greyed out national insignia question

gregv · **Posted:** Wed Dec 30, 2009 2:22 am

looking at the great pics of the bellied-in Mustang in the recent thread, and was noticing the greyed out star 'n bar, which got me wondering how this was carried out. Did they just load up a spray gun with grey and lightly mist over the entire insignia, or were they blue areas masked off and only the white areas treated? Was there a tech order or something for this, and does anybody have a copy? What date was this implemented, I'm guessing sometime in '44?

cheers

greg v.

Oscar Duck · **Posted:** Wed Dec 30, 2009 8:16 am

Lots of pictures of 8th AF P-51's, B-17/24 etc with gray toned down national markings. I'm amazed that none of the current restorations have been done like that...

Dan Newcomb · **Posted:** Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:08 pm

Maybe too simple of an explanation but it look like dirt and grime to me. Most folks have no idea how filthy airplanes get.

Oscar Duck · **Posted:** Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:06 pm

This mentions grayed out national markings. They were very common...

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgu ... tAPpz7jQAw

JDK · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 12:00 am

Are we are talking about this thread's subject?: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33923

There was an example in our recent P-51D Mustang book. I'm with Dan here - The grey fuselage marking there was created by dirt, as is, IMHO, the example in the pictures in the above thread. The port side grey is very common, and is often evidently darker near the spill area of the fuselage tank filler. The starboard is less seen, and I'm guessing was created by the overflow and exhaust - the latter also contributing to the port too, of course. We can't see the wing insignia, the only bit of the upper wing white looks white, but in the circs to little data to prove it either way.

I'm no expert on USAAF markings, but those I know tend to the dirt theory. There's too little to support the 'greyed' markings theory and too much against, IMHO, but happy to see good evidence to show otherwise.

1 - I've seen (or heard) of no documentation or firsthand crew accounts of the practice of greying out markings; 2 - in natural metal aircraft clean (bright) metal and dirt adhering to paint is explicable; 3 - all the other marking tonedowns I've seen are either very rough and obvious, or documented by official orders; 4 - why would you tone down white on a natural metal - more reflective - aircraft?

Oscar's IPMS Stockholm reference is nice, but the author gives no source to his belief the markings were greyed, I don't give this reference weight. A source would be good.

The aircraft in our MMP book. Note the graduating from forepart grey to near white on both the D Day stripes and insignia, as you move from the fuel-filler point.

http://mmpbooks.biz/mmp/books.php?book_id=102

USAF Photo

I've an open mind, more firsthand / primary evidence welcome!

Regards,

Ken · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:26 pm

I'm confident more photos will be posted. I know I have seen photos of NMF B-17s and P-51s with toned down US insignia and the color appeared uniform, not like dirt. Jack Cook - the Bat signal is being broadcast!

Oscar Duck · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 5:46 pm

JDK don't believe everything you read in "official" publications. Quite often "field" orders prevailed over 'tech' orders. One only has to look also at the field interpretations on such orders and see major variations and so-called non-standard results.

Toned down markings were used by all sides. The Luftwaffe, Japanese, The RAF and USAAF. Bit hard to have exhaust staining on the fuselage of a B-17 or B-24 and there are plenty of pictures of them with grayed out stars.

A simple test is looking at the invasion stripes in black and white vs the insignia on some aircraft. Remember that the aircraft were not 'old' in most cases.

JDK · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:15 pm

Oscar Duck wrote:

JDK don't believe everything you read in "official" publications.

I don't. Please note I actually distinguished between officially applied tone-down markings and local unofficial efforts in my previous post. I'm also not generalising with toned-downed markings on camouflaged aircraft, an entirely different case, where some logical advantage can be gained.

I also provided a source example supporting my statement, rather than 'there's plenty of them'. There may be, but where are they?

{Posted before Oscar added images into his post]

Quote:

A simple test is looking at the invasion stripes in black and white vs the insignia on some aircraft. Remember that the aircraft were not 'old' in most cases.

The D Day striped example I provided above shows dirt as the cause of the graduating greys across the markings and stripes, rather than a hypothetical other example. Evidence?

The age of the aircraft is irrelevant - most were 'brand new' in normal terms. It's how hard used or clean the machine is.

There are multiple myths about colour schemes - IMHO this is another complex explanation for a simple accidental cause. However I'll be delighted to change my opinion when there's good evidence to show otherwise.

