Colors, camouflage, national markings and secondary markings such as stencils and stripes have always been a point of neverending discussion and even heated debate among modelers and history buffs. Thank the Lord for sites like J-aircraft.com, where you can go to the research section and get the latest findings from real researchers who have very specific interests, such as stencils on Zeroes. Which brings me to the point: I am building two different Types of A6M3 for a commissioned piece, and the assignment requires two models side by side, to be compared. For the first model, I decided to use the old faithful Tamiya series (and a Hasegawa Type 22 for the other one), still a great buy for its price, to represent the clipped-wing Type 32, which was actually built before the Type 22, an identical plane, except they put the wing tips back on and added a few gallons of fuel capacity.
Anyway, on a lark, I just happened to find some Polly Scale Acrylic Conrete color, and after reading in several places the suggestion that the true color of Mitsubishi's version of IJN gray was almost identical to this color, I used it. The effect is amazing. It's not quite such a pretty background for the nice big blue and yellow fuselage and tail stripes as that almost-white gray we've been using all these years on early Zeroes, but it's more accurate according to the consensus of the latest research.
And now it's beginning to look like these planes, as they rolled out of the Mitsubishi factory (and then also the Nakajima factory, with its own shades) even had a green cast to the darker gray. And both factories used different colors for the cockpits and interior anti-corrosive colors (like the clear blue-to-green overcoats we all know and have so much trouble with), used alongside a green gray in cockpits that is made by simply taking Tamiya Sky Type S and adding a few drops of sea gray to it, then coat it with clera semi-gloss.
One reason these aircraft were thought to be such a dazzling light gray is because so many of them were found by advancing troops after the planes had been left out to oxidize for months in the baking South Pacific sun. And, of course, many planes, as on our side, were painted in the field with whatever was on hand. But it appears certain that our old ideas of what factory fresh IJN aircraft looked like at the various times in the war were pretty much wrong, though the common IJN and IJA dark greens we're used to are probably pretty accurate, so say the experts I've been reading.
And notice the absence of stenciling on even the most expensive kit decal sheets. They don't print decals they don't know were there, but the Japanese covered their a/c in colorful stenciling, and brass or aluminum manufacturers' plates went on every subassembly, from the gear legs to the canopy.
I suppose if there's a point to this, it is, keep an open mind about these things, especially Japanese a/c, since we saw fit to destroy almost every last example of every last type that wasn't already shot to pieces at the end of the war, creating the lack of solid historical knowlege we wrestle with today.
Next time, try another shade on the early Zeros and the bottoms of the later models. The concrete trick, though I was afraid I would spend the evening stripping it off, looks dead on with photos of the period when you compare the contrast of the white surround on the hinomaru in a black-and-white photo against the overall background color of the aircraft (yep, white surround on all-gray a/c).
And definitely, if you're interested in the subject, and you haven't been to j-aircraft.com, by all means bookmark it. And, if you can tell me more about this that I don't know (and what I don't know is pretty much everything, or rather, I don't know anything, so any solid information on IJN colors will help me in this project, for I have a Type 22 to build yet, using everything Eduard makes for that kit, which is a lot of metal on one model.)
Thanks,
Tom
Tom