Custom colored ordnance

[Crazy Canuck II]

It's a pretty slow day for me today, so I was looking at my 1/48 collection and it got me wondering if it is realistic for the various ordnance to be custom painted for different color schemes. It doesn't seem very practical to me, I don't even know how something like that even work. I assume the manufacturer would not take custom orders, so that means the ordnance would have to be custom painted, which seems like a pain in the ass for something that's just going to blow up. Having said that, the one exception I could imagine would be the Low Vis II. I can see the benefit of having low vis ordnance on a low vis valk, not so much when the valk is in action, but for storing and re-loading in the field.

Of course I'm no military expert, so does anyone know of any real world president for custom painted ordnance in active duty or have a theory as to the benefits of something like this? And before anyone says it, I know the real answer is Yamato is taking liberties with the colors, so let's not even go there.

[KingNor]

they don't custom paint ordnance for real world planes. thats an anime/videogame/cartoon thing.

[sketchley]

Can I suggest graffitti on the ordinance? 'Die alien-scum' etc.. I think that's fairly common in real life.

Edited December 31, 2006 by sketchley

[David Hingtgen]

Where have we seen custom-colored ordnance? I can only think of white, and low-vis----which is the same as we have now. (though I think all the white is finally gone, from the US inventory at least--still plenty of green bombs left though) Does the stealth have black missiles or something?

[eugimon]

Where have we seen custom-colored ordnance? I can only think of white, and low-vis----which is the same as we have now. (though I think all the white is finally gone, from the US inventory at least--still plenty of green bombs left though) Does the stealth have black missiles or something?

yeah, stealth comes with black/grey missile pods.

[Crazy Canuck II]

Off the top of my head (well not really ) here's a list of some of the color variations. There could be more, I'm not sure.

Standard 1/48 VF-1 ordnance:

AMM-1 triple missile clusters = white

UMM-7 Micro Missile Pods = Dark grey w white tips

Standard 1/48 fast pack Ordnance:

RMS-1 Reaction Missiles = White w Yellow tips

Low Vis:

AMM-1 triple missile clusters = light grey

UMM-7 Micro Missile Pods = Dark grey w light grey tips

Low Vis II:

AMM-1 triple missile clusters = dark green

UMM-7 Micro Missile Pods = light green w dark green tips

Stealth:

AMM-1 triple missile clusters = Black

UMM-7 Micro Missile Pods = Black w grey tips

Stealth Fast Packs:

RMS-1 Reaction Missiles = Grey w yellow tips

Standard 1/48 GBP-1S:

GH-32 high maneuverability micro-missiles = White w red tips

1/48 GBP-1S Low Vis:

GH-32 high maneuverability micro-missiles = Green w red tips

[Fly4victory]

There are different colors for live ordinance and training ammunition. Live High Explosive (HE) 2.75 inch rockets have an Olive Drab (OD) warhead with white rocket body. The training warheads are blue with a white rocket body.

The rocket pods themselves have been locally repainted with tan or gray. Original colors were OD.

Training hand grenades are blue. Live OD.

20mm training and live ammo is also different.

Army Hellfire missiles and Marine Hellfires are painted with different markings but both are OD. While they look the same they are different. Marine missiles are certified for ship board ops. The Hellfire captive flight trainer is OD with inert painted on the side in yellow.

The Pave knife pod laser designator has been painted both white and OD.

The biggest differences in ordinance colors has been training and live. There are cross service differences but Yamato’s rainbow bright wing stores is artistic license. Acquisition costs alone would prevent individual customized wing stores.

Control surfaces, seeker heads, and electrical connections do not like paint… plus paint adds weight so other than the odd chalk job the flight line is pretty standard.

[David Hingtgen]

Based on current intermixing, I'd say that while Yamato may have rather "bright" colors, the combinations aren't unrealistic. Go look at current US Navy bombs. The seeker/fuse, body, and fins, can all be different colors due to swapping/age, plus live vs dummy. Blue bombs with green fins, blue bombs with gray fins, green bombs with grey fins, grey bombs with green fins and green seeker, grey bombs with grey fins and green seeker, etc.

