RAF "A" and "B" camouflage schemes - any fixed rule?

[Walter Lindekens]

For some reason I've always assumed that the "A" pattern scheme was to be applied to aircraft with and odd serial number and the "B" scheme to even serialled machines.

 

In the current thread on 264 Sqn Defiants however,

 mention is made of the "A" scheme being applied to even serial numbers and "B" to the odd serialled ones. 

 

So my question now is, was there ever a fixed rule or was it left up to the aircraft manufacturers to decide which pattern to apply to odd serial numbers and which pattern to the even numbers?

 

TIA for any feedback.

 

Cheers,

Walter

[Graham Boak]

There was no such absolute rule just an assumption by writers, expecting serial runs to begin with an odd letter (usually 1) and a smooth flow through the paint shop with the painters beginning with the A scheme.  Neither has to be true, though it often is.  A good working assumption, but not absolute law.  There are also examples of aircraft with exchanged colours - try fitting that into a simple A/B odd/even rule.

[Walter Lindekens]

Thanks Graham,  makes perfect sense.   So, as ever, the only way to be sure of what scheme is applicable is a good photo! 

 

Cheers,

Walter

[gingerbob]

 

[PeterR]

Ted Hooton found that on Spitfire Mk Is, even serial Spitfires had the 'A' scheme and odd serial Spitfires had the 'B' scheme, but the opposite applied to the batches K9787-K9882 (K9792 in 'A' scheme), K9888-K9891, N3160-N3203, N3264-N3295, P9557-P9565, R6751-R6780, R6799-R6800, R6804-R6818, R6829-R6840, R6879-R6880, and possibly R6904.

 

From my own study of Hurricane Mk Is up to the Battle of Britain, the vast majority (>95%) show that the 'A' scheme was on odd serial aircraft and the 'B' scheme was on even serial aircraft. The ninth Hawker production batch, P3700-P3739, may have been the opposite. It is not 100%, and is based on photographs of a couple of hundred aircraft, but does at least give a basis for a scheme if you know the serial and codes.

 

Blenheims are even harder to find a solid body of evidence, but from what there is, the Mk Ifs appear likely to have 'A' scheme on even serial aircraft and 'B' scheme on odd serial aircraft, though Blenheim Ifs from A. V. Roe may have received the opposite. Blenheim IVfs tend to carry 'A' scheme on even serial aircraft and the 'B' scheme on odd serial aircraft. Again, not 100% but at least a basis for a scheme if no photo of your subject exists. This was from a study of Blenheims up to the Battle of Britain.

[Hornet133]

Yes there was no hard and fast rule, only that they were supposed to use one of the two schemes. It was up to the individual manufacturers as to what they did.

[Graham Boak]

This was a simplification introduced to speed production,  but was not the way it was in 1939/40.

[B-17 man]

Does anyone have illustrations for for each scheme to see them side by side?

[Graham Boak]

The A scheme was published as a diagram, it was up to the individual manufacturer to convert it for their own aircraft.  If you want to see the B scheme use a mirror.

[MilneBay]

And then there are the C and D schemes which were colour reversals of the A and B schemes. Someone at the Air Ministry had way too much time on their hands.

[Graham Boak]

The German equivalent had six options for the prewar scheme.  Not that you ever see more than perhaps two, but maybe the others just weren't photographed...  The idea was that if you have a lot of identically camouflaged shapes they will stand out, the human eye being very good at seeing patterns, whereas more variety helps.  The C and D schemes were not adopted, but colour-reversed examples can be seen sometimes.

[Walter Lindekens]

The B scheme was also published in diagram form, as witnessed by this poor and only half copy of Air Diagram 1159:

 

 

I'm pretty sure the missing half shows the A scheme.    Publication date appears to be July 1936.

 

The port fuselage scheme shown on this diagram would appear on the starboard side of an A schemed aircraft. 

 

Cheers,

Walter

[NZTyphoon]

2 hours ago, Walter Lindekens said:

The B scheme was also published in diagram form, as witnessed by this poor and only half copy of Air Diagram 1159:

 

 

I'm pretty sure the missing half shows the A scheme.    Publication date appears to be July 1936.

 

The port fuselage scheme shown on this diagram would appear on the starboard side of an A schemed aircraft. 

 

Cheers,

Walter

 You're in luck...I happened to discover these a few days ago, whilst looking up official documents on RAAF camouflage in the National Archives of Australia: they are digitally available and downloadable: ahem...

Note: first issued July 1936, revised October '38 then June '40: the top surface colours had been hand altered to read (RAAF) Foliage Green and Earth Brown.)

