In the end of May, Stalin ordered a commission to trace detailed instructions for camouflage schemes within 3 days.

The brief document included two schemes for black and green camouflage, one for single-engined planes and one for twin-engined ones.

These schemes show the planes from above and from the left side, while the right side was left to free interpretation.

The soft edges of the bands had relevance in the prevailing theories of camouflaging.

Yak-1

Yak-1 fighters factories introduced the standardized black/green camouflage even before June 1941.

For unclear reasons, the contrast of colors that appear in photos of Yaks is often much higher than on other types of planes.

Left:

two photos above shows early Yak-1s with standard camo.

The third photo show an early Yak-1 with the reversed camouflage: green and black bands were exchanged between them.

The forth photo shows a Yak-1b, recognizable for its bubble canopy, in 1943. Its camouflage looks to follow accurately the standard scheme.

Yak-7

Yak-7s usually respected the standard template, with some variations as for the 'loop' visible on the wings of the planes of the first photo.

The plane below shows another interpretation of the scheme.

Yak-9

LaGG-3

photo of early 4-50 LaGG-3 of 1941 with standard scheme.

LaGG-3 of mid production (serie 35) downed by Finns. Again, its painting is fully standard.

Factory where LaGG-3s and La-5s were produced in parallel in 1942. The main body of the plane is painted before the engine cowling panels and other parts. The light color on the cowling panels should be ALG-1 yellowish primer.

LaGG-3 silver 71, downed by Finns, shows two interesting characteristics: the camo scheme is reversed, with green instead of black and vice versa; besides, some brush-painted bands of a lighter camo color are vaguely visible on the fuselage. There are both Russian and Finnish reports about the use of a third color, a brighter green, on some planes.

LaGG-3s produced after the war outbreak had a standardized camouflage that respected well the NKAP template; the main difference was that LaGG had usually three black bands (instead of two) on the right wing and two (instead of three) on the left wing.

Bort numbers were painted in not standardized characters.

La-5, La-5 F and FN

La-5 n.66 with the inscription 'eskadrilya Valeriy Chkalov on its side. The camouflage is fully standard, apart for the lighter repainting on the green of the cowling.

Photo of La-5F with the standard green-black camo and the inscription 'Eskadrilya Valeriy Chkalow'. Only few La-5F left the production lines with this livery, because they turned soon to the grey camo scheme of 1943/45. On the background, a La-5 with the same painting is visible.

Another La-5F wth the same camouflage, but the bort numbers are already of large size, with thin dark outline, probably dark blue.

Very rare photo of La-5FN n.57 with green/black scheme and probably red nose. About all La-5FN appear with the later grey/grey scheme. The number is already standardized on the large size typical of later production La-5FN and La-7, probably with thin dark blue outline.

La-5, early La-5F and FN had the same camouflage of LaGG-3.

Bort numbers, always of two digits, were painted in standardized white characters.

MiG-3

MiG-3s didn't follow accurately the standard template, but they have a predominant factory scheme anyway, followed with many variations. This is probably because the nose is longer than the Yak shown on the template and requires one more green band, while the rear fuselage is shorter and hasn't space for the black half-ball traced on Yaks.

The painting over the wings could sometimes be snake-shaped, but it's usually made with nearly parallel band passing from the leading edge to the back edge.

The contrast shown in photos is usually much lower than on Yaks and Lavochkins, and this could be due to the use of a very thin layer of black over green, that could have given the look of greenish black on many planes.

Sometimes MiG-3s cowling panels and spinners were painted black, perhaps to improve the cooling of the engine by irradiation.

Il-2

Photo of a newly- produced single-seater Il-2 in 1942, respecting the standard NKAP template.

Two photos of a single-seat Il-2 with wooden rear fuselage. Its painting scheme follows well the standard template. The light stripes are due to ripping-off the fabric skinning ove wood by German souvenir hunters, and show the yellowish nitroputty. No any star is visible on the fuselage sides, a small one can be seen on tge stabilizer.

Photo of single-seater Il-2 taken in factory 18, in Kuybishev. Note the silver outline around the stars.

This wreck, perhaps from a single-seater converted into two-seater. The camo scheme has a partial resemblace to that visible in the previous image, including the outlined stars.

A plane of 174 ShAP shows resemblance in painting to the previous images. (From Il-2 in action-Squadron Signal)

Red 1 shows a strong similarity to Il-2s photographed in Factory 18. The light stripes on its back are due to ripping-off of the fabric skinning on the wooden rear surface by German souvenir hunters, leaving to see the yellowish putty.

