Sovietwarplanes

Hi,
I've restarted to work on the part of the site about colors and painting standards of the Soviet air force. http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html)
I've somewhat reordered the previous pages on painting standards, removing some excessive photographic records and insering internal links to recently made pages on single types.
The page on winter camouflages is new http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/winter/winter.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/winter/winter.html).
Next one to do  will be on colors of postwar planes.
Besides, Tapani has worked hard adding some new profiles of DB-3 and Il-4 on this profile page; so I've divided the pages on DB-3 and the one on DB-3F/Il-4, previously united.
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/db3-il4/tapanidb3/db3profile.htm (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/db3-il4/tapanidb3/db3profile.htm)    http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/db3-il4/tapani/profile.htm (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/db3-il4/tapani/profile.htm)

To check the updates of the site, one can go at
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/updates.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/updates.html)
Please, let me know any suggestion and impression.

Regards
Massimo

Massimo,

Those pictures with winter shemes are my cup of tea. :D
Love the Mig-3.

Michel

Hi Michel,
Yes, that line in Vnukovo is interesting also because all the planes were different.
Now I'm trying to manage with postwar planes. Let's see the result.

Regards
Massimo

Massimo,

Which camo pattern would being used underneath for the Mig-3 with the weathered winter wash?

Michel

Hi Michel,
usually the original blue (AII or AMT-4 were both possible). Some photos seem to show the winter finish extended to the undersurfaces.
Have you one particular plane in your mind?
Regards
Massimo

@Massimo
The Mig-3 sheme which is highly weathered you see on the link you've entered from winter temporary shemes.

Hi Michel,
the plane of that photo... well, I see something strange on those undersurfaces. The triangle behind the star looks very dark, I suppose that the plane is dark because of stains and an attempt to wash it made worse moving them under the rear fuselage. I've seen some Il-2s with a dark rear fuselage and I can't explain it better. Or perhaps they have tried to repaint white over the stain on the sides, leaving the blue part darkened. 
Regards
Massimo

Hi,
I've made a small page on the painting of the planes of 1945-1950 here.http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1945-1950-newtypes/1945-1950-newtypes.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1945-1950-newtypes/1945-1950-newtypes.html)
Probably I'll modify the title of some pages relative to 1945 to decide where to put wartime fighters repainted after the war; probably in the 1945 page after having removed the reference to non-fighter planes.
Regards
Massimo

@Massimo
I presume that the darker spot at the bottom is some dirt with snow.

Hi Michel,
snow under the rear fuselage... I don't think. Eventually there could be some behind the tail wheel.
From photos of Il-2s with similar darkening, I don't think it's due to the cooler because it starts behind the wingroots.
The exhaust stains seem the most likely cause. Probably the sides were repainted white, and the undersurfaces remained dirty.
Regards
Massimo

@Massimo
I've checked the pictures from other Mig-3's in winter camo with extended exhaust stains and it also has the same pattern.
So it's indeed the extend from the exhaust stains.

Hi,
I've added a page on the colors used for marks, numbers and high visibility liveries.
Besides I've added a photo of MiG-3 with some consideration on planes with apparently white undersurfaces.
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html)
I think that the next work will be about inside colors and primers.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Massimo,
Good to see you are updating those pages.  I had many comments at the time when you created them, I can see now that few of my suggestions are accepted - for example, light blue finally disappeared from 1937-1940 page.  ;D

It would be nice if I could get a bit more credit for the information I provided over the years on this forum...  You could at least mention my name when you use following interpretations:

(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1940-1941/MiG-32-colourcopy.jpg)

(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/i15/i-153/i-153painting/I-1532-colourexampl-1.jpg)

(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/1937-40/i28-1_labeled.jpg)

Regards,
KL


 

Hi Konstantin,
there was already your name in the credit list in http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/colors.html). I've added the latest 3 names today and I'm trying to remember if I've forgotten anyone (please help me), but your name was in the list since two years ago.
I've credited the photo elaborations as asked.
Regards
Massimo

Hi,
I've made a page on internal colors and primers at http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/internal-colors-primers/internal-colors-primers.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/internal-colors-primers/internal-colors-primers.html)
I hope it will be useful in helping to choose the colors for internal details and cockpits. Probably I'll add some more things on landing gears and relative bays.
Please, let me know any suggestion.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Massimo

great to see the updates.
one possible addition to the winter schemes,  though it is mentioned here regarding this Yak
(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/yak179/Yak-1/yak1sil.jpg)


 did ask this here
http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=890.0

regarding this plane

(http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3702/photoarch.48/0_16c96_82f3f6a7_L)

(http://img-fotki.yandex.ru/get/3706/photoarch.4d/0_16d7f_b149b51b_L)

also discussed here
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/lagg3/silver/silver.html

(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/lagg3/silver/red46f1r.jpg)

It's a difficult one.