 

 

also...

 

and

 

 

Similar drawings were made for other RAF aircraft types, including the Defiant, Hurricane and Spitfire, and would have been revised with the changes in national insignia and camouflage colours. None of the diagrams stipulate the order in which the 'A' and 'B' schemes were to apply, so it must have been left to manufacturers to decide. As it is, on January 1941, the 'B Scheme' was officially dropped on Spitfires and would have been ditched for all other types at around the same time.

Edited February 25 by NZTyphoon

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

The Archives are a rather big place, could you provide the specific reference, so people can see about downloading the file for themselves?

[Shep65]

19 minutes ago, Geoffrey Sinclair said:

could you provide the specific reference, so people can see about downloading the file for themselves

Not sure which specific file was used, however this one seems to contain a number of the drawings:

 

North Eastern Area Headquarters - Camouflage of Aircraft; NAA: A11083, 21/4/AIR.

 

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1753567

 

HTH

[NZTyphoon]

 

23 hours ago, Shep65 said:

Not sure which specific file was used, however this one seems to contain a number of the drawings:

 

North Eastern Area Headquarters - Camouflage of Aircraft; NAA: A11083, 21/4/AIR.

 

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1753567

 

HTH

 Much appreciated; Pages 63 through 76 then pages 86 through 89 show several of the AM diagrams: there are also lots of memos and RAAF camouflage instructions.

 

Another file of documents is Western Area Headquarters 107/4/AIR Part A 'Camouflage of Aircraft' : unfortunately, I don't have the time to spare to go looking for specific details.

Edited February 26 by NZTyphoon

[PeterR]

7 hours ago, NZTyphoon said:

None of the diagrams stipulate the order in which the 'A' and 'B' schemes were to apply, so it must have been left to manufacturers to decide. 

Agree - Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes are generally the opposite in application of the two schemes up to the end of the Battle of Britain. Variation was seen across Blenheim manufacturers up to that time too.

[MilneBay]

On 2/25/2025 at 9:37 AM, Graham Boak said:

The German equivalent had six options for the prewar scheme.  Not that you ever see more than perhaps two, but maybe the others just weren't photographed...  The idea was that if you have a lot of identically camouflaged shapes they will stand out, the human eye being very good at seeing patterns, whereas more variety helps.  The C and D schemes were not adopted, but colour-reversed examples can be seen sometimes.

 

 

Fortunately we modellers were saved by the outbreak of WW2 from the E and F schemes in which Puce was substituted for DG in the E scheme and DE in the F scheme. 😉

[Geoffrey Sinclair]

Not even a title of the file?  Keywords?

A705 9/1/1595  Aircraft markings general technical file.  1945 - 1950   163734  
A705 35/6/93 PART 1  Aircraft G-AUBA "Avro" 504K No.H.2030 (First aircraft on Australian Register later marking VH-UBA).  1922 - 1929   399050  
A705 35/10/6  Regn markings on Aircraft 1921-1922.  1921 - 1922   400275  
A705 62/1/234  Marking of Demon aircraft.  1939 - 1940   530030
A705  62/1/304  'Haze Paint' for camouflage of aircraft. ALO Washington re.   1942 - 1942   695951
A705 10/4/852  AMOE [Air Member for Organisation and Equipment] technical - Aircraft general instruction to C 11 [issue 3] - standard aircraft finishes, markings, and markings of unit equipment.   1940 - 1941   3032059  
A705 150/4/555  DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of technical orders - Aircraft general instruction number F 3 - paints and varnishes for use on aircraft.  1939 - 1940   3031143
A705 150/4/4400 RAAF headquarters - DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Technical Order Aircraft General Instruction Part 3 - Section C - Instruction No 2 - Doping and Finishing Schemes RAAF.  1943 – 1943  3100808
A705 150/4/5053  HQ [Headquarters] DRM [Directorate of Repairs and Maintenance] RAAF Headquarters - RM8 - Marine Craft Instruction 3/2 - Marine Craft Painting and Marking RAAF Crash and Rescue Launches.  1944 - 1949   3107828  
A705 150/4/5056  DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of Technical Order - Publication of Aircraft General Instruction - Part 3 - Section C - Instruction No 1 - Camouflage Schemes and Identification Markings.  1944 - 1947   3107679  
A705 150/4/7818  DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of Technical Order - Lincoln Order No 77 - Introduction of Rescue Markings.  1949 - 1951   3219974  
A705 150/4/7897  DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of Technical Order - Lincoln Order No 84 - Standard Aircraft Markings – Introduction.  1949 - 1951   3220619  
A705 150/4/8109  DTS [Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of Technical Order - Lincoln Order No 143 - Rescue Markings – Introduction.  1950 - 1951   3225686  
A705 150/8/134  AFHQ [Air Force Headquarters] - AMEM [Air Member of Engineering and Maintenance] - DTS [ Directorate of Technical Services] - Publication of Technical Order - Aircraft Engineering Instructions - General - Part 2 - Section 1 - Instruction No 11 - Aircraft Standard Markings.  1951 - 1951   3277865
A705 211/9/430  [Transport - Trailers, Tractors, W4 A-C-G Trolleys] - Camouflage of service M/T [Mechanical Transport] vehicles [2cm].  1939 - 1945   516462

