Italian WWII paints

[peter havriluk]

I have a pair of Italian WWII aircraft to  paint, both being gray/blue underneath and dark green top and sides.   A long while ago I obtained a bottle of Model Master 'Italian blue gray' and a bottle of Polly Scale 'Italian dk olive green'.  Using these means breaking out the airbrush.

 

The SMER 1/48 Reggiane re.2000 kit instructions mention 'Hellblau H65' and 'Dunkelgrun H30' which appear to be Humbrol identifiers.   Which sounds a lot like colors I already had in Tamiya rattle cans.   I don't much trust the rough-and-ready kit instructions.   

 

Anybody have any ideas about whether the German paint callouts SMER made make sense and these aircraft would look reasonable painted in these Luftwaffe colors?  Or crank up the airbrush? 

 

(way back in prehistory I hung around with a British kid who had a Morris Minor he was hotrodding.  He found a camshaft from an Austin-Healey Sprite which used a BMC A-series engine roughly shared with the Morris Minor, and installed said camshaft into the Morris.  Turned out to be the same part in the Sprite engine as in the  Morris engine.  I don't want to make the same sort of error painting these airplanes.) 

 

Thanks!

Edited October 3, 2021 by peter havriluk
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[Britaholic]

This place is a mine of useful information, also have a look at Sovereign Colourcoats website for more info.

https://www.stormomagazine.com/RegiaAeronauticaColorsinWWII_VitoCharts.htm

 

https://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk/collections/regia-aeronautica-italian-air-force

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[WymanV]

 I just recently did some digging into this when a friend decided to sell off some of his enamel paint stash, including a bunch of Colourcoats Italian colors. One of the four kits I have in the stash has a scheme that is for a plane repainted in RLM 74/75/76, after Italy's surrender. If you're looking to do the green/blue-gray scheme the colors you're looking for are likely Verde Oliva Scuro 2 over Grigio Azzuro Chiaro. Curiously, the Luftwaffe operated some Italian aircraft later in the war and most of them flew in the original Italian colors.

[dogsbody]

If/when I ever do a WW2 Italian aircraft, I'll either use these old Humbrol Authentics:

 

 

 

or I'll do a Tamiya mix:

 

 

 

 

Chris

 

[daHeld]

LifeColor has the full range of Italian colours, being an Italian manufacturer.