WWII US NAVY & USMC AIRCRAFT LATE WAR COLORS

The three-tone camouflage of American carrier aircraft

From 1943 the machines of the US Navy flew in a graduated finish: a very dark blue on the upper surfaces, a medium blue on the sides and white underneath. The boundaries were sprayed soft and were meant to make it harder to judge the position of the aircraft seen from above as well as from below. About a year later the system gave way to a uniform gloss dark blue, in which Hellcats and Corsairs finished the war.

Both stages are covered by the four tones in the package. The insignia white matches the undersurfaces to the FS 17875 standard, the transitional blue the sides, the dark blue the upper surfaces and the darkest shade the late overall finish of 1944 and 1945.

What matters is that these four shades come from one system and follow on from one another. A soft transition between them then looks convincing. Putting together similar tones from different brands is the most common reason a carrier machine does not come off in the end, because every company mixes its blue with a different proportion of black.

The package consists of four bottles of 17 ml. The paints are of the lacquer type and do not get along with water; they are thinned with the thinner of the same range or with denatured alcohol. Before spraying it is enough to shake the bottle, because the mixing balls inside disperse the settled pigment within a few seconds.

For the late single-color machines it is worth recalling that the gloss finish went flat very quickly from salt and service. The combination of gloss varnish on freshly delivered areas and flat weathered panels gives a model a depth that paint alone does not provide.