My Color Conundrum:
First, some historic background. In 1944, the Soviets formed two units in their air armada that were composed entirely of Yugoslavians. At the end of the war in 1945, the Yugoslavian Air Force was formed. Stalin wanted to reward the service of the Yugoslavians in the fight against Hitler, so he sent large numbers of various types of Soviet airplanes to the newly formed air force. The Soviets and the Yugoslavians had a falling out in 1948, and their alliance ends. For our purposes, this means that a lot of the former Soviet practices end in 1948, and the Yugoslavians start doing their own thing. The painting schemes used in the air force for their planes begin to change in 1948.
Figuring out the paint scheme for my model:
I am building an IL-2m3, the Soviet tank hunter that could punch holes in tanks all the way up to and including Tiger and Panther tanks. The IL-2 was supplied in great numbers to the Yugoslavians. I discovered a photo of a very interesting plane that had its camouflage over-painted with black (or dark gray) paint for use as a night fighter. I then discovered a set of decals for this plane.
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1. The decals say this is the paint scheme.
I wanted to find out more about this plane, which led to the conundrum. The diagram with the decals has the tail and fuselage stripes painted yellow. I found a black and white photo of the plane which made me think that the tail and stripes were not yellow.
The more I researched, the more sure I became that the rudder and stripes weren't yellow. The decals also depict a camouflaged plane that had been over-sprayed with a black paint that was peeling off, especially on the underside of the stripes. Some sources suggest the plane was originally a solid gray color, others say it was in the old Soviet Green-Black-Sand camo, and others say it was in a dark gray-light gray scheme used by the Yugoslavians. Most sources say the plane had the azure blue underside. At some point, one of these schemes was covered with black paint that began to wear off.
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1. Yugoslavian dk gray-lt gray camo
At this point I found a great website by Massimo Tessitori called Soviet Warplanes:
https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/
Massimo has two websites, a huge one on Soviet planes and another one on armor. He has written a book on the Mig 1-Mig 3. His website has a tremendous number of contemporary photos, which he has analyzed in detail. From this, he has a large number of 3-view diagrams based on his research and analysis.
His analysis cemented my belief that the yellow color on this plane is incorrect. He has photos of this specific plane, and he points out:
-The color on the rudder appears to be a light gray. Planes in this unit were known to have their rudders, elevators, and ailerons painted a light gray for maintenance purposes. When you compare the color on the tail to the white in the tail insignia, it is clear that the color is not white. His website has photos of other planes in the unit that are known to have light gray flying surfaces, and they appear to be the same color as my plane.
-The color on the stripes does appear to be white. When you compare the white in the tail insignia to the color of the stripes, they appear to be the same.
-Some sources say the azure blue on the underside was not over-painted, but it is clear in the photo that the top and bottom of the plane are the same color, namely faded black.
-You can't see it in the photo, but apparently in the original photo you can see the camo that has been over-painted. I am assuming that these planes had been repainted in the dark gray/light gray camo used by Yugoslavia and then over-painted in black.
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1. Interpretation of my plane by Massimo Tessitori. Note light gray rudder.
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1. Period photo of my plane. The white in the tail insignia seems to match the color on the stripes, but not the tail.
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1. Post-war Yugoslavian maintenance. Nothing to do with my story, just cool.
Well, this has been a long story, but I think it was really fun to do some footwork. I went from thinking something didn't look right to finding a website where they knew why it didn't look right. So, I plan to start with a dark gray-light gray camo over azur blue, with very light gray on the flying surfaces. The fuselage stripes will be white. Then I will over-spray the plane with diluted black paint, and then chip some of the black paint off near the area of the lower white stripes. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Should be fun. Sorry about the long explanation. :o) Aloha.
