Ki-43 III Ko Colours ~ Part 2

The colour value derived from an original swatch prepared by Mr Noboru Shimoune to illustrate the Ki-43 III Ko upper surface colour is Munsell 7.5 Y 3/1.5. The closest FS value to this is 33070 @ 2.49, which is just a little lighter. The RAL colour 6014 Gelboliv (Yellow olive) is slightly closer @ 2.36, but is a little darker. The colour is within the range for the JAAF Standard Ohryoku 7 go shoku which became colour standard 1-1 in the joint Army-Navy document 8609 of February 1945. 

This top surface olive-drab colour was also associated with the Ki-54, Ki-74 and Ki-94.

The swatch for the propeller colour is Munsell 5 GY 3.5/2.3 and the closest FS value is 34092 @ 2.14, which is just a little greener and not quite grey enough. Previously this colour was visually matched to FS 24172 for a 1/72nd scale model, but that is a lighter shade (the DE2000 difference calculation between 34092 and 24172 being 10.2). 

The under surface colour was visually matched to FS 36405 from a piece of extant stabilisor taken from a 64th Sentai Ki-43 III Ko in Malaya. This is a creamy "stone" colour, the closest Munsell value to which is 5 Y 7/2 @ 2.16. The top surface of this piece was visually matched to FS 34088. Mixing the upper surface colour 34088 with white results in an almost exactly similar colour to 36405.

From Mr Shimoune's article I understand the interior colour to have been the same as the top surface olive drab, which was in accordance with the Army Aircraft painting regulations (Rikugun kokuki tosou kitei) of 15th June 1943. However, Mr Kenichi Oshimo, the chief designer for the Ki-43 III recalled that the interior was painted with green or grey-green paints similar in appearance to FS 34128 and 34159 respectively. In the colour photograph the rear decking area under the canopy does not appear to be black but rather a dull olive green or olive drab colour.

"Nohryoku- shoku" as referred to in Mr Shimoune's article relates to IJA Green (Mr Color #16), Dark Green (Nakajima) (Mr Color #129) or Dark Green (Kawasaki) (Mr Color #130). The first kanji "noh" may be translated as "strong" or "dense" so "deep green" may be a suitable description.

"Anryoku-shoku" as referred to in the article relates to IJN Green (Mr Color #15) or Dark Green (Mitsubishi) (Mr Color #124). The first kanji "an" may be translated as "dark" so "dark green" may be a suitable description.

The two colours in the original JAAF standards that also use these descriptions are #22 'Noh Ryoku Shoku' and #26 'An Ryoku Shoku', but unfortunately the precise nature of the appearance of these colours is not known. 

Very special thanks to Isamu Marahashi for kindly clarifying these colour descriptions.

Image credits: Ki-43 III Ko schematic © William Leyh & Nick Millman 2005; colour swatch renderings © Straggler 2009

Ki-43 III Ko Colours ~ Part I

Ta.Gucci has posted an interesting profile at his blog of a well known Hayabusa Ki-43 III Ko photographed in colour at Kimpo, Korea, just after the war*. The post includes, via Maru-san, a fascinating report on the factory painting of the III Ko aircraft by Mr Noburo Shimoune who was involved in manufacturing the Hayabusa at Tachikawa Hikoki. Isamu Maruhashi has very kindly translated this interesting and useful post into English for us.

"The 1968 Koku Joho magazine supplement scale model guide 'Japanese Aircraft of WWII' has a section written by Mr Noboru Shimoune who was involved in manufacturing Hayabusas for Tachikawa Hikoki. The article reads as follows:-

"The Model 3 Koh which appeared at the end of 1944 was painted in the same manner as the previous Model 2 Kai in that all aircraft had both their top and bottom surfaces painted at the factory. Conventional magazines and scale model instructions often state that these aircraft were not painted when shipped and that they were painted with Anryoku-shoku blotches in the field, but this is total nonsense. The single-exhaust pipe Model 2 Kai was initially shipped unpainted to units and painted in the field, so maybe they are being mistaken for Model 3s.

"The top surface of Model 3s were painted a dark Tsuchi-iro (earth or clay colour). It was a brownish colour rather than a greenish colour. (For whatever reason, people keep insisting that the colours were Nohryoku as if that's the only colour they can contemplate). I was familiar with the sight of unpainted Type 1 fighters, so I was appalled at the dirty colour that they had painted them. If we go by the colour of the plastics used in molding scale models, the colour was close to that of the plastic used to make the Monogram P-40s and P-51Bs (although it was a little lighter in tone).

"(This doesn't have any direct relation to this story, but in the fall of 1944 the Sentai of new Hiryu Type 4 Heavy Bombers at Tachikawa Base were also painted a colour similar to the Type 1 Model 3 Fighter. This colour was close to Pactra Olive Drab. The underside was painted black).

