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the correct color for japanese planes


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  • 10 months later...

Aloha All,

The many sensei have repeatedly stated that the Hairyokushoku (gray-green) is the Zero color. These men are those who worked with the various Japanese paint releases of that color...thus I only repeat my teachers. Read carefully the NEW data on the recently found IJN color swatches at:

My link

Having seen J3 (made of black and white) on the lower surface of the N1K1 in 1975, I was seeing what I expected to see on the Zero (with my meager 1975 era knowledge). When I viewed the samples of the Zero and RUFE...I was taken aback by the gray-GREEN of the rubbed samples (to get rid of any residual chalking). My sensei began to assure me of the facts.

The latest color discoverys are from Japan. Several Japanese researchers made a concerted task to locate color documents with great success. Three Japanese Navy documents and a IJA document have been located thus far.

The first document published was Feb 1942 IJN Document Number '0266', a test of variety of colors applied to the famous Zero. A large amount of discussion began, yet the conclusion was that more searching was required.

The next document located and GAKKEN magazine printed was an April 1945 IJN document number '8609' and the number system was drastically different than '0266' for the same color name.

Digging continued. and TWO copies of the November 1938 IJN document [April 1942 revision] “Temporary Specification No.117 Additional Volume†were located. This truely laid out the colors used in WWII and the other documents (above) helped to show some changes as the war progressed.

Satoshi Kimura, the son of the late Tadao Kimura (pilot of Zero AI-101 at Pearl Harbor), wrote more about the history of Japanese color (This is a machine translation):

My link

Uniquely, in October 1941, the orders came down for VALs and KATEs of the Kido Butai to received camouflage. At that moment, these VALs and KATEs were in NMF, with silver painted on the fabric surfaces. Most had red lacquer tails.

Japanese witnesses recall that this painting had to be worked around the training schedule. KATE and VAL types were training at various airfields. Paint stocks at each of the bases were used to paint both Nakajima aircraft and Aichi aircraft.

Most fields had only gray-green paint in enough quanity, then those aircraft got gray-green...while a few fields had only gloss 'Tsuchi' (earth, mud) 'iro' (color) called 'I3'. Thus you may understand there was little uniformity between aircraft carriers. Of interest, R. Watanabe (in his cited article) asssured that this "I3" was used for a short while as a undercoat on Nakajima A6M2 and A6M2-N with the gray-green as final coat.

My link

Sidnei Maneta has nice artwork for 'Pearl Harbor' and other CV borne actions:

My link

Tamiya produced this 灰緑色 'Hairyokushoku' [literally 'gray-green'] for their 1/32 Zero 21 and 'unsaturated' (lightened) the color for use on 1/32 and 1/48 scale miniatures. Sweet has 'unsaturated' the 灰緑色 'Hairyokushoku' color even further for 1/144 scale Zeros.

Cheers,

David Aiken, a Director: Pearl Harbor History Associates, Inc. http://www.pearlharbor-history.org/

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