Soviet SBs during Barbarossa:

black-green camouflages after the war's outbreak

Updated on February 22, 2018

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A new directive for the camouflage of military planes reached the units on 21 June 1941, but the most of them had more urgent things to deal with than repainting planes.

Anyway a part of the planes survived to the first weeks of war were partially repainted according to the new directives: black and green camouflage, red stars on the fuselage sides, on the tail and below the wings; so, the red stars over the wings were often deleted with green or black.

The original green A-19f and light blue A-18f were often preserved, and the adaptation to the new standard was limited to overposing black bands over the previous livery.

Red starlet

Aside:

SB 2M-103 during a sortie on the Western Front, 30 July 1941.

The plane is camouflaged with black bands over the original green-blue livery.

The starlet on the rudder and the absence of any bort number are noteworthy.

 

 

Below:

profile of the same plane

 

 

Little 12

Plane 12 was probably abandoned on the Smolensk airport, aside the similar n.10 and perhaps some other ones.

A fairly complete reconstruction of the camo pattern is possible.

The first and third photos aside, showing a plane with the left wing up, are probably of plane n.10 whose camouflage seems to share a common pattern with n.12.

The colors are likely green AMT-4, black AMT-6 with silver AE-8 undersurfaces.

The star on the fuselage and on wings was deleted, and a small red star was added on each side of the rudder.

The paint of the plane shows some strange wearing close to the gunner's cockpit; it is not known if this happened when the plane was still operational or after its loss.

 

 

 

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