I can say this, i used aluminium based paint on my wooden balcony [sa the treads are metal grid] and it has some interesting characteristics, I've mentioned this before.

basically, due to the nature of the paint pigment, which is fine aluminium powder, it relects light in very different way, to be non scientific, it's gives a very soft, slightly diffuse 'glow' especially in diffuse light [eg when cloudy or reflected off snow] from all the particles diffracting the light.

I mention the balcony as this is not necessary obvious if you are not aware of it, but having used this type of paint on a large area it has a very different final finish.

it's sort of visible on the finnish P-39, though this paint has not been well stirred by the looks of it! 
(http://bell.pictures.fi/kuvat/Aviation/Museums/Ilmatorjunta%20museo/P-39/548U3094.jpg/_full.jpg)


Finally, if this is nitro white,
note it is in bright sunlight, but does not have any of the 'diffracted light' I mention.
(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/winter/mig3vnukovo.jpg)


and finally, there is this line up of P-39s, would white paint relect like this?
(http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Markings/P39/photo-alum-vmf.jpg)

I'll certainly test this out when i eventually get to build some models.....


one last question, regarding post war colours.

Is there any idea what paints might have been used for the camouflaged Mig-15's used in Korea?


cheers
T

Hi Troy,
thank you for commenting this page.
Well, the thing of silver paint utilized to camouflage planes on the snow is interesting and difficult to decide.
The Yak-7 has a look that is fully compatible with silver paint, but the light is very particular: the beams of the sun are nearly horizontal, then there is a blue light from the sky and a white light from the snow in all directions. This could justify the fact that the upper part appears dark, and the shadow of the man on the fuselage side appears glowing. I see a dark line on the lower part of rear fuselage that looks the contour of the blue undersurface. Or could be the reflection of the shadow on the ground; if so, it can be an argument for the silver finish.
The P-39 is another difficult case; the first look is silver, but note that there is a wavy darker part on the rear fuselage that seems a division line between light uppersurfaces and darker undersurfaces; if it was silver, it was not painted under the plane.
I remember to have seen a movie of a winter painted Pe-2 in takeoff some time ago; when the plane turned, it made clearly a silvery reflection. That plane was a good candidate for being painted silver. Unfortunately I wasn't able to read the codes on the tail, else it would have been excellent for a profile.
I'll see if I can find it again.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Massimo,
a different topic - there is a lot of green/green profiles of Mig-3 on http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/colors2.html (http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/mig3/colors2.html)
Are they still correct or update to black/green profiles would be more appropriate?

regards,
     66misos

Hi,
I've found an interesting photo.
(http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/winter/silvering-il2-mig3.jpg)
Here, both the MiG-3s and the Il-2 look silvering, but this looks unlikely because the supposed silver finish should be rare. I think that the light conditions create an illusion on all these planes.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Misos,
I think that black and green is more likely. I'll do this some days, however it's an huge work. All the page needs an update.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Massimo,

IMHO a lot of confusion in white vs. silver discussions is caused also by low quality photos with increased contrast (newspapper photos?).
Color/shade of the spinner here is quite simmiliar to Mig-3 spinner on your photo above.
(http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/foto/kozedub5.jpg)

However, on better photos it looks like:
(http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/stories/1017d1299757739t-misadventures-ivan-kozhedubs-famous-white-27-q-koz_white27-nose.jpg)

Plus, compare spinner on these photos:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-c0ET27EBg8k/T_hsuDZFOkI/AAAAAAAAAlk/teDUn26wE28/s1600/portret_-647.jpg) and (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/KozhedubIN.jpg)

As far as I know on all four photos it should be the same - red.
regards,
    66misos

Hi Misos, well, this is certainly a good example.
In the case of the white planes on snow with the sun low on the horizon, it could be that the light reflected by snow on the lower part of the plane overposes to the direct sunlight creating a peak on the sides of the plane, while the upper part is underexposed. Increased contrast can do worse, of course.
I don't want to deny the possibility of the use of silver as winter camo, but I think also that there are some 'false' silver ones.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Troy,

