B-17 drab vs silver
Craig Ayres-Sevier
my question.
I assume they were flying at pretty high altitudes from beginning to
end, and likewise I
presume that the switch to no paint was dictated by logic, i.e, at a
minimum of two miles
up in the sky, it's moot, and, hence, a waste of money.
The reason I ask this is that I've read tons of presumptions about
this entire era which
proved later to be not entirely true at all. Anyone here to offer
their insight, re this
paint scheme change, please feel free.
Craig.
Richard Latour
to "attrac" the Luftwaffe to do battle with the B-17 and mainly their
numerous escorts!!
"Craig Ayres-Sevier" <n7...@gbis.com> wrote in message
news:3afce058...@news.pacific.net.au...
--
Stephen Graham
Craig Ayres-Sevier <n7...@gbis.com> wrote:
>The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's
>my question.
>
>I assume they were flying at pretty high altitudes from beginning to
>end, and likewise I
>presume that the switch to no paint was dictated by logic, i.e, at a
>minimum of two miles
>up in the sky, it's moot, and, hence, a waste of money.
That's essentially correct. There's discussion of this in a number of
places - the definitive source is probably the "Men and Planes" volune
of the US Army Air Corps official history.
Essentially, the decision was made because there was no perceived
benefit from the paint job. Cost wasn't so much an issue as the added
time in the manufacturing process. Essentially, one color was applied,
then that coat had to dry, the second color was applied, that had to
dry, and then the markings (national insignia and plane ID) were added.
Apparently it added 24 hours to the manufacturing process. The time
and manpower could be used elsewhere.
--
--
Hal Hanig
"Stephen Graham" <gra...@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:9cs8mm$ri4$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> >The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's
> >my question.
By way of possible answer that I have not yet seen anyone address in this
thread, have you considered that for every pound of olive drab camouflage paint
applied to the skin of the aircraft, you had one less pound of fuel or
explosives you could carry? I don't know if that's the reason they went back to
unpainted B-17s, but it seems to me that it could have been.
--
ArtKramr
>From: "Craig Ayres-Sevier" n7...@gbis.com
>Date: 5/3/01 3:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <3afce058...@news.pacific.net.au>
>The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's my
question.
The original OD color was to make the plane less visible.. Once radar
flak came
into being there was no point painting the planes at all,. The paint
weighed
hundred of pounds, which used up more fuel and also made the plane
slightly
slower. So the OD paint was abandoned and the planes were left as they
rolled
off the production line. Unpainted except for small panels of high
reflection
such as in front of the cockpits and turrets. My plane, WillieThe Wolf
B-26G
King Nine Jay, was unpainted and replaced a war weary that was
painted OD.
Arthur Kramer
Las Vegas NV
HOST Comp Tanker
>my question.
>
>I assume they were flying at pretty high altitudes from beginning to
>end, and likewise I
>presume that the switch to no paint was dictated by logic, i.e, at a
>minimum of two miles
>up in the sky, it's moot, and, hence, a waste of money.
Aside from being a waste of money as it gave limited protection at the
altitude
at which it was being used, it was also a waste of fuel. And, it's a
waste of
fuel that might make the difference between getting home and ditching.
While the volumes and weights are exactly equivalent, consider your
average can
of Ralph Lauren "Mocha Dream" wall paint. It weighs about what, seven
to ten
pounds, right? (Of that, about two thirds is pigment (some sort of an
oxide of
some metal), and the remainder is the vehicle (the fluid that carries
the paint
into place, a large part of which evaporates once it's deposited).)
Ultimately,
some five pounds of weight is added to the surface painted per gallon
of paint.
Now, that one gallon of paint will cover three quarters of a bedroom,
about 480
square feet, with its five pounds of pigment. While I don't have the
surface
area of a B-17 handy here, I'd say that there are at least twenty of
those
bedrooms' worth of area spread out over the upper surfaces of such an
aircraft.
Make it a hundred pounds of pigment, added to the total all-up weight
of the
aircraft.
