STORMO! Forums

Dear all,
I have a silly question.
I bought from La Bancarella Aeronautica Colori e Insegne. Vol. 01. Regia aeronautica. Caccia ed Assalto.
While the photo caption and the text are quite "flexible" regarding how many colours were applied to RA fighter planes before the introduction of Tavola 10 schemes and colours, the colour tables always depict planes with three colours only (excluding a few planes used in NA as the Breda 65).
Were RA fighter planes (before the introduction of Tavola 10 schemes and colours) always painted in three colours, one yellow, one brown and one green?
Seems to me that the answer should be no, for example from the article regarding the CR.42 captured in England.
As we don't know at all what the three camouflage schemes suggested on 8th of September 1937 for spring, summer and late fall/winter were, not the colours not the applications, it's usually guessed that the spring scheme was used and it consisted of the three colours. But the Order clearly stated that that's valid for peacetime and in war the full order should be applied, so three different seasonal schemes. Seems to me that that makes even more likely that different schemes, with two colours could be used at least sometimes.
As no other book on different aircraft role (bomber, reconnaissance, etc.) was published by La Bancarella Aeronautica, could be possible that fighters received "more often" the three scheme camouflage in respect to other planes?
Quoting only I colori degli aerei italiani dal 1919 al 1939 volume 1 by Marco Gueli, the Ca.310 at pag. 65 seems to me only yellow and green and the G.50 at pag. 81 seems to me showing two colours only. But more example exists.
Seems to me that camouflage schemes with two colours only were proposed in older studies, like Colori e Schemi Mimetici Della Regia Aeronautica 1935-1943 or Dimensione Cielo for example, but were rejected more and more in newer studies, like as said I colori degli aerei italiani dal 1919 al 1939 and Colori e Insegne. Vol. 01. Regia aeronautica. Caccia ed Assalto.
I hope I was clear enough and excuse me for the long post.
Ciao
Mario

Without launching into a full-throated defense of that reference, the Waldis and De Bortoli book contains a lot of useful information that shouldn’t be dismissed (as suggested in the article you’re referring to) because of a phrase or a sentence that wasn’t made clear, especially if the authors never had a chance, or were given a chance to clarify the statements they made in that book in regard to “All” Tutti and the word “periodo” (to me these were narrow statements focused on a few aircraft). To my knowledge no one asked them to clarifying these statements, but I suppose what confuses the matter in regard to that book is the many profiles that are depicted in the three tone camo. But to answer your question, the two and three tone camouflage schemes (there were also more than 3 tones) existed in the pre-Tavola X period. Stefano has done a good job outlining when the transition periods occurred (approximately) for each manufacturer eg read the section in his article C.200-Macchi Camouflage:

Camouflage Patterns - Aeronautica Macchi

The two and three tone camouflage schemes coexisted at the same time, Virginio Tosco (Vito-Charts and who would have seen the DGCA note 8/9/37) stated that the colors for the various seasonal periods were green on yellow for scheme A (2 colors), dark green on light green for scheme B (2 colors), and dark green and brown on light green for scheme C (3 colors). I think this framework provides a partial and logical explanation for why 2 and 3 tone camos appeared in the same production batches.

I obviously quote all what Vince said. The CMPR study on RA camouflage and colors is quite half-century old (1977) and much has been discovered since then. The books of Waldis-De Bortoli-Brioschi are of great value in general. Profiles of Brioschi are extremely clean and explicative. But the main "fault" of these works, in my personal opinion, is to have taken the CMPR book as a definitive study, to use just the 20 colors in the CMPR palette and don't consider that other options could exist. My late friend Angelo (Brioschi) once told me he was proud to be a "guardian of orthodoxy", but there is not orthodoxy in RA colors & camo until (if ever) the Tavola 10. Before it there were at least a dozen of paint maker and everyone had sometimes more than a hue for a specific color in its list. We will probably never find all of them, and most of all will never complete a link between each aircraft manifacturer and pain makers. Nowadays, researchers like Marco Gueli watch the matter with less prejudice, and I agree.
Stefano