The image of this Il-2 red 4 could hypothetically give an idea of how could the left side of Il-2s built in Factory n.18 appear. Note the white outline around the star on the tail, and the white shadowing of the red bort number.

This single-seater Il-2 shows a camo scheme different by that of the standard template. Note the huge black-outlined star on the fuselage, and the smaller one on its tail.

Despite being a single seater and repainted by brush, the camouflage scheme of Red 1 clearly conforms to that of Il-2M produced in Zavod 18 (see images below).

Il-2M

This image shows a park full of new Il-2s out of the factory 18 in early 1943. The standardization of the new scheme is obvious, even if it doesn't follow closely the NKAP template. Note the soft demarcation lines.

Image of Il-2KR blue 5 that probably had the same camo scheme. In the detail, the tail of white 1 that probably was painted in the same way.

(from M-Hobby 5/2001)

A photo taken in Factory n.18 at Kuybishev. The fuselage of this one looks painted in the same way that the previous ones, but the wing shows one more black band.

On this Il-2KR n°714 (serial n°7319 built in zavod 1 in 1943, apparently with straight metal wing in 1943), the camouflage looks exactly reversed (ie, green and black are exchanged). From M-Hobby 5/2001. Note the green background of both bort numbers, probably a repainting to delete previous ones, and the sharp demarcation lines.

Il-2m3 white 63 looks to conform to a different template, but neverthless with some resemblance.

Interesting image of a damaged Il-2M. The camouflage could be a black-green one modified with some light brown AMT-1 to fit roughly the standard camo of 1943.

Metal arrow wing Il-2M3. Orel, 1943. It shows evidence of brush repainted black bands on the fuselage, perhaps over a previous, overfaded camouflage.

White 1, an IL2M3, shows some resemblance in camo to white 7. The photo was probably taken on the Finnish front. Although outlined in white or silver, the style of stars doesn't look the after-1943 one because the outline looks thin and white only, without the outer red fillet.

The interpretation of Vaklamov of plane n°714 and n° 5. I would modify both schemes to make them exactly reversed each other, according to photos.

from M-Hobby 5/2001

Su-2

This plane is a Su-2 M-88 in artillery plane versions. Its black-green camo scheme strictly resembles the standard template, but this is the only well-documented Su-2 with this scheme.

On this plane, probably a Su-2 M88B, we can see a black-green scheme different from the standard template, but that looks more recurrent on Su-2s, characterized by the green left side of nose.

A turretless Su-22 M-88B with the same camouflage scheme of the plane above.

This Su-2 , probably M88, seems to show a similar camo scheme seen from the other side. Above, a thumbnail showing other details of the

same plane.

Photos of Su-2 M-82 experimentally fitted with ski. The camo scheme looks similar to the photos above. Thumbnails show details of the wings.

Two photos of Su-2 M-88B white 8

This Su-2 M-88B looks to have another green-black scheme. Above in the image were included small thumbnails thought to be of the same plane.

Two photos, plus some thumbnails, of Su-2 M-88B n.2. The camo is not too far from thev standard NKAP template. There is evidence of fresh black repainting on the tail, and of replacement of the rudder.

Some Su-2s followed the 1941 template in accurate way on the left and upper side, but the right side doesn't appear on templates, and it's unknown how it was interpreted. At present time, no any known photo of Su-2 shows the half-ball on the right side. On the whole, it looks that each Su-2 has its own scheme.

Yak-6

The very first camouflage scheme of the Yak-6 was black and green, in full coherence with the use of 1942.

According to photographic records, the vast majority of Yak-6 operative after the fall of 1942 bore a 3 shaded camouflage, much before this was officialized by NKAP in July 1943. In bw photos, this camouflage resembled theblack-green one, also because the contrast between the AMT-4 green and the third color (probably AMT-1 light brown in an early, greyish variant) is very low.

It's known a variation of this pattern where black and green were exchanged each other.

Pe-2 and Pe-3

These images shows well the standard black-green camo scheme of Pe-2s of 1941-43. Some planes had sharp bands, some other ones blurried, but the good standardization of the pattern is evident.

Although faded, this pe-2 silver 8 seem to show the same camouflage and a beautful lightning on the fuselage.

