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Brown-Green camouflage
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Author Topic: Brown-Green camouflage  (Read 11606 times)
cdk
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« on: September 12, 2010, 06:52:52 PM »

Hello,
many profiles show russian airplanes with a dark brown and a green camouflage. Also the IL-2 in the Prag Kebely museum and a other example in Norway are restored in those colours.
I have read with great interest all the message boards are linked here, but I am confused a little. Are all the profiles misinterpretations and must be green and black ? Have the restoration team's in the Museum are make mistakes ?
Hope someone will give me some light about the dark brown colour.

Best regards
Claus
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John Thompson
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« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2010, 07:29:43 PM »

Hi Claus - welcome aboard! I hope I'm not over-simplifying, and if I am, I'm quite happy to be corrected, but brown/green uppersurface camouflage was limited to ground attack aircraft such as the Il-2, and larger aircraft, such as bombers. So the brown/green scheme can be correct for the Il-2, depending on when the particular Il-2 was in service, but overall green and green/black are also possibilities for the early-war period.

Again depending on service date, fighters might be a solid dark green (AIIZ or also called AII Green), dark green and black (AMT-4 and AMT-6), or dark and medium grey (AMT-12 and AMT-11).

If your main interest is the Il-2, go to the following site and get Viktor Povinsky's several excellent, FREE, profiles on Il-2 markings, easily available by e-mail or download:
http://www.viktorpublishing.blogspot.com/

The following three documents may be of interest, but some information may have been superceded by Viktor's research works:
http://free.hit.bg/germanik2/Il-2shemi/il2-schemes1.html
http://free.hit.bg/germanik2/Il-2shemi/il2-schemes2.html
http://free.hit.bg/germanik2/Il-2shemi/il2-schemes3.html

John

« Last Edit: September 12, 2010, 07:32:43 PM by John Thompson » Logged
mholly
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« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2010, 09:24:31 PM »

Hi Claus,
Quote
many profiles show russian airplanes with a dark brown and a green camouflage. Also the IL-2 in the Prag Kebely museum and a other example in Norway are restored in those colours.
It's actually Prague-Kbely Smiley
Yes, it's one of the most stubbornly surviving urban myth in VVS coloration. Based on the Russian primary research (Vaklamov/Orlov) there is no documentary or physical evidence whatsoever that such a color was ever applied in VVS standard camo schemes. The only standard brown (kind of) paint was AMT-1, more like light grayish brown, called by Russians "coffee with milk" (with more milk) which applied only on attack/bomber aircraft (never on fighters).
To be precise there was a paint called "tabachnyi" (tobacco), really darker brown color, developed and tested in late 1940 on new multi-color (5-6) experimental camo schemes. These schemes, however effective, were not adopted neither was the paint.
I'm afraid John is not correct (sorry John) speaking about Il-2 brown-green camo.
I also suggest caution regarding Viktor Povinsky's Il-2 research as he sometimes relies too heavily on B&W pix analysis lacking the understanding of VVS coloration standards in their entirety.
I dare to say that last links John posted are useless in the light of current knowledge.
Cheers,
Mario

John,
Il-2 overall green and green/black camo in early war period are not possibilities but facts.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2010, 09:26:41 PM by mholly » Logged
John Thompson
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« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2010, 09:31:27 PM »



John,
Il-2 overall green and green/black camo in early war period are not possibilities but facts.


Sorry; I meant possible choices for finishing a model instead of brown/green, not that they might not have existed!

John
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mholly
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« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2010, 12:16:38 AM »

Quote
Sorry; I meant possible choices for finishing a model instead of brown/green, not that they might not have existed!

John

John,
sorry to be such a "perfectionist" (or pain in the "lower back"? Smiley) but there are no other choices but overall green and green/black. Brown/green scheme did not exist.
Cheers,
Mario
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warhawk
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« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2010, 01:29:40 PM »

OK, just to set things straight, is this the basic conclusion:

- Early Il-2s (say pre 1943) : AII Green or AII Green / Black
- Late Il-2s: NKAP scheme: AMT lacquers -4/-12/-1

or there were some other variations?
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Massimo Tessitori
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« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2010, 02:05:04 PM »

Not exactly.
I would say:
till the war outbreak: solid green A-19f (metal surfaces); eventually, the AII green, that is a bit darker, could be used on wooden/fabric surfaces only, but I don't know if wooden Il-2s were already available before the introduction of AMT;
eventually, emergency camouflages with black and/or other colors on this base;
green AMT-4/black AMT-6 between mid 1941 and mid 1943;
green AMT-4, light brown AMT-1 and dark grey AMT-12 till the war's end.
On official templates are described Il-2s with grey AMT-11 and 12, but there is no proof that this scheme has been really utilized.
The uppersurface of Yugoslav Il-2s is dark grey (postwar).
Massimo
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learstang
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« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2010, 05:49:27 PM »

Massimo, in terms of wooden-covered Il-2's, the early Il-2's had metal (steel) forward fuselages, metal (mainly aluminium) wings, and wooden rear fuselages (birch ply, I believe - although the horizontal tail surfaces were always metal).  Apparently there were a few single-seaters produced in 1941 with metal fuselages, about 200, although I've only seen one photograph of such a plane so I don't think it was at all common, despite model manufacturers and artists continuing to portray both single and two-seaters with metal fuselages as if this were a common feature.  From 1942 onwards, due to shortages of aluminium, Shturmoviks were produced with wooden-covered outer wings, sometimes overlaying an all-metal structure, or sometimes overlaying a structure that was mixed - wooden ribs with metal spars.  The two-seaters, introduced from October of 1942 onwards, were produced with both wooden-covered and metal-covered wings, and it appears that from the middle of 1944 all Il-2's (at this point the arrow, the swept-wing variant) were produced with metal (aluminium)-covered wings.  I hope this clears things up a bit about the confusing question of the airframe covering.

