Prewar colors of Soviet and Spanish planes.

[xan]

We are talking here about the "Early Protective" that was in use before AII Green, or before 1938.  "Early Protective" was darker then AII Green.
"Early Protective" is poorly documented - few small (questionable?) fragments, obviously its chip wasn't included in "Albom nakrasok".

Regards,
KL  

Is that Hornat calls 3B dark green ?

about the restauration of the I-153, her's the website of the memotial flight who do the restauration:

http://memorial.flight.free.fr/

Xan

[Massimo Tessitori]

Green found on Le Bourget I-153 rudder (under 1960es French paint) is AII Z (AII Green in English).  It's well preserved and corresponds to the specimen in Orlov's collection and to the chip in "Albom nakrasok".

Hi Konstantin,
if I remember well, AIIZ wasn't inserted in the Nakrasok, Orlov has a specimen of factory-painted fabric.
About the chip of David: does he think that it's Russian color, or Spanish? If it's Spanish, there should be some underlying Russian layer of paint.
Regards
Massimo

[KL]

We are talking here about the "Early Protective" that was in use before AII Green, or before 1938.  "Early Protective" was darker then AII Green.

Is that Hornat calls 3B dark green ?

Yes, both Hornat and Pilawskii call this colour 3B.
3B was an Army oil paint used in mid 1930es.  Its colour was probably very close (maybe the same) as the colour of aviation paints used during this period.

[Massimo Tessitori]

3B was an Army oil paint used in mid 1930es.  Its colour was probably very close (maybe the same) as the colour of aviation paints used during this period.

Hi Konstantin, some time ago you wrote that, in your opinion, the use of 3B on planes was only occasional. Was the piece of RZ to make you change your mind, or there is some other information?
Regards
Massimo 

[KL]

Hi Konstantin, some time ago you wrote that, in your opinion, the use of 3B on planes was only occasional. Was the piece of RZ to make you change your mind, or there is some other information?

I haven't seen RZ fabric piece.    I hoped David would post its photo.

Re "Early Protective" and 3B:
in 1941 there were three paints, same olive green colour:

• 4BO for helmets
• A-24m for metal planes
• AMT-4 for fabric/mixed construction planes.

In 1936 it was probably very similar - three paints, similar or same dark green colour:

• 3B for helmets,
• "Early protective oil paint" for metal planes like TB-3
• "Early protective nitro paint" for fabric covered planes like I-16.

There are many examples of well preserved 3B.  Akanihins "Protective" is representative for metal planes.  Spanish relics may help to determine "Early protective nitro paint".

Cheers,
KL

[Massimo Tessitori]

In 1936 it was probably very similar - three paints, similar or same dark green colour:

?3B for helmets,
?"Early protective oil paint" for metal planes like TB-3
?"Early protective nitro paint" for fabric covered planes like I-16.


There are many examples of well preserved 3B.  Akanihins "Protective" is representative for metal planes.  Spanish relics may help to determine "Early protective nitro paint".

So, the shade similar to olive drab underlying on the piece of TB-3 and reproduced by AKAN khaki 363 is an even earlier protective?

Regards
Massimo

[dragonlanceHR]

Yes, Massimo, if you look at the label above the AKAN chips on the previous page,
363 is the protective color used for a/c topsides (on TB-1, TB-3 etc.) from 1927 to 1937.

3B dark green protective colour was used from to 1933-1937. (On TB-3 etc)

I thought that was clear since that image was posted 2-3 years ago. Data is also in the AKAN .xls file.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Dragonlance,
I remember the chips and the comments by Akanihin; it's that a pair of months ago Konstantin wrote

4.
I would not include 3B among VVS paints.  3B was an Army version of ?Protective Colour?.  It may have been used on metal airplanes sporadically, but no solid proofs for that.

and now I was interested to know if something new has emerged on other sources to have modified his opinion. All here.
I would say that a close exam of the piece of Gesali to know if the dark green is overposed or not to another green could give great informations.  On the I-16 piece, under the external layer there is another more brownish, probably the original Russian color.
Regards
Massimo

[GoNzA]

This article will be interesting to probably you:  4 БО - наше всё. (4 BO - it's our everything) by Alexandr Akanichin (AKAN)

!Notice that some AKAN's colors  are specially given faded, burned out (ВЫЦВЕТШИЙ).