A characteristic that makes easily recognizable this scheme is the typical oblique blotch over the nose. Note the typical shape of the demarcation line between upper and undersurface colors on the sides of the engine cowlings of early Pe-2s.

On later Pe-2s, the upper colors extended more downwards than on earlier Pe-2s.

The prototype Pe-3 with black-green camouflage, not fully representative of the standard template.

Pe-2 N°.5-33 at NII VVS, September 1941, The camouflage in black over green is particularly evident on the fuselage, while it's more blurried on the tail and wings. The light bands on the wings behind the engines are due to hot fumes. (From Pe-2 Peshka of Smith, ed Crowood)

Pe-2 white 12 with interesting white identification bands under the wings, probably made with winter washable paint. Some light repaintings, possibly residuals of winter white finish, are visible on the tail too. (From Pe-2 Peshka of Smith, ed Crowood)

Another plane, series 205, of the same unit, but this could bear a different camouflage, probably the green-dark grey-light brown one of late 1943, because the typical black band over the nose of uual black-green camo doesn't appear on the closer plane, only on that on the background. According to Pe-2 in action, the spinner is painted (fromfront) yellow, red, white, black.

Below: the camouflage of Pe-2 is standardized enough, and follows a reinterpretation of the standard template where the 'balls' are transformed into a band passing over the fuselage. The camo bands can be both sharp or blurried. The black paint of the spinner could extend briefly over the engine cowlings. The camouflage could extend more downward on the cowling sides.

Pe-8

This photo from above shows clearly the bands on the horizontal surfaces, but are unclear about the fuselage and engines.

Surprisingly, the image shows red stars over the wings; probably it bore the prewar painting with uniform A-19f green (AII green on fabric-covered control surfaces) updated with black bands after the outbreak of the war.

Below, the comparison of the photo with a drawing from bibliography is satisfying enough.

(From Scalemodels.ru forum)

The tail side. Being the rudder covered by fabric, it's likely that it was painted with AMT colors.. It's possible that there is some additionm with a light color, possibly light brown.

The light part behind the engines is probably due to the alteration of paint due to the hot fumes.

Here is visible the black band on the nose, and black on engine cowlings

This image allows to compare the resemblances and differences between two planes of the same type.

Here, the front of engine cowlings is certainly black on undersurfaces too. The fabric surfaces of ailerons and elevators seem to show the use of light blue AMT-7, darker than the A-28m utilized on metal surfaces.

Kratowo, winter 1942/43

In 1941/43, Pe-8s were camouflaged with a variant of the 1941 template, adapted for the major size of the plane with some more black bands both on fuselage and on the wings.

Here is the template that I obtained from photos, taking into account the variability between single planes. It fits enough the sketch of NKAP.

Here are two good drawings from bibliography, resemblant enough to my scheme and probably depicting accurately the plane that inspired them.

About the colors, the metal parts were painted with oil paints A-24m, A-26m and A-28m, while the fabric-covered parts of control surfaces were painted with the equivalent nitro paints AMT-4, 6 and 7. Note that light blue AMT-7 is somewhat darker than the A-28m; however, it can't be excluded the occasional use of AII blue, more similar to A-28m, instead of AMT-7.

Il-4

Il-4 captured and remarked by Germans. The green-nosed camouflage is particularly evident, but the engines outer side is green, unusually. Its undersurfaces are light blue.

Another Il-4 remarked, probably green-nosed.

Green-nosed Il-4s in factory. Undersurfaces are light blue. Note te discontinued camouflage on the rudders.

Green-nosed Il-4 with 'noch' undersurfaces, clearly darker than the black of camouflage.

View from above of the tail of a green-nosed Il-4. On this plane the wingroot is green, and there is more black om the tail than on other similar planes, and even a black blotch behind the canopy.

Green-nosed Il-4 n.4 ready to be loaded with a torpedo.

Green-nosed plane wity unusually thick black band in mid-fuselage. On usual Il-4s, this band was very thin.

Black-nosed Il-4 n.14, with the guards emblem on the fuselage sides and black bands extended to the engines.

Black-nosed Il- 4 (unclear if n.1 or 7).

Black-nosed Il-4s. Note the discontinuities in the painting of rudder.

Black-nosed Il-4 n.2 (black with white outline) of Capt. Merguov of 1st MTAD of the Black Sea fleet, March 1943. The image shows clearly the camo scheme. Wide panels on wings, and possibly on the nose and tail, appear repainted with a lighter color, possibly red.

