Question for Stefano (and for all other people interested)

[Rick]

Continuing the discussion, I want to submitt to your attention to show you this photo from the damaged cover of the magazine L'Ala d'Italia n°12, 16-30 June 1943; as you can see the left wing comes from another airplane (built by Macchi) while the fuselage is of an airplane from Breda; in my opinion it is evident that the fuselage is in Giallo mimetico (as the C202 168-11) while the wing is in Nocciola chiaro; this photo appears also on the cover of the book "Courage alone" and I do not think that the fuselage color is a weathered Nocciola chiaro. What do you think about?



Riccardo

[Editor]

What a precious and very interesting photo! Its hard to argue with a photo. The NC4 has a visible brownish tone to it while what appears to be GM3 on the fuselage has a yellowish/orangish tone. In fact if you examine the CMPR Color Chips, note the orange tone to GM3 and the base green is likely Verde Mimetico 3. The C.202 must be an early built Breda machine, likely Serie I constructed in the first half of 1941.

[Stefano]

Jean wrote:

The question of this "new" color is now open to debate. But, back to modeling, if I mix white with Nochiola chiaro, I can find a similar hue as the one on the pics, if I do the same with Giallo Mimetico, I don't! Could the real thing be the same?

Yes, it's possible, but until now no documents to support this have been found, nor surviving personnel recalls, as far as I know.

Vince wrote:

One other thing worth pointing out in this very interesting photo is that there's no sign of anticorrision green - all the (fuselage) interior appears light grey (GAC) including the lowered flap (lower left of the photo). If anticorrosion green was applied beneath the grey, surely we would have seen flakes of it.

You're right, that's why I'm sure that Breda used a grey as a primer instead of VA.

Mirek wrote:

After so many years is almost impossible to find the truth. Fascio in the picture from Rick does not look blue like that, yes?. I write because the determination of any shade from the photos is difficult, depending on many circumstances. Using the earlier yellow certainly is not impossible, that Rick is right, but determining whether it is NC4 and GM3 from photograph is guesswork. Photos tone is more to yellow, see the sky or a white stripe on the fuselage... I do not know whether the colors produced in each factory, or whether there is a single supplier. And it may play a role ...

Good observation. For practical use there is no need to find the exact hue for our models, but a credible one. We should consider the action of sun, sand, rain, ice on paint, and also the paint mixing by the personnel. Nevertheless our goal is to make a replica as close as possible to the original and that's why the research goes on. And there are always surprises even more than 60 years later: see the RE.2000 relic elsewhere in this forum. As for the fuselage fascio background, please note that it was medium blue since 1923 until early stages of war, then it became dark blue-grey as in the image you mean.

Rick, I was less surprised by your latter image than by LIFE's one. The wing appears to be Nocciola Chiaro 4 but could have also been Giallo Mim 4. According to CMPR book Giallo Mim 3 was used by Breda (even though no source are given), and Giallo Mim 4 by Macchi (and there was evidence on MC.200 relic before its restoration). But the LIFE photo shows a colour common to both factories, possibly a standard paint which was not Nocciola Chiaro 4. If not a new colour, there is the possibility that Breda used GM4 too.

Stefano

[two-o-five]

This color video clip was recently posted on YouTube. It's an American team disarming a captured Macchi C.202. At times I am seeing the same color as in the Life color photo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiPQdDFU ... re=related

This second clip was posted by the same person. It's in black and white, but it's new to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLnfFdSuvIY