Il-2KR photo help!

[ChristianK]

Gentlemen,

i have a couple of questions regarding the Il-2KR (artillery spotter / Recce) pictured below:



(source: 4+ "Il-2 Shturmovik", G. Petrov collection)

1. Is this a swept-wing variant?

2. what kind of device is installed in the rear canopy? According to the 4+ book, when there was no AFA-3 camera installed in this place, the rear gun was retained. The point is, it doesn't look like a machine gun..(there seems to be a maintenance guy standing behind the device; this doesn't make it easier)

3. Am i right with my assumption that this is a standard Il-2 converted to a KR-variant after delivery? You can see on the right wing that this a/c was finished in a three-color-scheme according to the NKAP template #2. As the rear portion of the plane wears a much lighter color than it is visible anywhere else on the upper surface i guess this is an overspray done after the conversion. Presumably this is the lighter, sandlike shade of AMT-1, whereas you can see the darker shade on the wing (the colour in the middle of the three different ones)

I know, some tough questions here, but i think the outcome (i.e. a very attractive model) will be worth it

-Christian

[Dark Green Man]

1. No it is a 'straight' or 'regular' Il-2
2. it is not a KR , just a standard Il-2
? ? having a radio mast on the pilot's canopy does not make it a KR,some KR's had them there and some did not.
? ?some regular Il-2's had them there , it appeared briefly during production, but quickly reverted to the standard location.
? ?that is not a camera in the rear it is? a standard 12.7mm Berezin machine gun with some type of fabric (canvas?) cover over    it.
3. No, this aircraft is painted in AII Blue/Green/Dark Brown/Black
? ? no AMT paints and no KNAP template.
(my model of this very interesting aircraft is almost done)
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[ChristianK]

Hi Dark Green Man,

thanks for your help, but regarding the version - i am quite sure that this is a KR, as in my opinion you can clearly identify a camera bulge under the rear gunner's cockpit (Maybe it's not too late for your model!)

Furthermore i'd still like to know how is it possible, in general, to distinguish the straight from the swept wing from that angle? Where are the points to look for?

Regarding the camo scheme - What makes you so sure about the camouflage scheme, especially the fact that there are just three colors on the upper surfaces as i would say the light color on the rear fuselage is definitely not repeated on the wing. I also think it is not the angle which alters the hue of the paints, as you can see the dark color on the wing tip matches nearly perfectly the dark blotch behind the fuselage star. The same is true for the midtone color on the central fuselage compared to inner wing surface. Or do you meant that the light fuselage color is AII Blue? In this case forget my aforementioned speculation.

(I hope this won't drive us too deeply in the discussion of b&w-interpretation, as i know this is kinda futile most of the time )

[Dark Green Man]

well , it seems I have made a mistake.?
I was suffering from the mistaken impression that it had to have a camera in the gunner's position to be considered a -KR.
when it seems that this camera installation was quite rare , the exception rather than the rule.
photographic evidence shows nearly all of them as having guns as this machine clearly does.
page 101 of "the Soviet Air Force in World War II - Red Stars" by Carl-Frederick Geust has a better quality image to examine and shot from a slightly different angle than in the +4 book.
this image shows something long and thin pointed aft and toward the sky...
(sound suspiciously like a gun barrel to me)
as large as this camera installation was , this cover is clearly larger than that and of a different shape.

the question 'how many two-seat Il-2's had straight wings?' is one that comes up quite often and I emailed Erik Pilawskii (Soviet Air Force Fighter Colors 1941-1945) this question and his answer was
(and I quote) "the vast majority".
so the burden of proof is proving it had swept wings.
according to Von Hardesty's book "Red Phoenix" this aircraft was photographed in Tartu , Estonia in August of 1944 at about the same time that swept wings went into manufacture.
since there is usually some training time involved with aircrew and their machines we can say with some certainty that this aircraft was manufactured prior to the introduction of the swept wing for the Il-2.
the definition 'straight' refers to the trailing edge of the wing ; the line from the outer edge of the aileron to the wing root is a straight line.
on the swept wing machine the angle changes (15 degrees)at the join line between the inner wing section and the outer.

