Suchov's p-39 White 50

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
looks good. Will you make all 3 views?
Regards
Massimo

[KL]

Hi Misos,
nice you are experimenting, but so far nothing conclusive.  And it veers into some highly hypothetical colours...

- How and why AMT-1 popped out?
- Why AMT-11 over standard American OD?
- Why ALG-5 and not ALG-1?  ALG-5 was usually used on steel/aluminum planes like Il-2.  ALG-1 was standard primer for dur-alluminium.
- Why bothering with Massimo's "new" and "old" ALG-5?  "New" is questionable, "old" is 100% hypothetical
- did you try the simplest combination you see on Buffalo museum P-39?  Dark green (whatever it is, say 3B) and olive green (4BO, or the same looking A-24m) for nose repairs.

Cheers,
KL

[66misos]

Hi Massimo,
thank you
I will do all 4 views. Firstly I have to do some corrections to the shapes of camouflage fields. But it will take some time. I also try to summarize thread about Pokryshkin into one article, plus I have Yak-1 on the shelf plus a lot of other duties...

Regards,
     66misos

[66misos]

Hi KL,
seems we made our posts in almost the same moment.
I think there is at least something conclusive:
1.)  3-color uppersurface painting - upper rear part of the fuselage is lighter than repainting around white circle with red star while upper front part of the fuselage is darker than front/side fuselage.
2.) the spinner, propeller and part of the nose look repainted by the same dark color.

And everything else is experiment to show what way is more possible than other. So let my try to answer your questions:

- How and why AMT-1 popped out?

Variant trying to show Massimo's proposal that AMT-1 could be a good match to faded and weathered OD.

- Why AMT-11 over standard American OD?

There is a profile taken from Russian web pages at the beginning of this thread showing fuselage front sides painted gray. Originally I thought it could be AMT-11 so I tried it. But it turned out to be too dark. I do not think it is the right choice.

- Why ALG-5 and not ALG-1?  ALG-5 was usually used on steel/aluminum planes like Il-2.  ALG-1 was standard primer for dur-alluminium.

ALG-5 as a possible option is from my discussion on http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic_t_45341.html,
ALG-1 (Zinc-chrome yellowish) - here I would quote from Massimo's page http://www.mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/color-table.html : "primer for aluminium and magnesium alloys; usually covered by less visible colors. shade not standardized; it could appear as light yellow, reddish yellow or apple green". Massimo's page gives 3 options for ALG-1. All 3 color look too bright for camouflage. Even mixed with A-14 (50% to 50%) they give quite bright results, see my profiles above.

- Why bothering with Massimo's "new" and "old" ALG-5?  "New" is questionable, "old" is 100% hypothetical

I do not know which ALG-5 you mean "new" and "old". In my profiles I used 3 options: one is direct ALG-5 - the last one from the "Primers" table on http://www.mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/color-table.html, and two others are mixed ALG-5 - left and right sample from ALG-1 triple chip mixed with A-14 (50% to 50%).

- did you try the simplest combination you see on Buffalo museum P-39?  Dark green (whatever it is, say 3B) and olive green (4BO, or the same looking A-24m) for nose repairs.

I thought about it, but upper front part of the fuselage (most probably original OD) is darker than front side (e.g. repainted) of the fuselage. And all three colors (3B, 4BO, A-24m) are darker than original Olive Drab. That is why I try to find some color lighter than OD that could by logical choice for camouflage, not something like light yellow, reddish yellow or apple green.
Was 3B available in 1943 and latter?

Thank for your inputs.

Regards,
      66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
your hypothesis look rational, in absence of sure informations.

Why bothering with Massimo's "new" and "old" ALG-5?  "New" is questionable, "old" is 100% hypothetical

Where do  you see 'new' and 'old' ALG-5 in my page? This is the chip and has one shade only.



Regards
Massimo

[KL]

Sorry Massimo, I should have checked your page first.
Misos mentioned left and right part of the chip and for many colours you do have "new" and "old" as left and right.  I believe that my contribution to that table was significant - threads about paints and primers buried somewhere in this forum's past can prove this.  From the very start I didn't like that "old" and "new" approach.  But, the page is yours and you may keep it however you like it.
Regards,
KL

[66misos]

Hi,
I made a picture of collected screenshots showing Sukhov's P-39 from the right side:



The pictures are not of a very good quality, but still they show:
- front sides of the fuselage are significantly lighter than mid/rear fuselage,
- nose and spinner are significantly darker (A-26m matt black?) than both repainted and original part of the front fuselage,
- repainting on the rear fuselage is not so evident, contract between original OD and overpainting (A-24m or 4BO?) is minimal here.
- yellow arrow points at probably propeller manufacturer logo.

Unfortunately I have not found this docu video in the better quality yet.

Regards,
     66misos

[66misos]

Hi,
here I tried to map photo and one sreenshot onto P-39 drawing:



After looking at it for a while I started to think about only 2 green colors on fuselage and black nose+spinner :
- lighter color could be original OD,
- darker color could be repainting, going from around the "50" and star through the area around exhaust pipes to the fuselage part just bellow canopy and further to the nose. Note the lighter area just behind the canopy here and on screenshots in my previous post.

