D Day invasion stripes

[Christopher Wolfe]

G'day.

 

I was recently watching a documentary about D Day and it showed the black & white invasion stripes being hastily applied to allied aircraft.

 

Just a few chalk lines, a trestle and a paintbrush in the hands of a fitter -  not a bit of masking tape in sight.

 

It made me wonder how fastidious one has to be when reproducing the painted finish on a WW11 scale model?

 

* Chris *

 

 

[leccyflyer]

I'm in the middle of painting some right now and made the observation that it's taken longer just to mask the model than it did to paint the full size. 

 

There's a famous photograph showing the invasion stripes being very roughly applied to a Spitfire, from that short film, which looks like she's being whitewashed. When I came to repaint my venerable PX Spitfire IX I attempted to replicate the roughly applied invasion stripes, but truthfully I don't really like that rough look and prefer them to be a bit neater, but they do give the desired effect from a distance. 

 

 

 

Bottom line in finishing a model is that unless you are entering a competition, you are primarily doing it for your own satisfaction and should adjust accordingly. Personally I prefer my models to just have a hint of weathering, others prefer them to look factory fresh and others like them to bear signs of very heavy use. As long as the owner is satisfied that should be good enough.

[Nigel Sharp]

According to RAF museum the Invasion stripes were painted at the last moment before invasion to keep intention or attention to minimum... So Some were likely still wet when on mission.

 

Typhoons carried stripes just on the underside from early in the war to differentiate it from the FW190 for our observer core and gunners.

[RottenRow]

The old black and white photo of the spitfire having stripes 'painted' has been shown on this forum before.

 

I think that it's a rather suspicious image and might not show a typical example of an aircraft being painted. The chap on the wing appears to be repainting over existing stripes (look at the wing root). The aircraft itself is missing its canopy. Perhaps it's from a publicity film?

 

Brian.

[Robin Colbourne]

There are photos of the stripes being applied with a broom.  The only way  to get it right is to find pictures ofthe actual aircraft in question.  If it was actually in service on D-Day, they are likley to be pretty ragged, whereas an aircraft that had them applied at the factory may well have been masked up and done more neatly.




This warhistoryonline website gives quite a few invasion stripe examples.

[leccyflyer]

Oooh Douglas Boston 😎

 

Here's my latest wee Hobbyking Hellcat - formerly Reno Racer Lil Nugget, but in the process of being turned into Hellcat 1 JV131 stationed aboard HMS Emperor in June 1944.

 

[Nigel Sharp]

You have also to consider the amount of false information the allies were feeding the German military and decoy equipment massed around Dover to make them think the attack was across the shortest route.

 

Perhaps that Spit is a non flyer damaged but acting as a decoy on the ground...

[steve too]

Stripes were applied by squadrons just before the invasion (D-1 ?) and by maintenance units after the invasion. The latter are to a higher quality than the former.

 

JE Johnson on the wing of his Spit on 31st July '44.

 

Edited October 17 by steve too

[Keiran Arnold]

Few of the D-Day marking look anything other than neat. Particularly when scaled down  so I would not be too worried about not appling them 'neatly' unless you have a picture of a particular aircraft where it is very noticeable that the stripes are poorly applied.

 

As an aditional point -One month after D-Day,  stripes were ordered removed from planes' upper surfaces to make them harder o spot on the ground at forward bases in France and were completely removed by the end of 1944 once the Allies had achieved air supremacy over France.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

The best reason for applying invasion stripes to warbirds becomes obvious when doing an approach in fading light against a backdrop of trees!