the AII Light Blue is the under-surface color.(perhaps I should have been more specific earlier)
the lightest color on the fuselage is AII Light Green (the base coat color)
the next color is AII Dark Brown a very common second color on two-seat Il-2's
yes ,you are correct about AII Black appearing on the wingtip and aft of the star.
can you find it anywhere else ?? ?(quiz time)

I had no intention of building a camera (insufficient data) and I do not know of one that I could acquire already built.
so it appears that I can finish my model and correctly call it an Il-2KR , probably the first accurate made in 1/48 scale.?

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[ChristianK]

Quiz time? So i guess you mean the dark dot on the engine cover, right behind the spinner?

I have an additional quiz for you  : Which colors are used on those Il-2s?



(Those are grey scaled color pictures and i hope you don't know them)

I knew that AII Light Blue is the under-surface color, i meant the very light color in which most of the rear fuselage and the rudder is covered. But as i already said, color discussions, especially on b&w photos of russian aircraft, most likely won't come to any pleasing and final conclusion. (Maybe with the exception of winter-washes, of course)

Regarding the swept wing: Mr Pilawskii seems to contradict himself, since on his webpage (http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Markings/NKAP/il2/il2-3colour.htm) he states the following:

"During 1943 there was much development in the Il-2 programme. At the start of the year the two-seat model Shturmovik powered by the Mikulin AM-38F engine had established itself in manufacture as the current version. At this point the Il-2 was being completed with the same wooden outer wing sections as the previous single-seat models of the same construction (the earliest single-seat models featured metal outer wing panels and metal rear fuselages). However, with the additional weight of the extra crew member, the improved engine and airscrew, and other sundry details, the Il-2?s c.g. had moved aft once more to an uncomfortable degree. As a result, efforts were put in hand to find a suitable fix, and increasing the angle of the outer wing panels? sweep-back from 5 degrees to 15 neatly solved the problem. By the late spring and summer of the year, the ?arrow? was well established in series manufacture along with the straight-winged two-seat model, which itself continued in production until the fall"

So he says that from the summer of 1943 onwards the swept wing was in considerable production, and since the fall of 1943 it was the sole production model. Confusing...

Could you post that picture from Geust's book you mentioned in your post?

[Dark Green Man]

it's kind of late tonight to be making long , thought-provoking posts.
so I will substitute by giving you some reading material.
(think of it as homework)

http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Forum//showthread.php?tid=416

(please pay close attention to posts by Erik Pilawskii (EP) and Aleksandr Ruchkovsky (AR))


p.s. you failed my quiz ; there is a teardrop-shaped black patch on the left wing at the inner/outer wing attachment line.

p.p.s. as for your quiz...I'll get back to you after examining your images.

[Dark Green Man]

I've scanned the image of #482 (as I call it) but I forgot my password at photobucket so I will either have to think about it some more or get a new one.
in addition I will upload a better photo of the UIl-2 (or Il-2U if you prefer) that should make it's color and part of the camoflage pattern more visible.

[Dark Green Man]

I figured out my photobucket password !
here are the images.

[ChristianK]

Hi Green Man,

thank you very much for posting the photo and especially the link to the VVS-forum. Very interesting indeed. This will save me some putty.
And yes, from that angle it looks that the light color on the fuselage of "482" is actually the same as the light color on the wing. (Damn it, i wanted a swept-wing KR with a four-color upper camouflage! Now i have to think of new options for my Eduard kit AND get a Dako straigt-wing Ilyushin; or at least the one from Smer for kitbashing. Oh painful, expensive life!)

Is at least this Il-2 an "arrow" variant?



Regarding my quiz: you misunterstood me, as you should have guessed the colors of this two Il-2s. Anyway, here's the solution



When i saw them the first time, i was indeed quite impressed of the AMT-12 / some green scheme. Not what you'll likely imagine while interpreting black&white photos..

