"Special Night" black on Spitfire Mk Vb

[XPhantomTweet]

I am interested in the Spitfire flown by Sgt Peter Dunford, painted in an all-black scheme, which is either "Night" or "Special Night" - the first reply in this thread -

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1262860

- shows that there were two night camo colors specified for fighters at the time in question (Oct 1941 to Feb 1942), but I have yet to hear about any other all-black Spitfires.

I have a decal sheet which describes the "sooty" or "blotchy" black and calls it "Special Night."

This is the quote:

a Mk.Vb W3848 flown by Flight Sergeant Peter Dunford of No. 111 Sqn, RAF Debden in December 1941 and it's paint scheme was "Special Night" scheme which is an extremely flat lampblack colour with blotchy patches.

I have seen only artwork, not photos of this aircraft, W3848.

Was it, in fact, satin black or the sandpaper-rough carbon black finish - which added considerable drag - known as "Special Night"?

[agboak]

You will find a photo in one of Alfred Price's Spitfire At War books for Ian Allan/Doubleday, the second I think. I believe it has been reproduced elsewhere, possibly in one of Mushroom Monthly's Spitfire books, but I can't confirm that at the moment.

The scheme will not have been the satin Smooth Night, for that was not available at the time. It may have been the prewar matt Night, but it is much more likely to have been the sooty Special Night, RDM2. Or possibly the very similar RDM2A, I know of no way to distinguish between the two and for modellers it doesn't matter anyway.

[Gerhard]

I built this same scheme, and the best fit I found was Tamiya's Nato Black, with some shading/fading on some panels. I created some contrast with pure matt black for the props etc.