somehow the military logistics chain has run out of paint but some local DIY shop happens to have sufficient quantities to paint whole aircraft in stock, who's going to pay for it, how are they going to transport it back to station and exactly what does the bloke write on the rather bureaucratic expenses forms to get reimbursed having bought locally what Stores section on the station should / could most likely have supplied him with? As I wrote before I've seen the same argument countless times about warships. One could clear out a whole modern B&Q paint isle and still run out 1/3rd of the way through repainting a cruiser. It makes little sense even in remote locations e.g. stations on Orkney which I've seen claimed before - small sparsely populated places tend not to have large civilian stocks of paint to obtain. You're more likely to see delayed implementation of orders in remote location due to lack of stocks than large scale improvisations using locally sourced paints.

 

There is another option though, and it's akin to a cat looking extremely pleased with itself after a bird flies into a window and brains itself, landing at the cat's feet who suddenly thinks it caught the bird. That is that the vast majority of servicemen and women have absolutely no idea of the details going on in other peoples' departments, but that's no barrier to a small proportion of them assuming they knew all about it and making statements about them. All 3 services had lists of pre-approved civilian contractors who manufactured paints for various applications in the approved colours, or at least close enough to pass quality checks. These manufacturers would typically have accounts set up with the government bodies with pricing structures set up and agreed making invoicing and the flow of cash fairly straight forward. It was recognised however that sometimes other routes had to be taken and for this, specifications as to the type of paint for certain applications were available as were shade cards, such that different manufacturers could make something to suit. This wasn't the preferred route, since matters like price were no longer a given and invoices and payments must then be dealt with by already burdened administration staff - but it could be done and definitely was done on some occasions at least. They definitely didn't always get it right either, but, given that surviving contemporary correspondence does exist telling certain parties to take more care in getting it right, we can conclude that the environment wasn't total anarchy either - most of them got it pretty good much of the time at least. The point here is that as @alt-92 points at above, there's a pretty good chance that even "locally sourced" paint was much of the time deliberately ordered by someone who actually knew what they were doing but that the story teller knew nothing about the specifications part and therefore presumed nobody else did either.

 

As a modern working example of this in-service obliviousness to what's actually specified, try finding someone who served in the Royal Navy during the last 4 decades who can tell you what colour their ships were painted. Out of 100 ex Matelots you'll find dozens who confidently tell you it was called "Pussers Grey" or "Ship Side Grey", probably a similar number who say "not a clue" and probably one if you're lucky who can tell you the correct BS381C code and official name, the latter being what you would actually need to order if you wanted the correct colour to turn up.

 

Whilst paint is of interest to many modellers, it isn't of interest to most people serving in the forces. As such, we must be very cautious about taking the things ex-servicemen and women might say about paint and colour. Particularly we should not assume they knew anything about it, since very few would see the administrative and/or technical detail behind a can of paint. We can't even take it for granted that they paid the slightest bit of attention to it, but the human brain can paint vivid pictures in lieu of actual recollection of stuff. I'm reminded of a study I learned about on this forum where Qantas flight crew were quizzed and few answered questions about what colour the seats and carpets inside the planes they flew in every day were correctly.

[Graham Boak]

I must admit still being unsure about how aircraft units "out in the blue" were supposed to get even meagre sources of paint.  Aircraft were not generally painted at all at the squadron level - local touch-ups and unit codes clearly excepted.  Once they came back off operations into the rear areas, then the normal maintenance procedures clearly applied, including plentiful stocks of some kind of officially-approved paint.  Even squadrons based in comfortable areas such as Kent - a Spitfire doesn't need as much paint as a cruiser but under wartime production and rationing, civilian stores simply wouldn't have much stock of anything and certainly not of colours remotely useful for camouflage.  Any such stocks would have been raided long ago by the Home Guard and any other appropriate authority or civic-minded individual.  Ok, we started of talking about pink...

 

I'm a little surprised that Desert Pink from the Gulf War hasn't been mentioned.  Nor the pink formation markings used by Luftwaffe bombers in the BoB - but then that's not camouflage, is it.

[Blimpyboy]

6 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I'm a little surprised that Desert Pink from the Gulf War hasn't been mentioned. 

Of course! 🤦‍♂️

 

And, how about Mountbatten Pink:

https://www.colourstudies.com/blog/2020/12/9/mountbatten-pink

and

http://www.paulnoll.com/Colors/color-0615-Mountbatten-Pink.html

and

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/62/wyman.php

and

https://ferrebeekeeper.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/mountbatten-pink/

 

 

 

Plus, who could forget the Sea Tiger?

 

 

😉

 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Blimpyboy

[Graham Boak]

Oh phut!  I meant to include that.  There was also a pink-ish colour used on British Army vehicles in the ME during WW2.  I suspect there were more examples around.  Wasn't there a pink in the various colours experimented with by the USAAC in the 30s?   And in the WW1 German lozenge fabric?  Are we looking here at a possible subject for a group build?