"Getting back to the Type 1 Fighter, I want to say that the underside colour was gray, but it was not Nezumi-iro (rat or mouse colour). Rather it was a colour similar to the top colour but lightened with white. This was totally flat colour. The boundary of the two colours were spray painted and the border slightly soft. None of the airframes were painted with the black anti-glare paint that was used on unpainted aircraft. The headrest inside the canopy was painted black, the cap of the methanol tank behind the headrest was painted silver, and all other colours were the top surface colour. The seat was unpainted duraluminum and an anti-corrosive was not applied to the interior. None of the Hinomarus had white outlines. However there were some airframes that had Hinomarus inside white bands on both the wings and fuselages. The propellers and spinners were painted Ebi-cha-iro (red brown colour), and they were the same as other airframes in that there was one yellow stripe at the tips of the propeller blades, but near the end of the war the propellers were painted Nohryoku-shoku, and the tips were painted yellow like the American planes, (both in front and back). The Model 3 Otsu airframes were equipped with these Nohryoku-shoku propellers.

"On the top of the left wing root a black sandpaper-like anti-slip material was applied along the fuselage, and pilots stepped on this when boarding their planes. The fuselages did not have any steps, so one piece of green rope was hung down from the cockpit, and the pilots grabbed those ropes when boarding their fighters. The landing gear wells were totally painted in blue anti-corrosive primer. The commercially available Humbrol metallic blue is a close colour. The navigation lights that stuck out up and down from the ends of the wings were naturally red and green (some were blue), but when they were not lit they looked black. The tail light was white. The antenna pole was Ebi-cha-iro."

"This account shows that what we thought from colour photographs to have been an overall "gray" colour was actually - (!) And then from the latter half of 1944 the top sides of the aircraft were painted "Ohryoku 7-go Shoku" directly in the factory. And surprisingly the undersides were a cafe-au-lait like colour in which the Ohryoku 7-go Shoku was mixed with white. An overall flat colour. The author also mentions his impression ("dirty colour") and I can certainly sympathise. When the propellers had one yellow line they were painted the aforementioned dark brown. When the tips were totally yellow, the propellers were painted "Nohryoku-shoku". In most cases the propellers of aircraft in use were Hamilton-type propellers made by Sumitomo Metal, and since it can be assumed that there were no individual differences in the propellers, this difference in colour might have been a way of warning maintenance personnel that these different coloured propellers were not interchangeable.

"We had not filled in the fuselage Hinomarus, but thanks to Maru-san's description we have added them. Since it was the second half of the war, not having a fuselage Hinomaru was inconceivable, so the fuselage in the photograph must have been left abandoned for so long that the Hinomaru could not be seen because of weathering and fading of the colours.

"In any case I would like to thank Maru-san for helping us to understand so much about them."

Whew! That's enough to be going on with I think. We'll take a closer look at the colours mentioned here in Part II.

With very grateful thanks to Maru-san and Ta.Gucci for bringing back this fascinating information from the past and especially to Isamu Marahashi for allowing us to read it in English without the puzzling confusion of a machine translation! 

*Image credit: Pacific War Eagles in Original Colour, © Jeffrey L Ethell, 1997

Swinging on The Bells

I always get suspicious when I read forum posts along the lines "I've been modelling for 50 years so my opinion about this kit counts for more than yours" or "Being a professional artist for 40 years I can determine colour from black & white photographs better than you plebs" (not really so brazen, but you get the idea).

Pre-qualifying an opinion with credentials is so infra dig. 

No wonder newer or younger modellers sometimes find it difficult to participate. Even I feel intimidated by some of these bozos and I've been studying colour and modelling for 250 years. ;-)

Image credit: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Warner Bros (1939)

Japanese Aircraft Identification 1943

This guide to the identification of Japanese aeroplanes, published by 'The Aeroplane' and 'The Aeroplane Spotter' at the very beginning of 1943, is fascinating and I shall post some excerpts in due course. It's a revealing snapshot of British public knowledge about Japanese aircraft at the time and perhaps the surprising thing is not how little was known but how much. Of course there are some interesting flights of fancy too!

On camouflage and marking the book has this to say:-

"Japanese aircraft are mostly painted light grey or light green on all surfaces, or dark green on upper surfaces with light grey undersides. Some types are known to be camouflaged with grey and green on upper surfaces. The red disc (rising sun) appears on the wing tips of both upper and lower surfaces and in most cases on either side of the fuselage. Where the red disc appears on a dark background it has a thin white outline. Coloured identification bands run round the fuselage near the tail on some types. In some instances horizontal white stripes appear on the fin and rudder."

That is interesting because it provides confirmation, backed by other contemporaneous sources such as combat and intelligence reports, that the general appearance of Japanese aircraft in the early part of the war was that they were painted light grey or light green. There is no mention of khaki, brown or tan.

