Beware that this isn’t necessarily true for all times and places, though. US Army instructions for three-colour NATO camouflage are rather strict, for example, to the extent that distances from fixed points on the vehicle are specified for various parts of the camouflage, with a tolerance of 1.00 inch (the two decimal places are in the manual), plus:Like the camoflague patterns for AFV's there was an original paint scheme applied at the factory, and then after that it was left up to the squaddies, once the vehicle was in service, and once they got their grubby little hands on the paint and what passed for a brush.....
Yet the manual for the MERDC camouflage that came before NATO camouflage has none of this kind of language, and patterns on actual vehicles deviated a lot from the official drawings — to the extent that sometimes you can only tell a vehicle has been painted in MERDC by the colours and basic pattern shapes used.TB 43-0209 Color Marking and Camouflage Painting Of Military Vehicles said:Inspections will only be measured at reference points and will evaluate the overall effect at 50 feet. In addition, overspray which can be discerned at 50 feet will be considered sloppy painting and will be corrected.
Anyone seen @stona ? He has this info planted in his head. What he don't know about RAF camouflage is not worth knowing.There's a lot of conjecture / nonsense talked about RAF schemes, 'A' and 'B' patterns, left- and right-handedness, often with the 'resort to authority' fallacy.
This is a contentious issue!I expect that further variation occurred on repaired aircraft. Did the Maintenance Units have the rubber masks?
Pete
Or, it took the Suits that long to make a decision ...Chances are that they may have been designed in 1936 but it took until 1938 to get the whole thing organised to actually paint planes.
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