[mholly]

I think there is a little confusion going on in regards to VVS paint nomenclature. As I recall M.Orlov wrote on scalemodels.ru very clearly that
4BO was NOT A PAINT but color, in other words a color etalon according to which the actual paint was to be made-namely AIIz and later AMT-4. As I also understand (according to Akanikhin and Orlov) there were TWO color plates (etalons) of the desired shade and the actual paint was expected to fall between them i.e. some variations were anticipated by default!
Cheers,
Mario

[GoNzA]

I won't argue as I am not the expert in this question.

Akanichin writes :

...
It would be desirable to talk about the name [4BO]. Long time I let out a paint and named it 4BО - Base, the Basic - Protective; dark green. Not so long ago, after small supervision, I have come to a conclusion that the letter "O" in this abbreviation carries absolutely other sense. Let's look together at album fragments:



Here!!! "O(O)" - drying oil; "Г(G)" - glyptal lacquer; "H(N)" - nitrocellulose. As all has appeared simply! And still it is necessary to specify that names "4БО (4BO)", "4БН(4BN)" and "4БГ(4BG)" don't mean that these paints became under one standards of color though there would be it logical. Accordingly, each of these paints had a scope and hardly they were crossed. The first - for the armor technics and artillery. The second and the third - for metal and wooden parts of cars. The tank painted with nitroenamel it it is very courageous!!! But I such met at foreign colleagues... Sadly. It is impossible to substitute a special-purpose designation of paints and color even if very much it would be desirable it.

Forgive me for clumsy text translation, the original - http://www.akan.ru/index.php/satii/29-4bo

[dragonlanceHR]

4BO was NOT A PAINT but color, in other words a color etalon  

The same goes for 3B.

And the color was simply called "protective". It can be the original shade, it can be of 3B shade and at last 4BO shade, later renamed AII Green.

Language really is a barrier.

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Anatoliy,  thank you for this good link and translation.
This article is really interesting, even if I haven't fully understood all because of the automatic translator.
Here is already an answer from Akanihin: the khaki protective was similar to 4BO and utilized before 1935, while the 3B was in use between 1935 and 1938.
However, digital chips are confusing. The 4BO shot taken from the Nakrasok doesn't look  similar to the chips of Akan shown aside. Probably depends on the settings of the scan.

Hi Dragonlance and Mario
maybe 3B and 4B are the names for color, while the last letter is indicative of their chemistry. If so, maybe the old khaki protective was called 2B, and some other type 1B?

namely AIIz and later AMT-4.

4BO shade, later renamed AII Green

This identification between AII green and 4BO and AMT-4 is new for me. On the base of the chips of Akanihin, they should be similar but not the same, in fact they aren't enlisted aside 4BO in his article.

Regards
Massimo

[mholly]

Massimo,

maybe 3B and 4B are the names for color, while the last letter is indicative of their chemistry

If we are to speak stricktly about aviation laquers I don't think so. Again, 4BO was just color etalon i.e. a sample/swatch how the actual paint should look like.
Then the nomeclature of the real paint indicated its chemistry i.e. AIIz/AMT-4 were known to be nitro-cellulose lacquers.

This identification between AII green and 4BO and AMT-4 is new for me.

Don't worry, some Russian modelers on scalemodels.ru remained confused that's why M.Orlov "stepped in" and clarified the matter.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Mario

[KL]

4BO was NOT A PAINT but color, in other words a color etalon according to which the actual paint was to be made-namely AIIz and later AMT-4.

And the color was simply called "protective". It can be the original shade, it can be of 3B shade and at last 4BO shade, later renamed AII Green.

?    4BO was a paint!  A real material thing in pales and it was painted or sprayed on tanks, artillery and helmets.  It was produced from late 1938 to 1952.  It was a "brand name" for ubiquitous soviet olive green paint.

As Akanihin explains in his last blog (well known facts) its composition was standardized and its colour did not vary as many modelers want to belive.
   

Cheers,
KL