Ladies/Gents was looking through the wild book "Im Anflug auf die Reichshauptstadt and on one of the last pics it shows an A-20 Boston - 3 of them in flight towards Berlin for a little bomb drop. big red star on the fuselage but cannot tell the unit. Question though as this appears to be a daylight raid the overall camo tends to look white through the black/white photo. White or what other light colour was common with the Soviets in 45 for their a/c ? thanks E ~
I have seen some white/lt Grey or two shades of light grey much like winter camoflage. I also saw an all white plane but the plane was old so don't know if the photo was 45' ish. but found this for modelers White Ensign Models click on the plane to get the colours by date
thanks Ike but cannot seem to find a match for the A-20 Boston. you may be correct that upon further investigation very very light grey. still searching ........ ~
Dang it, now I can't find that photo. It was darker than white but a very light grey. I will keep looking.
The VERY BEST site for VVS matters is Modeling the Aircraft of the Soviet VVS This one was personally dedicated to me, see the lettering in Cyrillic Also, do yourself a favour and buy the book(s), as a lot of material had to be removed from public domain (the site) for copyright reasons. And see the links page too, unforgivable if you don't! (especially the link MiG-3 Colors)
Through the war, the most common paintschemes for Soviet Bostons, were white for winter, and 2 shades of green for summer. If your picture is late war, and shows 2 shades of a rather light color, it is most probably the late war paintscheme that became the VVS standard : pale grey and medium gray
haven't left the Sphere yet for places north though this could go in the soviet a/c at night thread for explanation therewith
It was good to know that when I was designing fictitious scenerios for Steel Panthers and used US C-47s to drop Soviet paras, I wasn't far off the mark.
a short clip not very healthy in the way of copy but I think I noted for a millasecond Pe-2's in all winter white ? YouTube - Soviet Bombers/Ground attack aircraft of WWII
@ Slon : yak-3 @ Erich : about the Li-2, this paintscheme is very unlikely to be a late war night bomber paintscheme, because during late war, almost all of VVS night bombers had a black underbelly Check this IL-4 below About the mysterious targets, it could also have been Yer-2 but I doubt it because 1) these planes were very rare, and I doubt they were still under front line service so late in the war and 2) they could easily be identified because of their inverted gull wings. About the Douglas, late in the war, the most common paintschemes were the white and grey stuff I posted above, or a light/dark green or brown camouflage more or less like the style of the IL-4 above, or a uniform olive drab like in the picture below (no cammie scheme) - maybe the US painting. About the movie, I confirm it's a Pe-2, from the fact the nose has no glass and the antenea is very forward, it's at least from the 250th serie, which means very late 1942 or most probalby 1943 at the earliest. And yes, from the winter 1941 on, they were all white, just like the Pe-3 below
The VVS paint scheme situation is as complex as the LW one if not worse. See my post no. 5 above. The current bible is: Amazon.com: Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-45 (Classic Colours): Books: Erik Pilawskii Modeling the VVS: SAFFC Book Addendum
I got to see a couple Rata's in person in Galveston and they are a very small aircraft compared to other WWII fighters. They kind of remind me of the GeeBee racers of the 1930's and I also read they are very tricky to fly and land. The ones I saw were from a series of replicas built in New Zealand a number of years back.
Yes, the I-16 were very tricky to fly as they did have a very short tail momentum. Very sensitive to center of gravity shifts.