Missiles were the same "mix" of white and grey parts for years until the white was finally used up. IMHO Yamato is pretty close---there's not that many colors, just a lot of combinations. A bit unrealistic, but nothing severe.

The only thing I really have an "issue" with is Yamato's use of red--it's almost flourescent.

Note: Harrier-exclusive weapons are painted to match Harriers (only weapon I can think of painted to match a particular scheme).

[P.W.Royce]

Interesting someone brought this up, as I have been really into my toy and model missles lately (researching, ordering weapons sets, etc). While working on my custom Mac0 Mig-29 I took a closer look at the SV-51's underwing stores, and some of them come in two colors. Acording to Hasegawa Nora's fighter has light grey missle pods, while DD has dark grey, like his fighter. Anti-ship missles seem to be the same color grey, not sure about the drop tanks.

[David Hingtgen]

In real life drop tanks are often colored to match a plane/squadron, but there's no really off-colored planes in a real squadron---you can see the CAG and CO planes in a naval squadron with colored tanks but they will still be suitable for the other planes in the squadron. Like the Jolly Rogers---sometimes the commander's plane will get black and yellow tanks. Those tanks would still be appropriate for the low-vis grey planes in the squadron, as those are inherently the squadron's colors. Not that they'd get switched around much, F-14 intake tanks and F-18 center tanks are carried 99% of the time so there's little opportunity/need to change them. As opposed to say custom tanks for Nora, which would look really wrong on any non-pink plane.

Also, in wartime, any "custom" tank probably wouldn't be used---when US planes "go to war" and there's a good chance drop tanks actually will be dropped, they switch to cheap, temporary "disposable" tanks, and they wouldn't be custom-painted like a peacetime tank that's expected to remain attached to the same plane for months on end.

For a long time nearly every drop tank the US had was 36375 grey (same as missiles, bombs, pylons, and rails) as almost every plane had that color as the belly camo color, but due to the F-15 changing to the Mod Eagle scheme and the F-16 switching to two-tone, there's 3 main colors now. (ironically the Harrier's custom 36495 tanks switched to 36375)

When all else fails, go with 36375 grey. It's never the 'wrong' color, on any part of any plane.

[P.W.Royce]

In real life drop tanks are often colored to match a plane/squadron, but there's no really off-colored planes in a real squadron---you can see the CAG and CO planes in a naval squadron with colored tanks but they will still be suitable for the other planes in the squadron. Like the Jolly Rogers---sometimes the commander's plane will get black and yellow tanks. Those tanks would still be appropriate for the low-vis grey planes in the squadron, as those are inherently the suqdron's colors. As opposed to say custom tanks for Nora, which would look really wrong on any non-pink plane.

For a long time nearly every drop tank the US had was 36375 grey (same as missiles, bombs, pylons, and rails) as almost every plane had that color as the belly camo color, but due to the F-15 changing to the Mod Eagle scheme and the F-16 switching to two-tone, there's 3 main colors now. (ironically the Harrier's custom 36495 tanks switched to 36375)

When all else fails, go with 36375 grey. It's never the 'wrong' color, on any part of any plane.

I have been a member here for quite a few years (although you wouldn't know it by the amount of posts), and I am always impressed by your knowledge of all things Navy/coloring/ordnance/controll surface/powerplant/avionics/ prety much every aspect of modern fighters, so I just gota ask: what is your back ground regarding this stuff, and how did you get to be such an epic Macross super-fan?

[David Hingtgen]

It's a common question, but there's no "good" answer---I just read and observe a lot. Never in the military, no pilots in the family, nothing like that. A lot of "detail knowledge" comes from building model kits---we inherently notice any difference in paint or configuraton, and always want to know why/how, to insure accuracy. I've learned more about the F-15E from reading reviews about F-15E kits, than F-15E books.

And my Macross "history" actually goes back to Transformers---I never saw Robotech, but while "reminiscing" about old toys I remembered that my bother owned a Jetfire, and it was the best TF I never had. Researched a bit, found out Jetfire was really a Macross toy, and soon thereafter found subbed M+ videos. Went from there.