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Christian,
color photos of Soviet planes of WW2? Great, the only ones I knew were of German origin.
But, are we sure that they are original color photos, and not bw images colorized for printing purposes? Now this can be done easily by Photoshop, but sometimes it was done by airbrush at the age of the war or later.
Massimo

[ChristianK]

I've found them in the 4+ publication on the Il-2. According to the caption the planes belonged to the 1st Czechoslovak Mixed Air Division, photos taken during their arrival at Prague-Letnany in June 1945. Hard to say if they are colorized or not, but if, it was well done. But on the other hand, and as you mention it, the bright red star on the lower surface of the wing looks kinda suspicious...

On short notice i remember just two other color photos of WW2-VVS, printed in the french Air Magazine No. 26, depicting Yak-3 of the Normandie-Niemen Regiment in Le Bourget, also taken in June 1945. Unfortunately i can't scan them now (maybe someone else?), but i can tell you, that the color samples of AMT-11 and -12 from Pilawskii's site (http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Research/colour-samples.php) are quite correct. Just "quite" because the shade of AMT-11 differs in brightness on nearly every Yak depicted there. This is also clearly visible in the b&w photos. The contrast between these two standard colors varies from very sharp to subtle, but that's another story.

Back to topic: Il-2 "white 15". Swept wing or not?

[Dark Green Man]

1.white 15 is also a 'standard' Il-2 , not 'so strelkoi' (the arrow)
? you have interesting timing as I just emailed that image to someone else at a different forum...
2.there is no known factory-applied four-color scheme for the Il-2.
3. three-color combinations include : AII Green/Brown/Black? (#482)
? ?AII Green/Brown/AMT-12
? ?AMT-1/4/12
(in these cases Brown refers to AII Dark Brown-as shown on the Digital Color Chips)
4. if those are original color photos (i.e. not re-touched or altered) then the colors are somewhat mysterious.
the aircraft taxiing appears to be AMT-4 overall and was most likely re-painted by the Soviets prior to delivery.
of the trainer -there is a dark area behind the rear canopy that is consistent (in grayscale) with AII Black or AMT-6 ; the other color might be a very old (and dark) AII Green or possible even AMT-4.
5. the Yaks at Le Bourget show signs of considerable weathering and I also suspect the film used to photograph them was not that good either.
6.the bigger problem with the Eduard kit (7010 or 7011) is that it also depicts a metal aft fuselage and this is a post-war re-fit. the only machine I know of that it correctly represents is the Il-2 currently on display in the museum in Beograd, Serbia. (AKA Belgrade) I wonder if that was the 'model' for the model ?
if I recall correctly the machine at Prague/Kbely has a wooden rear fuselage, and that would be correct for a wartime machine.
Dakoplast Il-2's with two seats and straight wings are very hard to come by now.
what you will probably have to do is buy the two-seater with swept wings and also the single seater so you can steal the straight outer wingtips.
I haven't tried using the Smer kit wings on anything else as I was using them (2) for early single seat machines.

what is with the +4 book? it looks like everything was scanned from an old videotape?

[ChristianK]

Why don't you ever give the answers i want to hear? 

And why so sure this time about "White 15"? I saw the white makeshift markings on the tail, thought of late war, thought of swept wing. Seems i had no luck again..

[Dark Green Man]

Why don't you ever give the answers i want to hear?

And why so sure this time about "White 15"? I saw the white makeshift markings on the tail, thought of late war, thought of swept wing. Seems i had no luck again..

don't blame me that you are asking the wrong questions !
(just kidding around with you there )
white 15 just doesn't look like an arrow to me, that's more of a guess than a fact.
to be honest I do not know where, when or what regiment this aircraft belonged to when photographed.
although regimental markings like these are more common in the later part of the war one can't rule it out completely.
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[ChristianK]

I think i'll try the Eduard/Smer kitbash for "482". Notwithstanding minor corrections (panel lines etc.) and foreseeable fit issues, is this actually possible? I.e. was it effectively the same straight wing on all one- and two-seaters?