Regards,
     66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
I don't think this conclusion is right. One should compare the look of spots on the same photo, not joining photos from different sources that could  have different films, exposures and parameters of printing.  On the movie, we can't see on the rear fuselage anything that contrasts as on the nose. Besides the light parts have convex shape, and this suggests that they are the added on color.
Another thing: from the photo with the yellow arrow, it seems that only the roots of the prop blades were repainted black as the spinner. The tip looks with the original color, faded black or grey and the factory mark.
Regards
Massimo

[KL]

IMHO, the spinner is not black



Regards,
KL

[66misos]

Hi,
here is another screenshot, showing Pokryshkin discuss his flight on Sukhov's P-39 just after the landing.
We can see here:
- propeller blade(s) were not black on their outer halfs, at least from the back (pilot) side (green arrow),
- repainted darker area on the fuselage (yellow arrow)


This is the adapted profile I posted also on the scalemodels.ru, no response so far:

Changes:
- colors for AII red, 4BO and A-21m are taken from AKAN web pages http://www.akan.ru/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=39&Itemid=2,
- for ALG-1 I took 3 different probes from http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=783.0:

and made and average (3 layers, 33% opacity of each). It is not ideal, but...
- propeller spinner originally red (AII Red) and silver-grey propeller blades overpainted partially with AMT-6 together with the fuselage nose,
- A-21m or AMT-1 Light Brown are the only standard camouflage paints (for planes) of relative bright color, enough bright for front fuselage repainting, although not as bright as even worn/dirty primer ALG-1.
- shape of the 4BO repainting is changed according to the repainting of the P-39 in Buffalo museum http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/photogallery/p39q/p39q_1.htm

Was 3B Dark Green from 1933-1938 used also in 1943-45?

     66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
the work looks good.
About the spinner, I think that, if it was red, it was all red, because photos don't show any discontinuity on it suggesting two colors. They could have dismounted it before painting the black part on the nose, it's not time-consuming as to dismount the whole propeller.
I am not sure about the shade of green.
3B was not in use in 1945, however it's difficult to exclude it. Why wasn't A-24m convincing?
About the overposition method in Photoshop: I don't think that the overposition of 3 33% layes is a good method, both because it leaves the white background to influence the resulting shade, both because the resulting color depends on the order of overposition.
I would go with:
one color on the background;
overpose a 50% later of another one;
flatten into one layer.
put the third color at 33%;
flatten into one layer.
Please, try  and let me know if the result is different.
Regards
Massimo

[66misos]

Hi Massimo,
let me anwer your question.

1.) regarding the spinner I am not decided. On the one side, screenshot with yellow arrow (same photo used on b&w collage) shows that blade root looks darker than spinner (could be just shadow) and on upper part of the spinner between blade and fuselage is a brighter area showing again that spinner could be of lighter color than fuselage nose and blade root. Or it can be just shinning.

On the other side, in all doc movies (not photos) is red spinner clearly distinguishable than Olive Drab fuselage and/or is bright. Nothing so dark as here.
Here are some examples from my thread abot Pokryshkin:







2.) I think A-24m is convincing. As was written before, color of 4BO, AMT-4 and A-24m paints should be very similar or even identical, at least when new. I did not find A-24m chip on the AKAN web page, only 4BO and AMT-4. And because of metal plane I used 4BO. Plus it was a (very little) bit darker than AMT-4.

3.) I played a bit with ALG-1 bright version in Photoshop. I have to say I made a mistake in my previos post or in my Photoshop, but the first layer had opacity 100%, not 33%. If all 3 layers have opacity 33% then result is still translucent.
Anyhow, I followed also exactly your method. When taking chips from the right side where ALG-1 is exposed:

th final result was almost the same. When taking chips from middle od left part, then result in greysh.
However, this KL wrote at http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=783.msg3945#msg3945

ALG-1 color wasn't standardized - from wrecks it color could be anything between:
bright yellow
green-yellow
brown-yellow

Plus I am almost sure that what I see on my monitor is different from what you see on your monitor and all that is different from real paints.

Now I work on the left side of Sukhov's P-39. I will use another ALG-1, made according to your proposal. You will see that the difference is minimal.

Regards,
     66misos

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Misos,
I see some dark on the rear of the spinner, but it seems due to the moving prop blades whose roots were repainted black, the images are merged due to the quick rotation. 
About the red in the bw photos, you can compare the spinner to the star on the fuselage in the same photo/movie, they are under the same light (at least on the sides).
Regards
Massimo

[KL]

Hi Misos,
IMHO two colours used on "Suhov's" P-39 are the same as two greens seen on Buffalo museum P-39 - Dark green for rear fuselage and yellowish olive green for nose/wing repairs.  Olive green is an oil paint - 4BO or A-24m.  I don't know what is dark green...  

only two other paints that I would consider are ALG-1 and ALG-5.  For those You should reffer to "Albom nakrasok"



Note that ALG-1 chip is brown-yellow.  This is exactly the colour of the inside of engine cowlings of the Yak-3 which is displayed in the Musee delAir.  This Yak-3 was made in Dec 1944.

Regards,
KL