homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Paint schemes

Hi all, I've been away for a while - My PC went t*ts-up and I lost everything - and no I hadn't backed up!

I just got round to loading BoB again with the v.098 update. Bloomin' marvellous! Well done all you BDG chaps, more excellent work. I especially like being able to choose squadron in the QC.

I have a question: There seems to be a lot of variaton in the paint schemes applied to RAF fighters from mid '38 to 1940. Amongst these are one I've come across which shows a half black half 'sky grey' undersurface on a Hurricane, not the usual white or Sky S with black. Has anyone else come across this? It also showed no roundles applied to these surfaces.

I've been tinkering with cfs3 this week(sorry ) as I like the Avhistory Hurricane mk1a, and have repainted it to see what that scheme may have looked like.

Thanks, Pat

http://www.cfcforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=3899

Aloha! Pat.

Bader made this half black, half white hurricane scheme. There are 3 "multiskin" variants for the Hurricane. Each squadron is assigned one of these variants. Some squadrons use the black and white.

He also made an option which removes this black and white scemm from those squadrons. He says this was done later in the Battle.

Hey Stickman, long time no speak!

In my searches for info, I came across this site, an online magazine aimed mainly at modellers (kits). Lots of very interesting items, one of which is a detailed look at the Spit.

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/1997/11/stuff_eng_detail_spitfire1.htm

Well worth a look.

Pat..

Yes it is. Some nice detail shows in those photos.
Thanks!

Aloha!

Welcome back, Pat.

You might want to look in two places:
1) at the very back of the v098 manual is a section discussing the various RAF paintschemes and their timing. It was all logical at the time

2) Have a look at your \Rowan Software\Battle of Britain folder. You'll find some \OPTIONAL.. folders. Inside these are readmes that may interest you. You can change schemes for different aircraft. You can elect to use RAF schemes for the later rather than early battle period, amongst other things..

Thanks Bader,

There is a saying in engineering - R.T.F.M
(read the _'king manual! )

Very concise and interesting, did you write it?

An old book I have, 'Aircraft Camouflage and Markings 1907-1974' says pretty much the same, except that it says that underwing roundels were applied to all fighters from June, (then again there are always exceptions to every rule). Out of interest it also states that the A and B patterns were applied to even and odd serial-numbered aircraft, respectively.

The period I've been studying, 1939/40 seems a little more muddled. Sky grey is mentioned and depicted as an undersurface colour, though I've not seen this anywhere else pre-1942. Also it appears that aircraft were finished in different schemes depending whether they entered the battle fresh from the factory or from maintenance units.

Btw, the application colours to the entire rudder surface was at the request of the French whose aircraft were finished in that way. The reason being that as most fighters are brought down from behind, if the aircraft in front has no rudder stripes - it's a jerry!

Sorry to go on, this all fascinates me!

Call that old? My copy is entitled "Aircraft Camouflage and Markings, 1907 - 1954".
Hurricanes of 1 and 73 Squadrons of the Advanced Air Striking Force, working closely with the French, had full rudder stripes, but not, I think, the Air Component of the BEF 85 and 87 Squadrons.
As you say, there was a lot of variation - some early Hurricanes had Aluminium under fuselage and tail, White under the starboard wing and Night under the port. Underwing ailerons were often painted in the other wing's colour.
The A and B alternating mirror image camouflage scheme was not only with Hurricanes. Now there's something to set skinners working, as would be the four colour camouflage on Gladiators.

oops I meant '54! slip of the finger!

I've just had a quick squint through the book again, couldn't find anything about the Air Component Squadrons, equipped with Hurricanes, having the rudder stripes or not? I assumed that it applied to all the fighters.

I love the colour illustrations in the book btw, lithographs I think. p85 is wonderfull.

P85 is good, but one or two others are a bit doubtful - the Spitfire's colours on P103 definitely aren't right.
Nevertheless, for an oldie it's still valuable. It really was from the early days of historical research and accuracy. The suggestion on P97 that we refer to a Vernon Ward bird picture for Sky Type S is delightful.

