Question about the proper painting of aircraft ordance

[Cliffy B]

Hey guys, I have some questions on how to properly paint some ordnance for my Super Bug project.  The kit instructions want me to paint all the missiles as blue training rounds but I want to make them live war shots.  Can anyone enlighten me or link to me to a guide on what colors are used on live versions of the following.

AIM-9M Sidewinders
AIM-120C AMRAAMs
AIM-7P Sparrows
AGM-88C HARMs
AGM-84D Harpoons
Paveway LGBs (500, 1000, & 2000 lbs versions)
USN Laser designator pods for the Paveways


I know HARMs and Harpoons are white, Paveways are OD Green, and the AAMs are a shade of gray but I'm not sure on warhead, fin, and stripe colors on any of them.  Any help is greatly appreciated as always but I need to know by Friday night at the latest as Saturday morning is the contest.  Thanks in advance.

-Mike

[pyro-manic]

IIRC, "live" weapons are denoted by a yellow band, as opposed to blue for inert or training rounds.

[Aircav]

Hi Mike
I hope these are of some help

http://www.fast-air.co.uk/RAF-NATO-Weapons-Markings.htm
http://www.ordnance.org/color.htm
http://www.tpub.com/gunners/25.htm

WWII Japanese weapons
http://www.j-aircraft.com/research/bill_sanborn/phmod21.pdf

And this is for Armour fans
http://www.dstan.mod.uk/data/00/810/10000100.pdf

Steve

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

IIRC, "live" weapons are denoted by a yellow band, as opposed to blue for inert or training rounds.

Not quite:
Yellow (bands) indicate high explosive - usually the warhead - but you will see yellow bands on CBU's, this is the to indicate the charge used to propel the submunitions from the casing, the JP233 has yellow bands for the same reason.

Brown (bands) indicate low explosive - usually the powerplant for the weapon, a rocket motor.

Black (bands) indicate sub-sections of each weapon - eg seeker, or guidance unit, fuel, powerplant etc.

As a general rule-of-thumb, all the missiles you've listed are now painted Light Compass Grey (FS 36375). The seeker head, to aft of the fins on the AIM-9M is dark olive drab, the small 'collar' (section) immediately behind is black. The fins of the AIM-120 are very dark grey - I use Gunship Grey (FS36118). I would check on the AIM-7, I was not aware that these were still carried by the Super Hornet.

The bodies of the paveway series are olive drab or Light Compass Grey, with olive drab fixed fins. The guidance units are (usually) a brown toned olive drab, the guidance fins a different more olive colour.

AGM-88's now tend to be the same Light Compass Grey as everything else, but by way of variation, you would not go far wrong painting them satin white, I'm certain that there will be a significant number of rounds still remaining in the old colour !

HTH

Ian