(Image from Red Stars of Geust, Keskinen, Stenman)

This image of an uncomplete Il-4 black-nosed allows to make an idea of the camouflage on the left side of stabilizer. (image Jean Koennig)

On black-nosed Il-4s, the black bands on wingroots sometimes were extended till the top of the fuselage behind the canopy.

Interesting pictures of Il-4 white 1, that seems to wear a very faded black-green camo, perhaps roughly updated to 1943 standard with the addition of light brown. The black repainting on the rudder recalls a sort of flag.

Il-4s were all-metal planes, so they were finished with oil paints A-24m green, A-26m black and A-28m light blue, except for the rudder andelevators that , being fabric-skinned, were finished with AMT-4 green, AMT-6 black and AMT-7 or AII light blue. Wide discontinuities of the camouflage are visible between these parts and the metallic parts of the tail, so wide and repeated that can be considered a standard.

Undersurfaces of Il-4 can be finished in light blue, but more often they're painted with Mk-8 or 'Noch' paint, that was darker than the black paints utilized for the upper camouflage.

The camo scheme for 1941-43 Il-4 is standardized into two variants:

1- green- nosed, characterized by a large black band on the rear fuselage;

2- black nose, with a fully green rear fuselage and wingroot black bands extended on the sides, and often with green engines. Sometimes, the black bands on wingroots extends to the engines or up till behind the canopy.

(By the way, I've utilized drawings of an earlier versions to represent camouflages in 1941-43. Sorry)

Red stars on the tail and fuselage were relatively small and usually of the plain type; often the stars on fuselage were missing.

Red stars under the wings were not covered by black paint for night missions.

Yer-2

Er-2 2M-105 of 421 DBAP, summer-fall 1941. It bears the new black-green camouflage with light blue undersurfaces.

This image shows a camouflage not far from the standard of Pe-2s, with light bue undersurfaces. The fuselage star has a tiny white or silver outline, and there is a two-digits white number (possibly 10) on the rudder.

The Yer-2 2M-105 of col. Gusev of 481 BAP, probably in late 1942 or 1943, with black-green camo and, unusually, white-bordered stars.

Although bearing later style stars, this later type Er-2 with ATch-30B diesel engines and side-o-side pilots cockpit seems to bear the same black-green camo scheme of Pe-2s.

This template, traced on a late Yer-2 with ATch-30 engines, is well representative of the earlier version with 2M105 and asymmetric cockpit too.

Tu-2

The first production Tu-2 ( VS and S) were completed in February 1942 in factory 168 in Omsk. They were equipped with M-82 engines, and arrived at the 3rd air army combat units.

On October 1942, it was ordered to stop the production, and the 80th and last plane was delivered in January 1943.

Tu-2VS n. 100716 in standard black-green livery utilized in 1942. Note the white or silver outlined star on the tail, and the lack of stars on fuselage (present on some other planes).

On the whole, the template of early Tu-2 of 1942 resembles very much the standard one for Pe-2s.

This Tu-2R, was rebuilt in 1943 from an early Tu-2VS, adding large cameras in the bomb bay. It was tested and later flown in combat by 2nd DRAP. It seems to show a 1942 black-green 'reversed' painting scheme, but its stars are already of the type introduced in late 1943.

Some photos and drawing suggest the existance of a reverse pattern, where green replaced black and vice versa; this later scheme could already have been adopted in 1942, before the first stop of the production at Omsk.

In some case, it looks that the black bands that doesn't extend to the fabric covered surfaces were made with dark grey instead of black, or at least are much more faded that those crossing the control surfaces.

The production of Tu-2 was restarted in July/August 1943 at Factory n.23 in Moscow with the improved Tu-2S

U-2

Three images of U-2 utilized as intruders. They appear to conform roughly to the same symmetrical camouflage scheme characterized by some half-balls on the fuselage sides.

The camouflage scheme of this plane seem not the same of those of the upper photos,

UT-2M

This UT-2M looks to conform well to the standard template of 1941. Note the stars on the tail and on the fuselage side.

Similar plane, but more worn.

Li-2

Li-2s of 1941-43 look to conform to a main template with dark green with large bands of black: one on the upper part of tail, one on rear fuselage, one on all the aft fuselage. No star is fisible on the fuselage, but large plain ones should be on rudders.

Although shining in the sun, this plane has the same disposition of black bands on fuselage. Note the bort number of three digits and the star on the fuselage.