Like all other airplanes, B-17s were designed to fly at a certain
maximum
weight. Above that weight, the plane was unsafe to fly/take off some
degree or
another. But, that maximum weight was composed of a number of
different
components: airframe, armament, bomb load, fuel, aircrew, coffee in
Thermos
bottles, and (yes) paint. Within limits some of the components could
be varied
widely.
Now, which makes more sense: spend part of your all-up weight on the
fuel
needed to tote that extra hundred pounds of useless pigment to and
from
Dusseldorf, or have an extra hundred pounds to carry even more fuel to
increase
the margin of safety for the now-bare metal aircraft? Once this
question
started getting asked in earnest, the paint started coming off of
Allied
aircraft not exposed to tactical operations in a hurry.
I recall reading about a weight savings of around 600 pounds for the
B-29 once
the paint was stripped. That's one whole 500 pound bomb out of the
bombload
(and plus some, since you have to carry the paint there and back while
the bomb
gets left behind at the halfway point). I think I saw this in the
William Green
review of the aircraft in his Famous Bombers of twenty years ago.
It's also interesting to note that when the B-29s were changed to
night area
bombers, the camoflage scheme used by some units was to apply black
paint to
the _undersurfaces_ only, leaving the top in natural metal. As the
stripped
down night operating aircraft were relatively defenseless (all
armament removed
excepting tail cannon, making them particularly vulnerable to the
upward firing
Japanese nightfighters), this made some sense.
(And, for what it's worth, it may interest others to know that the
Japanese
either first came up with the "Schragmuzick" (sic?) concept, or
invented it all
together and passed it on to the Germans, depending upon who you want
to
believe. Lucky for the Twentieth Air Force that they never put enough
of them
up in the air to contest the low level night bombing operations.)
And, even though removing the paint saved a lot of weight and perhaps
a few
lives in the bargain, I still like the looks of the olive drab B-29 a
lot
better. Much more early 1940's "high-tech" looking.
Terry L. Stibal
HOSTCom...@aol.com
Michael Emrys
> The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's
> my question.
The paint added a not insignificant amount of weight and drag to the
airplane. This burden was thought to be justified as long as the
camouflage
provided some help in delaying detection and identification by enemy
fighters. But once air superiority had been won over Europe, the
balance of
benefits shifted in the other direction. While many bombers that had
already
been painted continued to soldier on in their colors, new planes
coming into
the theater, or those emerging from a major rebuild, would be without
them.
Michael
Gerry Doyle
"Richard Latour" <maveri...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:9cs93d$pc4$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
> I read somewhere that the change from olive drab to silver (no paint) was
> to "attrac" the Luftwaffe to do battle with the B-17 and mainly their
> numerous escorts!!
Hardly. No matter how well armed, the B17 was always vulnerable to
fighter
attack, and the much vaunted tight defensive formations became even
tighter
more to provide a smaller area for the escorts to defend than through
any
advantage of massed crossfire. In fact crews of the first 'silver'
B17s
tried to wait until enough of them were available to form a formation
rather
than risk being singled out by the enemy.
The fact is that all that paint has a certain amount of weight and
causes
drag in itself, so dropping the paint and having a smooth metal skin
led to
a measurable boost in speed, which more than made up for whatever
dubious
advantage there was to camouflage at height. Another factor was that
from
late 1944, despite record production rates for German fighters, a
shortage
of trained pilots meant that any danger from that quarter was by then
considerably lessened.
G
Cub driver
I think the main reason for doing away with camouflage paint is to
save weight, which is considerable. For a nation to get away with
this, it would need to be fairly secure from raids on its home
airports, so the change I suspect followed the destruction of the
German air force in 1944.
all the best - Dan Ford (email: war...@danford.net)
The Only War We've Got (Early Days in South Vietnam)
http://danford.net/onlywar.htm
casita
> The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's my
question.
Camoflague was of little value to 4 engine bombers in mass formations,
and
polishing the airframe added a few precious miles per hour.
Merlin Dorfman
: ... So the OD paint was abandoned and the planes were left as they
: rolled
: off the production line. Unpainted except for small panels of high
: reflection
: such as in front of the cockpits and turrets.