Hi Troy, I don't know for sure.  I don't know for sure if they know it for sure.
I suppose that many of them are green AGT-4, light brown AGT-1, dark grey AGT-12, light blue AGT-7, light blue-grey AGT-16, blue-grey AGT-11 or, more likely, their oil equivalents.  I'll ask Peter to try an answer.
Regards
Massimo

(http://storage8.static.itmages.ru/i/13/1021/s_1382361937_3397563_6caff5b37e.jpeg) (http://itmages.ru/image/view/1281024/6caff5b3) (http://storage9.static.itmages.ru/i/13/1021/s_1382361964_7308286_b6b81c760b.jpeg) (http://itmages.ru/image/view/1281025/b6b81c76)

Hi Musa,
nice images indeed.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Troy,

Massimo?s asked me to provide an answer which I?ll oblige, even though I?m by no means an expert.

The first thing that needs to be highlighted is that the subject of the MiG-15 camouflage - and not only in Korea - is the proverbial can of worms! >:(

I?ve worked with Massimo (living in the same country does help ;D) on the post-GPW colors of the VVS, for over a month and, quite often - and much to our frustration - as soon as we thought we had reached the correct conclusions, new info would come around that would put everything back into discussion.

We?ve Google-translated (with all the limitations of such a translation tool ???) several Russian-language websites and even though we got some invaluable help from members of this forum hailing from some of former-Soviet Republics, it sure looks like the final word is still a long way out.

Massimo has summarized our common findings in the Painting of Soviet military planes: 1945-1950, new types and Painting of Soviet military planes 1937-1950 and internal surfaces and primers sub-sections of the Colors of Soviet warplanes section of the VVS research page.
This, by force, is to be considered a living document, as new info keep popping up.

Now, coming to the subject of the MiG-15 camo, we found that
?   The outside color of non-camouflaged MiG-15?s WAS NOT natural metal but rather a silver paint, first, and later on, and similar to US practice, a clear varnish to  which a percentage of aluminum powder was added, as it showed better resilience to wear and tear.
?   Landing gear bays and struts were always painted steel-grey A-14, while the l/g doors could be A-14 or either aluminized paint or natural metal.
?   Wheel hubs were (supposedly) green A-24. However, there are pictures on the net and on books of un-restored aircraft that show hubs painted a turquoise-green, perhaps the DM Green correctly pointed out by KL in the Yak-23 cockpit colors thread.
?   Many a Russian source state that the cockpit was always painted blue-grey PF-36m, the exception being the examples produced by Zavod N? 153 (Novossibirsk), whose cockpits were painted Green A-15. This, according to some Russian modeling-forum posters, was due to the fact that Z.153 was slated to produce the Yak-23, and had therefore stocked appropriate amounts of A-15 for the task, when it was suddenly notified it was to get into MiG-15?s production instead. So, rather than returning the stocks of this paint, it was either ordered or sought for and was granted permission to incorporate said stocks into the MiG-15 production. Ftr, green painted cockpits were mentioned to Tepsurkaev, a Russian aviation historian and one of the authors of Soviet MiG-15 Aces of the Korean War (Osprey), by  some of the VVS veterans of the Korean War.
 
We really believed this is how things were until yesterday, when going thru the MiG-15 walkaround by Squadron Signal, we noticed that the b/w pictures of the cockpit of red 2057, the aircraft that Lt. No Kum Sok, of the NKAF, used to flee to South Korea, show a light color ? no doubt PF-36m.
Out of curiosity, we checked the serial number ? 2015357 (incorrectly typed as 2015337) and that ?153? after ?20? and before ?57? made our brows rise. Indeed it turned out this, particular aircraft was the 57th MiG-15 bis of the 20th batch built by ? you guessed it? ? the Gosudarstvenny Aviatsionny Zavod 153!

To be 100% sure, then, one would have to get color pictures of the, specific aircraft one wants to model. Problem is, with very few pictures, even b/w, of the Soviet MiG-15?s in Korea, this is, at least, wishful thinking!

 I, for one, will follow the rule-of-the-thumb hereabove, unless I run into solid evidence to the contrary.
 
You may ask also what color is green A-15 and its closest FS595 equivalent ? well, none of the sources we?ve checked had the answer. A picture of a Yak-25 with the cockpit painted what is believed to be green A-15 is published in the internal surfaces and primers sub-section of the VVS research page.