Yes, I did write the summary in the BoB manual, but it's very brief and doesn't discuss anything before 1940. If you are interested in this area I most heartily recommend a recent publication:
"Camouflage and Markings: The Battle for Britain - RAF May-Dec 1940"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN...9012115-7429259

It has 100 pages of photos and diagrams of Fighter and Bomber Command aircraft and is superb IMHO. The depth of research is remarkable. A must for any serious period modeller.

Thanks Bader, it's on order along with this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1854860658/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_2/026-0263925-7234076
which looked interesting too.

I'm not sure now whether my original image showed up, here it is again, just in case.
It's a Hurricane Mk1A of 73 Sqdn A.A.S.F in France, a CFS3 Avhistory model which I repainted to see what it may have looked like.

Looks good - I'll pm you

Nice shot

A few comments, if you'll forgive the intrusion.
Lettercodes were always grey until 1942 (when grey/green upper surfaces replaced dark earth/dark green). It's a very common error indeed, but an error nevertheless. And the contrast between Dark Earth and Dark Green was not as marked as is commonly portrayed (some CFS3 Hurricane schemes are really quite poor IMHO). In real life they often blend in a B/W greyscale shot. So the brown should be darker or the green lighter, or probably both, from this shot.

I have not seen a scheme with half aluminium/half black. Two versions carried part aluminium undersides:
1) early on only the outer wings were night/white, with everything else unpainted.
2) until June 1940 either fully night/white or only wing sections with nose and tail unpainted.

It's a complicated area, with many variants.
You'll have some great reading coming.

Sorry if this sounds critical.

Don't mind the comments at all chaps, the more info the better :)It is a complicated subject, made more-so by the passing of the years, different authors views and research, and the obvious lack of colour archives. Makes for good fun finding out though!

The paint scheme is based purely on the book I have "Aircraft Camouflage and Markings, 1907 - 1954", p.86. The half Sky Grey, half black is a scheme I'd never heard of before, hence this posting. Also now I've looked at it agian, the squadron code is indeed grey! I'll retouch the textures on this aircraft now, in-line with the comments on this thread.

dhasdell - I got your mail, many thanks, and have noticed the mistake with the rudder striping - doh!

The cfs3 Hurricane colours are a bit vivid, I agree, looks a lot like an airfix model I have!
I chose cfs3 as a medium to 'play' with as the textures are fairly easy to mod with PSP and M$ Paint. The mission builder with this sim is also usefull in trying to re-enact air battles from the passages in books and such. I wanted to do the Paul Richey 'G' hurricane, but don't have a two blade prop model (I think it's in the Just Flight BoB release?)

Thanks again guys, I think the mark for my work would be: C+ , could do better (story of my life, lol)

Pat

Don't be too harsh on yourself. The little details I am talking of are missed by the huge majority of casual skinners. I mean, they even got the lettercodes wrong in the Battle of Britain film, so you're in good company

I don't think they got the codes wrong exactly - they deliberately chose spurious ones to avoid arguments about what did/didn't happen with real squadrons. The pity of it is that some, such as AI and MI look so wrong because I wasn't used. CD looks ok, even though it's not a genuine code.

I was thinking more of the colour of them, actually. They are white and should not have been.

Yes, MI, AI and CD do look wrong. Silly really, but I do see the rationale..

If you'll forgive the shameless self-promotion, this shot shows Dark Earth and Dark Green and their relative balance quite well. Many CFS3 skins substitute a garish sand colour for Dark Earth, which is not right.

Yep, that does look a lot more life-like. The CFS3 Hurricane is a model from http://www.avhistory.org though and not an M$ one.

Next job is to have a go at better colours then

WX was 302 (Polish) Squadron, who used Hurricanes from formation in July 1940 until October 1941.
http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/266to312.html has a side view, but I'm not sure about the letters and I doubt if you'll like them either, Bader.