From my model-building days, I seem to recall that the top
inside quarter of the engine nacelles was also painted in anti-
glare colors, such as flat Olive Drab. I believe this was true
for the two-engine bombers like the B-25 and B-26 as well as
the larger bombers like the B-17 and B-24. However I don't
recall such panels on the unpainted B-29s; perhaps the engines
were far enough behind the pilot and co-pilot that it was not
necessary.
Merlin Dorfman
DOR...@COMPUTER.ORG
Sbdpumbaa
in altitude/speed was felt to outweight the reduction in visibility. German
pilots found it a godsend, being able to more readil;y locate the opposition by
looking for the sun glinting off metal - but given the Allied superiority by
that time ...
I assume that it was the weight saving that led to the bare metal scheme being
retained during the Korean war and later.
--
mike
>IGerman
>pilots found it a godsend, being able to more readil;y locate the opposition by
>looking for the sun glinting off metal - but given the Allied superiority by
>that time ...
much easier to look for the huge contrails left by the bomber group
flying in formation
**
mike
**
--
Charles K. Scott
"Craig Ayres-Sevier" <n7...@gbis.com> writes:
> I assume they were flying at pretty high altitudes from beginning to
> end, and likewise I
> presume that the switch to no paint was dictated by logic, i.e, at a
> minimum of two miles
> up in the sky, it's moot, and, hence, a waste of money.
>
> The reason I ask this is that I've read tons of presumptions about
> this entire era which
> proved later to be not entirely true at all. Anyone here to offer
> their insight, re this
> paint scheme change, please feel free.
My impression is that paint just became unecessary because 1. There was
a performance cost in that the paint weighed a lot. 2. It took time
to apply. 3. The Luftwaffe knew a raid was on before the bombers even
left the ground because of radio test intercepts. 4. The object of the
fighter escort about this time changed from protecting the bombers to
destroying the Luftwaffe. So it became important for the Luftwaffe to
engage and what better way for them to do that then by giving them a
glittering target to home on.
Corky Scott
Bill Shatzer
On Thu, 3 May 2001, Craig Ayres-Sevier wrote:
> The change from olive drab-painted B-17's to no paint at all, that's
> my question.
> I assume they were flying at pretty high altitudes from beginning to
> end, and likewise I
> presume that the switch to no paint was dictated by logic, i.e, at a
> minimum of two miles
> up in the sky, it's moot, and, hence, a waste of money.
The olive drab camouflage was intended principally to provide a camouflage
effect for aircraft when they were parked on the ground - not while they
were airborne.
The USAAF ordered the discontinuation of camouflage paint for most
aircraft in December, 1943, when it became apparent that US airbases were
unlikely to come under attack by enemy aircraft. Omitting the camouflage
paint saved some production time as it took two days to completely paint
an aircraft - longer if the weather was uncooperative. It also saved some
weight - the paint on a large a/c like a B-17 could weigh up to two
hundred pounds.
When the Ninth Air Force relocated to France following D-Day, many of its
aircraft were -recamouflaged- as it was recognized that the French bases
were more likely to come under Luftwaffe attack than the British bases
which had been almost completely immune. Because of the shortage of olive
drab paint, many aircraft were recamouflaged with paints drawn from RAF
stores. Thus, many US planes ended up in British colors, although
mostly in a solid color - few Ninth AF a/c adopted the full two-color
(two-colour?) camouflage pattern used by RAF aircraft.
Cheers and all,
Philippneu
gas.
I think you could compare this situation to that of the B-52´s during Vietnam
when they also changed their camouflage to no paint.
Philipp
William Wright
the declining benefit with respect to Allied air superiority in the
operating area. A typical Boeing 717 full paint job weights about 100 lbs. A
747 full paint job weighs over 500 lbs
--
William Wright
Systems Architect
The Boeing Company
Hal Hanig <halh...@earthlink.net.nospam> wrote in message
news:9cup3o$122m$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
Lawrence Dillard
ground-based controllers and observers who even working in a "windowed"
environment could usually
--