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WWII Chinese Green - what color is it?


TimHortman

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All,

 

Does anyone have an FS number match/range for the darker green that the Chinese used on the upper surface of their aircraft in WWII?

I have a project in mind that I may start over the Holidays, and don't have a good guess as to what color I need to find.

 

Thanks for your help.

Tim

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I couldn't find a reference in the old IPMS Color Reference charts but my guess would be that China retained the color from the supplier country. I would expect that the I-16s would have the Russian color while the Curtiss planes would have the US colors or export colors.

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Thanks for the post Clare!

I cannot find anything in my sources here either.

What I am thinking about doing is the A6M2 that the Chinese captured & rebuilt. The aircraft has been repainted after it was repaired. It appears to be a dark green. I was hoping that there was a "standard" green that was used...

 

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Hey Mike - good to hear from you.

Thanks for the info - That is at least a starting point.

 

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Thanks for the post Clare!

I cannot find anything in my sources here either.

What I am thinking about doing is the A6M2 that the Chinese captured & rebuilt. The aircraft has been repainted after it was repaired. It appears to be a dark green. I was hoping that there was a "standard" green that was used...

 

you can go here: http://www.sonicmodel.com/boarddisplay.asp?BoardID=23

there are many chinese wwii aircraft model pictures in the BBS.

 

i am not sure the exact number of the color. but if i find out, i will tell you.

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Thanks for the help!

 

i talked to some chinese modeler about this and they said the eaist way is to use the Mitsubish Green. cos at that time, paiting was valuable in china, too. they may use whatever color they had. not very strictly.

 

if i got further inform, i will tell you. too

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I would not think that the Chinese would have any supplies of Mitsubishi Green. Rather, I would think that any stocks that they would have had would have come with the export aircraft that they bought. Can you find any photos of the field? Whatever planes that are in the background would be good sources for the captured Zero painting.

 

Having said all that, I would consider painting it in Russian Green or US OD. You want it to look different from all the other Zeros on the table. :D

 

 

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Clare,

You're correct - I DO want it to stand out. In most of the photos I have seen, there isn't much in the back ground.

Here is a photo I own which shows the aircraft in recently painted US markings (most photos show the Chinese markings).

The "best guess" is that this photo was taken by a GI during the 'hand off' to US forces.

Enjoy!

 

A6M2USa.jpg

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I have no idea what the "real" color of green is on that plane, but I'd like to make a couple of observations...

 

1) Note that whatever color was applied it did NOT completely obscure the previous stripes on the tail planes and fin.

 

2) I doubt any color of "japanese" green would have been used in a repaint, even if it was available. My understanding is that the main purpose of repainting was to make it look like an allied aircraft and NOT an enemy aircraft. Thus it would have been paintied in allied colors (such as OD/gray), depending on what was on hand in the theater.

 

Do I know for sure any of the above? No......but that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Best of luck!

 

GIL :smiley16:

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Hey Gil,

 

There are MUCH better photos of this aircraft out there. Most of them with the US Markings are carefully shot "press" type photos with no GI's around the aircraft. This one I bought years back & it was obviously part of an album of photos from 'someone who was there'.

There are shadows on the tail from person standing behind the aircraft (out of frame) which cast some of the darker shadows. The tailcode reads "P_5016" which was applied by the Chinese & was seen when the aircraft was repainted with the Chinese markings. You can see the "6" but there is a person standing just at the edge of the photo to obscure the rest.

I agree that a Japanese color is very unlikely (the Zero was originally in the light grey or grey/green "early Zero" overall scheme). I was hoping that there may be a more-or-less standard Chinese Green that they used on the upper surfaces. Looks like I have more of choice when it comes to picking one. One thing is for sure, I DO want it to stand out, so it won't be a close match to any of the Japanese colors I have in the paint rack.

Of course - getting the project started is going to have to come first! :smiley20:

 

If anyone's interested here's a link with a ton of more info on the aircraft:

http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/WarPrizes.htm

 

Thanks again to all!

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