Il-2 Camouflage Schemes

[Seawinder]

I'm ready to apply topside camouflage to my AM 1/48 Il-2 two-seater. I'm going to use the three color scheme of AMT-1/AMT-4/AMT-12. My dilemma is the actual shapes of the color areas. Massimo Tessitori has profiles for two variants at sovietwarplanes.com. Erik Pilawskii has profiles for what he calls "NKAP templates" that are quite different, especially on the wings -- more swirls. I absolutely don't want to stir up yet another Pilawskii yea or nay flame war, and I'm definitely leaning towards basing my paint job on Mr. Tessitori's schemes, but I would be interested in knowing if there's any evidence that Il-2s appeared in the schemes posited by Mr. Pilawskii.

Pip Moss

[learstang]

Pip, welcome to the forum!  I would definitely go with the schemes that Massimo has on the IL-10 page as those are from the definitive (so far) research on VVS colours done by the Russian scholars, the late Vasily Vakhlamov and the still very much with us Mikhail Orlov.  I believe those drawings may actually be from the WWII NKAP drawings.  At any rate, go by those and do please post some photographs of your IL-2.  The IL-2 is rather a passion of mine, and it's always nice to see one done in accurate colours.  For what it's worth, the colours I use are Testors Model Master enamels - '42 Dunkelgrau for AMT-1, Green for AMT-4, Gunship Gray for AMT-12, and Russian Topside Blue for AMT-7.  I can't vouch for their absolute accuracy, but they seem pretty close to me.  Of course, use what you want and I look forward to pictures of your Shturmovik!

Regards,

Jason

[Seawinder]

Pip, welcome to the forum!  I would definitely go with the schemes that Massimo has on the IL-10 page as those are from the definitive (so far) research on VVS colours done by the Russian scholars, the late Vasily Vakhlamov and the still very much with us Mikhail Orlov.  I believe those drawings may actually be from the WWII NKAP drawings.  At any rate, go by those and do please post some photographs of your IL-2.  The IL-2 is rather a passion of mine, and it's always nice to see one done in accurate colours.  For what it's worth, the colours I use are Testors Model Master enamels - '42 Dunkelgrau for AMT-1, Green for AMT-4, Gunship Gray for AMT-12, and Russian Topside Blue for AMT-7.  I can't vouch for their absolute accuracy, but they seem pretty close to me.  Of course, use what you want and I look forward to pictures of your Shturmovik!

Regards,

Jason

Thanks for the welcome, Jason. I used Akan's AMT-7 for the undersides. I must say it looks quite dark, but it is a pretty good match for the 25190 quoted by Massimo and others. I still think I may lighten it with some white and put on another coat. I've mixed some AMT-1 by adding some white to Model Master Russian Earth Gray; I'll use Model Master 34102 mixed with a bit of Interior Green 34151 for AMT-4; and I'll either go with the 50-50 mix of Model Master Russian Topside Blue and Black (as found at scalewiki.ru/амт) or doctor some RLM 74. I'm afraid my cockpit color is way off -- I used my homebrew version of IMUP Blue-Grey Metal Primer when I started the kit some years ago, and that was the cockpit color of the day based mainly on E.P.'s recommendations. OTOH, I suppose it's not inconceivable that there was a cockpit or two in that color.

Thanks again!
Pip

[learstang]

You're welcome, Pip!  The one colour I forgot to mention was the interior colour I use - Testors Light Ghost Gray for the Soviet A-14.  It may be a bit light, but it seems about right for me.  Now in terms of whether all IL-2 interiors were painted in A-14, or a combination of A-14 and/or one of the greenish or yellowish primer colours, that's another matter.  Just for convenience sake (and since I'm hardly likely to know for certain for any individual Shturmovik), I stick with Light Ghost Gray for both the cockpit and the wheel bays, including the landing gear (except for the wheel hubs, which I paint Medium Green).

Regards,

Jason

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Pip and Jason,
thank you for your consideration on my work on Il-10.
At present time I haven't made deep research on the templates of the Il-2s. My Il-10 templates are a bit different, according to the suggestions of the few available photos, and I can't assure that they are fully valid for Il-2 too. If you show the photos of the Il-2 of your interest, we can try to see if they are compatible.
At the same time, I won't claim that EP's work is wrong without having examined it. Probably it's based on photos of some real Il-2, only one has to check the degree of generalization attributed to this template, and this can be done only after having compared it to the photos of the plane of your interest.
Regards
Massimo

[Seawinder]

Hi Pip and Jason,
thank you for your consideration on my work on Il-10.
At present time I haven't made deep research on the templates of the Il-2s. My Il-10 templates are a bit different, according to the suggestions of the few available photos, and I can't assure that they are fully valid for Il-2 too. If you show the photos of the Il-2 of your interest, we can try to see if they are compatible.
At the same time, I won't claim that EP's work is wrong without having examined it. Probably it's based on photos of some real Il-2, only one has to check the degree of generalization attributed to this template, and this can be done only after having compared it to the photos of the plane of your interest.
Regards
Massimo

Hi Massimo. First off, thanks for approving my registration.

In my first post to this thread, I was confused because I didn't read your material closely enough to realize that your color profiles were for the Il-10, not the Il-2. In fact, the diagrams you present of the two versions of NKAP 1943 templates for the Il-2 are very close to what Mr. Pilawskii presents, so there's really no disagreement there. I'm planning to use markings from an Aeromaster sheet for what they call a "late-war Il-2" in the three-color camouflage with white "482" and white spinner. In the absence of any photographic documentation (I have none and know of none), I'll probably replicate version 1 of the NKAP template as presented by you and Mr. P. Interestingly, the camouflage scheme in the AM instructions looks very close to the NKAP version 1 template, but with AMT-1 and AMT-4 reversed. I wonder if AM had some documantary support for this  or if they simply got the color labels wrong.

