Hi John,
excellent photos indeed, the first one in particular.
I've read the linked page. I didn't know it.
About the faked camouflages: at the start of the war the Soviets were full of silver and light grey planes, or, when things were good, with plain green uppersurface and red stars over the wings.
Stalin denied the authorization to camouflage planes and airports to prevent that it was interpreted as a provocation by Germans, in facts he tried to gain time before the war outbreak.
So, at the beginning of the war, when the air bases were attacked, each unit had to arrange to hide planes.
It is wrong to think that strange spotted camouflages required a long study and meditation in so hot days: each technician took a brush, the paint he found and started to dirten the immaculate surfaces. Besides, this required much less paint than a complete repainting of a silver plane.
No marvel that the results were strange: maybe, in the hurry, two men with different colors and ideas worked on the same plane on opposite sides.
There are many photos of strange camoflages on planes still in Soviet hands (I can link some), and, by sure, they didn't asked to Germans to paint them.
Unusual camouflages are rarer on later planes, as Yaks and Lavochkins, simply because they came out already camouflaged
from the factories.
About the famous MiG-3 n.9: on its fuselage and tail we see light rectangles due to peeling off the layer of fabric by souvenir hunters (the underlying color should be yellow putty). Two photos of this plane are known, and it's possible that it was turned on its nose for scenic effects. But, repainted? And why should they repaint it for a marvellous photo, and then to peel down its skin before the photo itself was shot?
Massimo