This plane looks to conform to the same scheme. but modified with a brush application of lighter color (probably AMT-1 light brown) on the rear fuselage, and ppossibly with spray repaintings of the same color close to the turret and on the front fuselage. Probably it's a pre-1943 plane whose scheme was modified after 1943, roughly conforming to the new standard of 3 camo colors.

Although painted in black and green as usual, this plane looks to follow a modified scheme with some more black bands.

In past years, the standard camouflage of fighters has been interpreted as green and dark red-brown, or dark green/dark earth as British planes.

Although this camouflage found a great credit in books illustrations, kits instructions sheets and even in restoring planes in museums, it seems that this livery never existed: none wreck and originally-painted museum exhibit shows this, nor is described in official documents on painting wartime planes, nor is known a dark red-brown suitable to match these schemes in the VVS inventory.

A 'tobacco' paint was experimentally produced in late 1940/early 1941, but it's not mentioned in any directive to camouflage planes, so it's likely that it was never utilized, if not for some test planes.

How was the legend of green and red brown born? Difficult to say. It is ancient, because I remember a green/red brown drawing already on the blister of the Yak-9 of Airfix in the late '60s. Probably, some artist heard from recalls of veterans that some Soviet planes were green and brown, had a look to b/w photos showing black/green planes, compared them to all-green planes and concluded that the brown had to be the darker color. Let's admit this, the use of black on camouflages is not so intuitive, particularly if this black is not as dark as usual black and looks some other dark color.

Some wrecks could have helped the legend of dark brown. For example, this photo of a wrecked wing of Il-2 gives really the idea of a dark green/dark earth camouflaged plane. The small and faded grey blotch can esily pass unobserved. Weathering has inverted the real contrast between colors if compared to their original shades, when the grey was the darker one and the brow the lighter one.

This doesn't mean necessarily that none Soviet plane was ever painted with red brown bands, it would be impossible to demonstrate this, but simply that there is not any reason to think that this color was utilized.

It can't be excluded that some planes wear a two-color camouflage of green AMT-4 and light brown AMT-1, without the dark grey AMT-11 that should be associated to them by the three-shades after-1943 standards; however, this is still object of controversy.

Green/dark green camouflage was proposed by some authors. How does this comply with available documents?

At present time, there are not documents comprovating this use, even if a lot of photos of planes show so low-contrasted camouflages that it's hard to believe that the darker color is black.

However, the look of photos can be influenced by many factors as the type of film, the light, the exposure, the preservation of colors and the use of filters on the objective of the camera.

Here are four photos of LaGG-3 n.57 captured by Finns. Despite being relative to the same plane, note how the colors are represented with different contrast; this could encourage discordant interpretation on colors, and even on the presence of the red stars.

Even if AII dark green, proposed by some authors, looks not comproved by any document, the occasional use of different shades of green, taken from the inventory or obtained by mixing colors, can't be completely excluded.

Some veterans have described camouflages with different shades of green, dark green or black green. They could be wrong, but we can't be sure of this.

However, the overposition of a thin layer of black to a green background could give the impression of a green/black-green camouflage to a whitness.

A section of fuselage from a LaGG-3 preserved in a Finnish museum.

Here we can see the camouflage made with not too faded AMT-4, 6 and 7, and the plain star painted with gloss AII red.

The yellowish color is of the underlying nitroputty.

(Image courtesy of Martti Kujansuu)

Below: a b/w version of the same photo, showing the poor contrast between colors.

This piece of metal wing from a two-seater Il-2 shows a black/green camouflage .

No any yellow primer is visible under the camouflage paints, so it's likely that they are A-24m and A-26m oil paints, because AMT nitrolacquers would have required a primed background to adhere on metal surfaces.

(color labels by Konstantin Lesnikov)

Below: a b/w version of the same image showing the poor contrast between weathered colors.

This image is from a wreck of a Pe-2 lost in september 1941 near Leningrad. Note the surprising grey undersurface.

http://trizna.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=31223

Many Yaks seem to show a particularly high-contrasted camo. The reason of a so high percentage of contrasted images, when compared to other types that hardly show contrast in photos, is unclear.

Someone hypothyzed the use of a lighter shade of green (ex. tractor green) or desert-style camos, but there is no any confirmation of this in documents and exhibits, even if it is fully compatible with some photos.

Besides, in Nakrasok alboom of 1948 there is no any chip of green for agricultural equipments compatible with the supposed shade.