Brewster "Bison" Phoenix Re-build

[sequoiaranger]

>The cammo looks cool, though I'm not sure what it would be camouflaged against...<

Camo, especially on aircraft, is kind of a contradictory dichotmy anyway. That is, on one hand you want the aircraft to be unrecognizable, and thus paint it in colors or patterns that will disguise it, and on the other hand you WANT the aircraft to be recognizable, so you put splashy national markings on it!!

That said, the two major nations fighting the WW II Pacific air war at sea had "experts" advising them on camouflage, and here's what they came up with for the top of the aircraft:  Both Japanese and American naval aircraft were light gray overall in the early part of the war. The Americans went to light blue-gray, then to dark blue-gray with a low stripe of light blue-gray, then to dark blue-gray. Japan, on the other hand, went from light gray to GREEN, a "sea" green with a little blue in it. So what does that tell us? To me, it tells "us" that GRAY, BLUE, and GREEN are thought to be, by the world's foremost experts in naval air war, good camouflage for naval aircraft.

So, in regards to the Bison, I have ALL THREE colors present, and the "bubblebath" pattern helps break up an outline and diffuses any one color from predominating.

How could it POSSIBLY be "wrong"?  

[Thiel]

How about taking a photo from some distance on a blue backdrop.
That should give us an idea as to how effective the scheme would be.

[Weaver]

Here's another thing that occurs to me: some land cammo has small light-coloured marks on top of big darker ones, the idea being to give the scheme "depth", so when you look at it from a distance, your eyes reads it as a "hole with bits in front of it" rather than a surface. The different sized circles in this scheme might work the same way. The eye tends to pick up on regular shapes like circles (look how a tiny imperfection in a painted tire leaps out at you), so looking at this from a distance, in a fast moving situation, it might struggle to focus, seeing the big dots as "near" and the small dots as "far away".

[sotoolslinger]

That really works suprisingly well. If you stand across the room and look at the pics the pattern blends into just a mottled blue green. It should work well over water

[sequoiaranger]

Interesting points and discussion. I do question whether camo makes any difference at all, actually. The US has gone back to a ghostly gray, and single-color overall (I think to disguise what aspect is seen---is it turning toward or away, or are we seeing the bottom or top?). I wonder if making my dots "denser" would have any effect--there is a lot of gray showing, or if a darker gray base coat would have a better effect. Should it have been a "solid" color of any of the three? Is a "solid" color better than variegation? FUN to think about! Luckily this is a Whif World where the imagination is King, and nobody goes home in a box if a mistake is made.

>How about taking a photo from some distance on a blue backdrop. That should give us an idea as to how effective the scheme would be.<

I had thought of that (and I have a "blue screen" background that I could use), but I have spent many months at sea, and the sea was hardly ever "one color", and that color could often be grayish, green, or blue, change throughout the day, and be lightenend and darkened by whitecaps and cloud shadows, etc.

It also seems that the most effective land camo is how the plane blends in sitting on the ground. Maybe that is why gray, or blue-gray was used for US carrier aircraft---blending in with the carrier deck!!

Also, camo is SOOOO subjective. I don't know how anyone can QUANTIFY the elements enough to make an objective determination how effective camo is. I guess it has to be anecdotal. But that won't stop me from trying out new schemes as my devious mind thinks of them. I take many of my cues from Nature (being a Ranger and all) and see so many colors and schemes that make sense. I like to, and will use, schemes from nature and personal observation (see the "Newt" camo on my He-1062--1946 GB--as an example!!) whenever I can!

[Weaver]

The universal light grey schemes seen nowadays are due to the lack of a credible air-to-air threat: essentially, you're disguising yourself against the sky, as seen by a DShK gunner. Having said that, you can find air-to-air pics where light grey F-15s look white by contrast with a clear deep blue sky, and others where they look black against grey overcast, which, it should be remembered, is essentially a backlit diffuser.

During Vietnam, the USN experimented with an all-green-uppers scheme for better cammo against the jungle, but although it worked, they rejected it because it was felt to be dangerous on a carrier deck at night - yet another factor to consider.

[tikkiebox]

Another great whiff! BTW, your site is what got me really interested in all this in the first place.

[Weaver]

When in doubt, test....

These aerial photos are all from Bali - the perspectives are wrong, but I've dropped a variety of sizes of aircraft image over them: I think the cammo works pretty well actually!







As you can see, it's probably too dark when looking down at it over a deep blue sea and too light when sillouetted against the palesky at the horizon, but it works well as disruptive cammo against a variety of complex backgrounds.

[sequoiaranger]

**LOVED** what you did with the Bison and its "environment". I almost didn't find the Bison in the upper-right of the third pic down!!

[frank2056]

I liked the original, but the Bison turned out to be a huge improvement - it looks more agile than the old lumbering predecessor.

the camo pattern looks great, too!

[sequoiaranger]

>I liked the original, but the [Phoenix-ed] Bison turned out to be a huge improvement - it looks more agile than the old lumbering predecessor.<

Thanks. Presumably with c. 700 more horsepower, slightly longer wings, cannon armament and better forward vision, it would have improved the Buffalo quite a bit (not enough to cancel Hellcats and switch, though!)

For grins, I photo-shopped the old Bison (with only the stretched cowl as a change from a standard Buffalo), merely moving the canopy forward as I did initially for the Phoenix re-build, but NOT yet adding on the P-47 tail or extended wings. I rather like that!! The proportions now seem more "balanced" than the first iteration, and it has its greater horsepower and greater over-the-nose visibility (the old Bison would have been TERRIBLE!).

If only I had done that way-back-when!! 'Course, I wouldn't have had the fun I had making the Super-Buffalo with Balinese (since I just came back from Bali) links.

[Weaver]

**LOVED** what you did with the Bison and its "environment". I almost didn't find the Bison in the upper-right of the third pic down!!

You're welcome. I suspect that thec ammo could be improved, but only by the kind of serious analysis that you could only do in the real world with a serious budget, i.e. taking photos over a wide area in a wide variety of lighting conditions throughout the year and then doing a statistical analysis of which colours were more common. A similar exercise on dot sizes versus operating heights would be most interesting.

A general point about cammo which I've heard from several HIGHLY experience (Army) vets is that 90% of it is too dark....

[rickshaw]

A general point about cammo which I've heard from several HIGHLY experience (Army) vets is that 90% of it is too dark....

Depends on what you're trying to hide and where you're trying to hide it. 

Most model camouflage doesn't have enough contrast in my experience.    As with all things, camouflage colours tend to fade and merge the greater the distance from the viewer.    Aircraft camouflage is primarily designed to hide the object on the ground, rather than in the air (where the eye is drawn to things that are moving anyway).   So, look at where the aircraft is intended to operate from and what it is intended to operate over and go for some fairly deep contrasts.  The general rules of camouflage are:

Shape
Shine
Surface
Silhouette
Movement

Remember those five and how they effect the viewer's observation and you generally can figure out a good camouflage.

[comrade harps]

Way cool.

The biiger engine looks right and the camo is quite possibly effective.

Well done.

[Taiidantomcat]

Excellent scheme!!