An officer of the British Air Mission to Japan in 1922 is quoted regarding the calibre of Japanese pilots:-

"The Japanese as pilots I consider very good. They are steady and reliable and I think the average is high. They produce very few star turns but also have very few failures. Their great failing is that they are not quick enough in an emergency. They have little thought for their engines and seem to have no 'ear' whatsoever. Although slow thinking they take about the same number of hours dual as we normally give to new pilots. They are remarkable shots, and I should think that in a scrap their one idea would be to down the enemy regardless of the cost to themselves. They are not consistent, and even their star turn pilots do strange things at times - perhaps through over confidence."

Image credit: Author's collection

Army Trainers

An interesting piece of contemporary watercolour art depicting a novice pilot with two Army trainers in the background. This type of art is sometimes useful in giving a good impression of colours as seen by an artist's eye.

Note the dull shade of deep yellow on the biplane (it is not a reddish orange) and the slight bronzing effect where the black engine panels behind the cowling have been affected by heat. A convincing detail.

The Ki-55 'Ida' in the background is depicted as grey and the grey does appear similar in appearance to the greys seen in a colour photograph of an 'Ida' airfield line-up. It is a neutral, slightly dove grey. Ki-36 aircraft taken over by Indonesian forces were described in notes made by a British eyewitness at the time as being painted light blue-grey with a dark green mottled camouflage.

For comparison purposes the colour swatches show, from left to right, JAAF paint standard # 14 Ki iro (yellow colour), February 1945 Joint Army-Navy paint standard 4-1 and Thorpe Army colour A17 'Deep Yellow'. Beneath each chip is shown the closest FS 595b match with the DE2000 difference calculation (2.0 or less = a close match).

Thanks to Ken Glass for sharing this image.

Hasegawa's Hayabusa ~ Part Three

The next Hasegawa special edition Hayabusa kit was 00192 "59th Flight Regiment" released in 2001. This featured box art and markings for the mid-production Ki-43-II of Captain Shigeo Nango, executive office and acting commander of the 59th Sentai operating from East But, New Guinea in December 1943, with an alternative for Captain Kitakoga Yûkichi, 2nd Chutai leader in the 54th Sentai based at Horomushiro Island in June 1944. The main kit instructions were unchanged but a sheet with colour and markings details for the featured options were included.

Nango's colourful bird has sometimes been depicted with red fuselage stripes and sometimes without the stripes on the horizontal stabilisors which were part of the unit insignia. An article in FAOW # 65 of July 1997 "Nango Tai-i to Hayabusa 2-gata; Niu Guinia Kokusen no Ichi Danmen" (Captain Nango and his Hayabusa Model 2; One Phase of the New Guinea Air War) written by respected Japanese historian Yoji Watanabe finally clarified and confirmed the actual colours.

Watanabe-san had interviewed veteran Hitoshi Kawamura, a lieutenant in the 59th Sentai's maintenance section. Kawamura-san had joined the unit as maintenance leader in the 1st Chutai at Bandoeng, Java in February 1942. In March 1943 he was promoted to armament officer assigned to the Sentai Hombu (HQ) and remained in this capacity throughout the 59th's operations in New Guinea, coming into contact with Nango's aircraft constantly. When the Sentai withdrew to Manila for R&R in October 1943 it acquired 34 aircraft, enough to assign a personal aircraft to each pilot. Nango's assigned aircraft was S/N 6010.

The blue stripes painted on the fuselage represented the position of "senior officer assigned to the Sentai Hombu" (i.e. Executive Officer). The red tail stripes of the 2nd Chutai were retained however, because Nango had previously been the 2nd Chutai leader and his aircraft continued to be maintained by the 2nd Chutai maintenance personnel. A photograph of the aircraft around this time shows it about to sortie with a single drop tank carried under the port wing. Nango was killed in action on 25 January 1944 and is believed to have been downed in air combat by 1st Lt Robert M DeHaven of the 7th FS, 49th FG. 

When the Hasegawa kit was first released it provided alternative parts to build, in theory, all II versions except the II Kai. These included early and late headrests, early and late exhausts and parts for the first production annular oil cooler and small triangular oil cooler. The engineering of the kit suggests that Hasegawa may even have contemplated offering the different cowling configurations. Unfortunately building the earliest production variant was not possible because it had the longer wings of the Ki-43-I. The drop tank pattern and configuration, inboard of the undercarriage and the absence of a landing light on the leading edge of the port wing also precluded building a late production version without modification. No provision was made for the subtle changes in cowling pattern.

In describing Ki-43-II variants the terms "ko" and "otsu" (approximately corresponding to 'a' and 'b') have been used but this may not be appropriate. These designations within the JAAF were usually used to identify armament variations and recent Japanese references have used instead the terms "early", "mid" and "late" production when describing the Ki-43-II variants. These variants will be discussed in more detail in a future post on the subject. For now it is sufficient to record that the Hasegawa kit can only be used, out of the box, to build a mid-production Ki-43-II and that for other variants additional modifications will be required.

With grateful thanks to Osamu Tagaya.

Image credits: Box Art © Hasegawa Corporation, 2001; Illustration © Straggler, 2009