So far as the shades of the outside camo colors are concerned, I agree with Massimo. They were probably the wartime colors ? why go thru the exercise of producing and trying new paints when the GPW ones worked perfectly? ? albeit produced to new specs.

Hope this helps,

Pete57

Hi Massimo and Pete.

I see now when I wrote 'colours for the camouflaged Mig-15 in Korea' I was thiking just of the camouflage, but the discussion on internal colours is very interesting as well.

The external, well, I am aware that photos of Mig-15's in Korea are not common, certainly not ones with  enough information for a researched profile. 

I have a pdf of a Russian book on the Mig-15 [on another computer, can't remember title, but it's a famous one]  which as has the best selection of Korean War Mig-15's I have see, and that was not many.

the profiles for '325' posted by Musa are fascinating, are these based on photos of the plane, planes from the units,  verbal description, or from all of these?  [sorry can't check above book]

I can see it's an area where in many cases a 'best guess' is going to be the only option.

It would be a great addition to the site to have the information above on the Korean War Mig-15's up, with any relevant photos, as it's often hard to track down specific information in the forums section, [unless you know what you are looking for...which makes it trick if you don't know there has already been posting on a subject...]

cheers
T



 

Hi Troy,
I think on verbal descriptions of veterans.
It would be great, but the problem is that all the best work on this topic is from one author and it is on sell in an English language book, so I fear that this could cause copyright problems.
Regards
Massimo

Thanks Massimo.

what is the book you mention?  I'd be interested to know and I'm sure anyone else running across this thread would as well.

thanks
Troy

Hi Troy,

The book is Soviet MiG-15 Aces of the Korean War, by Leonid Krylov and Yuriy Tepsurkaev - Osprey Aircraft of the Aces # 82.

Be aware that most, if not all, of the profiles - to say nothing of the 3-v drawings - are reconstructions based on veterans' memories.

KL posted a revealing link on the  "North Korean" Mig15's in camouflage, any ideas on colours? thread, on March 1, 2011.

This link http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://forums.airforce.ru/literatura/3437-sovetskie-asy-koreiskoi-voiny/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://forums.airforce.ru/literatura/3437-sovetskie-asy-koreiskoi-voiny/%26safe%3Doff%26hl%3Den%26site%3Dwebhp will take you to the Google translation.

As I've mentioned many a time, Google translate is not the best translation tool, but, in this specific case, it'll give you a general idea of what is being discussed and how these profiles and 3-v dwg's were created.

Regards,

Pete57

HI

in a recent thread on Britmodeller,  http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234949599-mig-15-korean-war-camo-colours/#entry1451687

Yury Tepsurkaev has joined in, as well as Tom Cooper [who  has authored books on Middle east war/jets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pdfpdf/Tom_Cooper_(author)]

I'll quote the main interesting part, the quotes are Tom Cooper, responses Yury Tepsurkaev




Posted Yesterday, 10:01 AM

Not exactly... Upper colour was greenish silver or silver-green as it was obtained by mixing aluminium varnish with blue and yellow paints.
 

It wasn't an "autumn-winter camo" but an attempt to reduce the shine of NMF regardless of a season.
 

 Local Chinese shops? Excuse me but the statement above is the complete bosh. All paints, including dark green, were delivered in barrels from Soviet supply bases.
 
The very first kill markings began to appear after camo was introduced.
 

Just one more nonsense. A pilot's wish to apply a marking did not matter. Only if (and when) his claim for a kill was confirmed, the kill marking was applied by an order of the division commander. And of course any unauthorised kill markings weren't welcomed by the CO and were to be removed.
 

The "researcher" who personally never worked with existing archival documents.
That says it all...

also from Yury
and


Hope of interest, i thought it was.  I don't believe Yury Tepsurkaev is member here though? 

cheers
T

Hi Troy,
very very interesting.
Anyway, if one mixes yellow and black, the result is a sort of olive green (anyone can try) while, to obtain sand, one has to add some red and a lot of white.
Regards
Massimo

Hello,

Just a small suggestion for the Sovietwarplanes mainpage:
List of updates could show the most recent ones at the top.

That way no new additions could be missed, such as I did with the long-awaited Mig-3 profiles overhaul.  ;D

Regards,
Aleksandar

Yes, it would be good, but it would be easy on the main page but not on the updates page that counts already dozens of entries.