Regards,

JDK · **Posted:** Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:26 pm

Interesting B-17 pics. An old B-17 (multiple mission markings) has a darker star and bar on the fuselage than a new one.

Anyone got the histories of these two aircraft? Was 232095 delivered in natural metal?

Hypothesis a) darkened deliberately for reasons unknown and without any supporting evidence, local recall, local or wider orders. Possibly done with dirt to kill the white, which would give a similar result to hypothesis b.

Hypothesis b) a darkened marking due to the age of the aircraft, and paint taking dirt as a result of cleaning with fuel, where the natural metal remains unaffected.

Simple explanation or complex?

Good offer, not one I was aware of, but not conclusive. More please!

Regards,

Oscar Duck · **Posted:** Fri Jan 01, 2010 6:31 am

The whites and yellows are clear...as one can see, the national markings have been toned down on the Liberators.

As for the Mustangs having exhaust staining on the national insignia, a quick review of aerodynamics will show that the gases go down well before the trailing edge of the wing due to the airflow over the wingroot..

I rest my case..

JDK · **Posted:** Fri Jan 01, 2010 6:58 am

Oscar Duck wrote:

I rest my case..

As you wish.

There's no point in debating the issue if you are going to continue to include toned down markings on camouflaged aircraft - a different issue as I've said twice already - and secondly ignoring the clearly evident differing ages of the tail markings on the camouflaged to the overall scheme and factory applied original roundels.

There's still no reason provided as to why tone-down markings would be applied to natural metal aircraft, and clear evidence of dirt adhering to the remaining painted areas of these aircraft giving the impression of toned-down markings.

Everything you've advanced can be explained by dirty / worn paint. That may well not be correct - I'm happy to be proven wrong - but your rested case is far from proven and is still awaiting a rationale - on shiny silver aeroplanes.

Regards,

Oscar Duck · **Posted:** Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:12 am

The centre B-24 is "silver" or natural metal.

Yor argument about dirt on the white seems a bit spurious when other white markings are no affected.

note the streaking does not go all over the non-white star and bar.

JDK · **Posted:** Fri Jan 01, 2010 7:24 am

Oscar Duck wrote:

The centre B-24 is silver or natural metal.

Yor argument about dirt on the white seems a bit spurious when other white markings are no affected.

JDK wrote:

...secondly ignoring the clearly evident differing ages of the tail markings ...to the factory applied original roundels...

Again, the tail markings are later applied. Presumably natural metal - I'm not aware of painted silver B-24s as shown here.

If your hypothesis is correct, why grey a roundel and leave a white band on the tail untouched? Most of the camouflage based tone-downs I'm aware of are consistent in killing all the bright colours.

We can all believe what we wish, the trick is providing good evidence and a case to convince others to agree with us. I'm not convinced, and I'm just saying so. Yeah, I'm a tough crowd, but the interest here is what we can learn from discussion - not perpetrating Furphys like the blue-camouflaged Mustangs - which I believe this is a variation of - while I may be wrong.

Cheers!

Django · **Posted:** Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:40 pm

I've always wondered about the grayed National Insignia myself. This was only on ETO/MTO aircraft right?

The Inspector · **Posted:** Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:15 pm

How about this? It was a fad @ that particular time. Someone flying a mission notices that 'Old Johns planes star and bar are sure bright in the sunshine' the word gets passed to old John who mentions it to his crew chief, who figures he can score points with the pilot. Next mission, everyone else notices the greyed out star and bar and wonders 'what do they know that we don't with this shiny airplane?' Suddenly there's a rush on supply for grey paint and thinners and everyone in group has greyed out US markings, the fighter guys notice and the circle continues-it seems to have happened in a very narrow time span and didn't carry to other theatres, but for a while everything that flew in Europe whether bright bare aluminum or nasty old olive and neutral grey was sporting toned down markings.

Sort of like the sudden rise around here in stick on fake BUICK 'VENTAPORTS' on everything from HONDAS to big trucks-it's a fad and for a while everyone was aping someone else by toning down the big white star and bars, flipper hubcaps on 50's hot rods, mag wheels in the 60's on 6 cylinder cars, fads, high water pants in High School, DA hairdos, everyone wanting to be unique by dressing the same.

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