Regards, Pip

[John Thompson]

For what it's worth, the colours I use are Testors Model Master enamels - '42 Dunkelgrau for AMT-1, Green for AMT-4, Gunship Gray for AMT-12, and Russian Topside Blue for AMT-7.

Hi Jason - Do you have the Modelmaster ID numbers for those? Thanks!

John

PS - The FS numbers off the bottles would be helpful, too! Thanks again!

[learstang]

Here they are, John.  Flat Black (AMT-6) - 1749, FS37038; Green (AMT-4) - 2029, FS34258; Afrika Dunkelgrau '42 (AMT-1) - 2103, no FS number; Russian Topside Blue (AMT-7) - 2126, no FS number; Gunship Gray (AMT-12) - 1723, FS36118; and Light Ghost Gray (A-14) - 1728, FS36375.  Although I haven't finished any VVS fighters recently, I may use Light Ghost Gray for the AMT-11, although I'm open to other suggestions as I don't particularly like the idea of one of my exterior colours being the same as my interior colour.

Regards,

Jason

[John Thompson]

Here they are, John.  Flat Black (AMT-6) - 1749, FS37038; Green (AMT-4) - 2029, FS34258; Afrika Dunkelgrau '42 (AMT-1) - 2103, no FS number; Russian Topside Blue (AMT-7) - 2126, no FS number; Gunship Gray (AMT-12) - 1723, FS36118; and Light Ghost Gray (A-14) - 1728, FS36375.  Although I haven't finished any VVS fighters recently, I may use Light Ghost Gray for the AMT-11, although I'm open to other suggestions as I don't particularly like the idea of one of my exterior colours being the same as my interior colour.

Regards,

Jason

Thanks, Jason! It's always a tough call when you want to use paints straight from the bottle or tin for what you're working on. I've been using your pick for A-14 even though it's certainly lighter than the "official" Akan A-14, but then real 1:1 scale A-14 looks lighter than the Akan paint in a lot of photos too. FWIW, I think AMT-11 needs more blue in it than MM Light Ghost Gray. I had pretty much settled on Humbrol 145, although again it is visibly lighter than the corresponding Akan acrylic. Scale effect and/or fading, of course...

John

[learstang]

John, you may very well be right about the AMT-11.  As I said, I haven't painted any two grey-scheme fighters, so right now it's an academic question.  Since I like to stick to Testors Model Masters flat enamels (readily available and they work well with my airbrush) I'll need to pick a more appropriate colour from the oh, 50 or so greys that Testors make.  Light Ghost Gray may be a little light for A-14, but I've seen preserved pieces of A-14, on this site, which match it rather closely.  Closely enough for me.  Let's just say I think it's close enough where 10 years from now I won't look at VVS models I did now and go "what was I thinking?".  And of course, as you mention, there's the scale effect, fading, etc.

Regards,

Jason

[Seawinder]

Here they are, John.  Flat Black (AMT-6) - 1749, FS37038; Green (AMT-4) - 2029, FS34258; Afrika Dunkelgrau '42 (AMT-1) - 2103, no FS number; Russian Topside Blue (AMT-7) - 2126, no FS number; Gunship Gray (AMT-12) - 1723, FS36118; and Light Ghost Gray (A-14) - 1728, FS36375.  Although I haven't finished any VVS fighters recently, I may use Light Ghost Gray for the AMT-11, although I'm open to other suggestions as I don't particularly like the idea of one of my exterior colours being the same as my interior colour.

FWIW, I rather like the mixing formula for AMT-11 found on the chart at http://scalewiki.ru/%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%82: 70% Model Master Topside Blue to 30% black. If it appears too dark, one can lighten with white to taste.

Pip Moss

[learstang]

Thank you for the suggestion, Pip!  However, I like my paints already mixed.  No doubt I might obtain somewhat more accurate colours if I did mix my own.  The problem (besides being incorrigibly lazy) is that I don't trust myself to mix the paint up exactly the same way from batch to batch.  In my younger, wilder days I would mix paints, but when it came time to do some touch-up, and my original mixed paint had dried up (which it had invariably done by the time I finally spotted the mistake), I could never get the exact same mixture.  It scarred me for life.

Regards,

Jason

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi all,
my work of classifying photos of Il-2 according to painting resemblance is giving some fruits. Here are photos of single-seater built in zavod 18 in Kuybishev.





They look all variants on one pattern.
It is the fourth black-green scheme identified till now.
Is it possibe to find other photos of similar planes before starting to trace a template?
Regards
Massimo

[learstang]

Massimo, that's a nice picture of "Red 8", the best I've seen so far.  I just completed my Hobby Boss kit of that same aeroplane.  Looks like I was a bit off on the camouflage.  Oh well, nobody else will know!  I'll look and see if I can't find some other photographs of similar patterns amongst my mass of IL-2 pictures.  It would be great if you started doing drawings of the IL-2's camouflage - of course, I will help in any way.

Regards,

Jason

[Massimo Tessitori]

Thanks Jason. On the right side, the planes are easily recognizable because they have a black blotch just under the tail star. On the other side... I'm not sure.
Regards
Massimo