Possibly this has already been discussed, and I missed it (sorry!) - searching the forum turns up some references to AE-9, but I don't see anything that discusses this colour in detail. I just received some AKAN acrylic paint, including a bottle of AE-9. This is a very dark greenish colour, certainly not what I'd call light grey (or silver-grey according to some references). Now, here's a page from the AKAN web site, in which A. Akanikhin discusses this dark green AE-9; I don't question what he says, especially since he has apparently got a related Albom Nakrasok page for reference, although that colour is not specifically named AE-9:
http://akan.ru/articles/item/29-покорённые-вершины-истории-аэ-9-уже-не-тайна.html(For some reason, I don't seem to be able to create a working link to the English translation of this page; I'm sorry, but you'll have to copy and paste the URL to Google Translate or whatever, in order to see it in English)
My question, then, is "What is the correct designation for the familiar light grey colour which we (and a lot of other people) have incorrectly been calling AE-9?", as applied to the cowling and other metal parts in this photo of a wrecked I-153:
(By the way, it's also puzzling that the AKAN bottle label calls this dark green colour "Light Grey", even though, as far as I'm concerned, it's neither "light" nor "grey"!)
Thank you;
John