A11083 21/4/AIR  North Eastern Area Headquarters - Camouflage of aircraft.  1941 - 1942   1753567  
A11093 452/D2  RAAF Command Headquarters - Recognition marking on allied aircraft.  1942 - 1945   1120683  
A11093 686/3H9 RAAF Command Headquarters - Aerodrome - Defence - Camouflage - Aircraft Access status: Open Location: Canberra 1942 - 1945 3081804     
A11095 107/4/AIR PART A  [Western Area Headquarters] - Camouflage of Aircraft.  1942 - 1943   3081654

MP508/1 305/733/244 Camouflage paints [includes colour samples] Access status: Open Location: Melbourne 1941 - 1942 3367609
MP1049/5  1821/2/257  Colours & markings on British aircraft.  1939 - 1940   464499  

 

Camouflage scheme* as a search string gives a number of non digitised files, Also not readable online
A705 62/2/60 Tests on aircraft paint finishes 1943 - 1952

 

Aircraft notes appear in files like,
C1707 20 Navy Camouflage Admirality - includes black & white photographs Access status: Open Location: Sydney 1943 - 1944 659749

 

Just ships,
C1707 47 Navy [includes black and white camouflage photographs] [contains 45 photographs] Access status: Open Location: Sydney 1942 - 1943 660328

[Mike Starmer]

I did some research many years ago about odd and even serials with A and B patterns.  Blocks of serials were never issued for security reasons,  By some cross checking I found that often the works simply applied the first serial after the blackout block to next machine in the construction sequence irrespective of the A or B pattern it carried.   Thus you could have the system as presumed, A odd serials for several production batches, then a sudden change then shortly after change again.  A purely by chance system.      

[NZTyphoon]

8 hours ago, Mike Starmer said:

I did some research many years ago about odd and even serials with A and B patterns.  Blocks of serials were never issued for security reasons,  By some cross checking I found that often the works simply applied the first serial after the blackout block to next machine in the construction sequence irrespective of the A or B pattern it carried.   Thus you could have the system as presumed, A odd serials for several production batches, then a sudden change then shortly after change again.  A purely by chance system.      

Was there ever a specific reason given for the RAF adopting the A/B 'Shadow' scheme? It must have seemed like a good idea at the time it was adopted, but in practice, it probably led to some confusion on the production lines, particularly once shadow factories started building en masse.

BTW, did FAA aircraft use the A/B schemes?

Edited February 27 by NZTyphoon

[Paul Lucas]

When the RAE began work on what became the British aircraft camouflage schemes of the WW2 period, they started from where the work carried out during WW1 had ended, with the Salamander schemes of 1918.

 

It was from here that both the 'shadow shading' principal for biplanes and the idea of using four disruptive camouflage patterns "so that the danger of constantly repeating an identical pattern can be avoided" was taken.

 

Even after the idea of using the four different variations was dropped prior to the first Air Diagrams being drawn up, the idea of the two mirror images was retained so that "the individual aircraft in a Squadron were not all alike, a feature which reduced the visibility of the formation as a whole ."

 

Yes, the Air Diagrams for FAA types also employed the A/B Schemes.

 

The whole series of aircraft camouflage Air Diagrams were withdrawn from use in the UK from September 1941 with Units to use drawings for specific types of aircraft that were prepared by the relevant contractor instead.

[Vingtor]

Any information on when Air Diagram 1162 - Single engine biplanes (Army co-operation aircraft & fighters) was first issued? I have seen a version dated May 1939, but this is presumably not the first one.

 

Nils

[NZTyphoon]

Not forgetting that the Luftwaffe's pre-war, four-colour schemes had even more permutations than the RAF/FAA's comparatively uncomplicated A & B schemes.

[Paul Lucas]

AD 1162 was commissioned by the Air Ministry on 23 March 1939. The RAE submitted the roughs on 14 April 1939 and Issue 1 of AD 1162 is indeed dated May 1939.