[Blimpyboy]

The group build’s a novel idea… 🤔

 

You could even get those (shudders) ship and vehicle modelling types involved.

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by Blimpyboy

[Tbolt]

On 3/15/2022 at 4:46 AM, bertielissie said:

This sounds about right. I read somewhere,ages ago, that if applied "in the field" or even touched up, the pink was achieved with the merest hint of red added to white. Apparently the planes were difficult to see if flying near the horizon during sunrise or sunset.

 

1:4 isn't the merest hint of red. 

 

Just to show what sort of mix you might want here's a few samples. 

 

Obviously this will depend on your monitor calibration and what colour profile you are using in your browser, but to me 1:40 is about what I would go for. I've provided a 1:40 contrast for those people who are not using a dark browser.

 

1:4

 

 

1:10

 

 

1:20

 

 

1:30

 

 

1:40

 

 

1:40 on black

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

25 minutes ago, Tbolt said:

 

1:4 isn't the merest hint of red. 

 

Just to show what sort of mix you might want here's a few samples. 

 

Obviously this will depend on your monitor calibration and what colour profile you are using in your browser, but to me 1:40 is about what I would go for. I've provided a 1:40 contrast for those people who are not use a dark browser.

 

1:4

 

 

1:10

 

 

1:20

 

 

1:30

 

 

1:40

 

 

1:40 on black

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:40 would fit with the 1 pint red for 4 gallon white ratio I mentioned earlier as something I seemed to remember 

[fishplanebeer]

To be honest, and not strictly accurate I accept, I'll be going for either 1:10 or 1:20 with my KP Spitfire X so that you can actually tell it is a pinkish colour as 1:40 just looks white to my rather aged eyes and therefore rather defeats the whole point.

 

Regards

Colin.

[Rolls-Royce]

11 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

1:40 would fit with the 1 pint red for 4 gallon white ratio I mentioned earlier as something I seemed to remember 

There are 8 Imperial pints to an Imperial gallon, unfortunately making that a 1:32 ratio.

[stevehnz]

Which is pretty close to 1:30. Looking at Giorgio's examples above, that looks like it would be a decent compromise between reality & effect. Probably close to what I might use if I do a pink FR.IX, well, I might. 

Steve.

[Ed Russell]

Here's the 1:4 ratio colour (maybe) 😀

 

https://blog.prusa3d.com/free-3d-printed-spitfire-rc-plane-every-original-prusa-i3_4679/

 

[stevehnz]

A bit too much of a good thing perhaps.

Steve.

[Giorgio N]

6 hours ago, Rolls-Royce said:

There are 8 Imperial pints to an Imperial gallon, unfortunately making that a 1:32 ratio.

My mistake, I must have mixed up Imperial, US and some other unit...

1:32 would make it a little more pink, comparing it to @Tbolt "samples" it would still be predominantly white, as we know the colour was.

 

Colin makes a good point though: would such a ratio retain enough "pinkiness" to look different enough on a 1/72 model? Guess I have to try it, I have both a PR.Ig and an FR.IX in the to-do list, would be time to start building one...

[Hook]

On 4/8/2022 at 4:11 PM, Graham Boak said:

 

I'm a little surprised that Desert Pink from the Gulf War hasn't been mentioned. 

Or the pink Harrier T.2.  😎

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

 

[Phoenix44]

On 08/04/2022 at 15:11, Graham Boak said:

I must admit still being unsure about how aircraft units "out in the blue" were supposed to get even meagre sources of paint.  Aircraft were not generally painted at all at the squadron level - local touch-ups and unit codes clearly excepted.  Once they came back off operations into the rear areas, then the normal maintenance procedures clearly applied, including plentiful stocks of some kind of officially-approved paint.  Even squadrons based in comfortable areas such as Kent - a Spitfire doesn't need as much paint as a cruiser but under wartime production and rationing, civilian stores simply wouldn't have much stock of anything and certainly not of colours remotely useful for camouflage.  Any such stocks would have been raided long ago by the Home Guard and any other appropriate authority or civic-minded individual.  Ok, we started of talking about pink...

 

I'm a little surprised that Desert Pink from the Gulf War hasn't been mentioned.  Nor the pink formation markings used by Luftwaffe bombers in the BoB - but then that's not camouflage, is it.

Yet they managed to get high octane fuel, oxygen and things like glycol? When you set up an airfield, you bring all the stuff you will need, otherwise it won't be an airfield for long. Why wouldn't that include paint? Things like squadron codes, spinners and ID bands were painted at airfields, and often overpainted there. We know during the BoB undersides of whole squadrons were painted locally. Patches and repairs were painted and so on, so there was paint there. The only question is how much and how continously.