Nakajima C6N1 Paint question

[mawz]

I'm building a 1/72 C6N1 right now and the kit instructions are entirely in japanese so the paint chart is pretty much useless. I

I'm guessing from the pattern on the paint guide that it should be IJN Green over IJN grey with a black cowl, is this correct? (The box art shows what is either all-grey or NMF so I suspect it's wrong)

[trojansamurai]

The official paint spec probably would have been IJN green over IJN gray with black cowl. However, it is likely - if not probable - that it would have been green over bare metal with black cowl. This was the case with the Tenzan, Ryusei and Shiden/Shidenkai - whether it be to save production time and cost, or to reduce weight (and therefore increase speed). Since the Saiun completely depended on its speed for defense, I would presume Nakajima would have done anything to improve speed.