Regards,

Jason
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KL
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« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2010, 07:05:25 PM »

Jason,
pre-war Il-2 was an all-metal plane.  First wooden details started to appear in summer 1941, but wooden rear fuselage was introduced later in the second half of 1941.  It is safe to say that in 1941, more Il-2 were made with metal rear fuselage than with the wooden.

Cheers,
KL
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Massimo Tessitori
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« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2010, 08:40:42 PM »

If the plane had wooden parts and it was painted solid green, the difference of shade between A-19f and AII green could be recognizable in photos, particularly if the plane was weathered.
Massimo
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learstang
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« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2010, 06:22:30 AM »

Jason,
pre-war Il-2 was an all-metal plane.  First wooden details started to appear in summer 1941, but wooden rear fuselage was introduced later in the second half of 1941.  It is safe to say that in 1941, more Il-2 were made with metal rear fuselage than with the wooden.

Cheers,
KL

What do you base this on, Konstatin?  I don't have access to Ilyushin's manufacturing records, so I don't know what the breakdown was of metal-fuselaged to wooden-fuselaged Gorbatiys (if Ilyushin even kept records of such things).  All I have are pictures to go on (as imperfect a record as this is), and I have seen dozens of captured or crashlanded Barbarossa-era IL-2's, only one of which indisputably had a metal fuselage.  The other pictures, and I'm talking about the June/July 1941 periods, all seem to have wooden fuselages.  If more IL-2's were made with metal rear fuselages in 1941 than with wooden rear fuselages, I would expect this to show up in the photographic record, and I just don't see it.

Regards,

Jason
« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 05:52:18 AM by learstang » Logged

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KL
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« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2010, 08:23:07 PM »

According to Yegorov?s "Samalyoti -llyushina" wooden wings and fuselages were produced from autumn 1941.  In case of the wings, first only plywood skin on outer wing consoles and later both skin and internal load caring elements.  All this due to the general lack of aluminum caused by the relocation of its producers. In 1944 all-metal Il-2 was reintroduced into the production.


Rastrenin, Il-2 authority No 1, in his Yauza-Eksmo books writes that the plywood wing skin was introduced in summer 1941.  Both metal and plywood covered wings were in production at the same time for a while.  In the beginning (doesn?t say beginning of production or beginning of GPW) both metal and wooden fuselages were in production, and from summer 1942 only wooden were produced .

If we correct Yegorov?s autumn to summer and if we assume that Rastrenin meant beginning of GPW, everything fits:  from summer 1941 metal elements were gradually replaced with wooden.  Both metal and plywood covered wings were produced at the same time.  Same with the rear fuselage, both metal and wooden were produced at the same time.  Metal rear fuselages remained in (probably limited) production till summer 1942.

There is definitely more than one photo of the metal rear fuselage ? look carefully and apply info from the literature.

KL
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 09:07:46 PM by KL » Logged
learstang
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« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2010, 06:11:06 AM »

Konstantin, I'm sure that there is more than one photograph of a metal-fuselaged single-seater in existence (if you have any, I'd love to see them!), I'm just saying that I've only seen one and if the metal-fuselage were as prevalent as you seem to be saying it is, I would expect to have seen more.  I have examined my photographs very carefully, and the metal-fuselaged example I referenced is so distinctive, that I believe I would recognise it in any of my other photographs, if indeed they did have the metal-fuselage.  Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you, you have access to Russian-language sources such as Oleg Rastrenin's work that may make this matter clearer to you than it is to me.  I agree that metal and wooden wings were produced at the same time, but I still don't think the metal-fuselages were that common, even on the single-seater.  Certainly they were not common to the extent that you see them portrayed so often in kit form (Toko, Academy, Hobby Boss, etc.) and in drawings and colour profiles.  That's my main point.  I'm not saying they didn't exist, just that their prevalence has been exaggerated.  In a related matter, do your sources say anything about the external anti-flutter/wing balances that were fitted towards the tips of the wings (not to be confused with the balances attached to the ailerons)?  Where these ever fitted to wooden-covered wings?  It is my understanding that these were only fitted to the metal-covered wings on the single-seaters.

Regards,

Jason
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KL
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« Reply #13 on: September 15, 2010, 07:09:02 PM »

Jason,
when I wrote my first post I had in my mind scenario described by Yegorov:  pre-war planes were all-metal and they remained in production till autumn 1941.  Then, at the end of 1941, Il-2 producers were relocated and relatively small number of planes was completed.  AFAIK this scenario appears in other Russian books too, some of them published before Yegorov?s book.

But, this seems to be an oversimplified and basically untrue story: 
?   Il-2 prototypes had wooden rear fuselage
?   Aluminum shortage didn?t become a problem in autumn 1941.  Soviet aviation industry depended on imported aluminum even before WWII
 
I understand what you are saying.  Your observation is interesting and worth further investigation, maybe on scalemodels.ru???

Cheers,
KL   
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cdk
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« Reply #14 on: September 15, 2010, 07:20:17 PM »

Hello all,

thank you all for the replies. Now the green-brown camouflage is a bit clearer to me. Also the IL-2 Infos are very helpfull to me, because I have in my mind to built a IL-2 and a Po-2 in this colours. Now I know that this is wrong and I will go with uppersurface in Green-Black or in 3-Colour scheme.

Claus
« Last Edit: September 17, 2010, 07:47:12 PM by cdk » Logged
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