Constructive comments on BOB historical accuracy in Acft skins/markings

[jameson]

Doolittle, whilst in broad agreement with your proposals, I have to say that your "catholic" rules regarding Spitfire lettering are a bit over the top, given that these were applied locally by groundcrew to comply with some broad interpretation regarding aircraft identification, (The Air Ministry or Duxford may know what these were).

If you look at the photographs here:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

you will see that you will need to add other squadrons to those of 19 & 22, which had stepped lettering.

Even those squadrons which had even lettering, had aircraft within them with slightly eccentric application, probably due to time constraints or inexperience of the lad that painted them on. I suspect that if it could be clearly read, it got passed as ok.

If you wish to enforce rules then please supply photographs of the aircraft of every squadron that flew Spitfires (and Hurricanes!), and for each month of the battle as it's likely that markings varied over the months, (replacement aircraft being painted by different people as one example). Photos of warbird repaints and pretty profiles will not do if accuracy is your aim.

Yours constructively.

[JG52Krupi]

Is this a joke?

The community skinners create specific skins and usually to a much higher quality as they spend a lot of time and effort making them.

Its unreasonable to ask for this, generic skins should be available from the start.

What they should do is something like ROF have a historic skin and fictional skin pack which is updated with every patch.

http://riseofflight.com/en/community/usefulmaterials

[DoolittleRaider]

Originally Posted by jameson

Doolittle, whilst in broad agreement with your proposals, I have to say that your "catholic" rules regarding Spitfire lettering are a bit over the top...

I agree that I may have made too "catholic" a statement on 'alignment' of Spit code letters. To clarify...one point of reference, data source, here at Wings Pallette shows over 300 Spitfire Profiles, of which perhaps only a half dozen (in the 39-40 timeframe) have extremely non-aligned/stepped third Letters. I now note a 610Sqdn Spit profile in addition to 19S and 92S. However, the overwhelming (90%) majority of the profiles (of that same limited timeframe) show aligned letters. Later on, 41 onward, it seems alignment was even more uniformly applied.

In contrast, the fact that all the Spits in the WIP updates showed non-aligned Third letters caught my eye...even if these are just placeholders so that users can apply whatever letter they choose, I question whether the location of the third letter in the skin/template will be flexible for mission builders/skinners. If not, then I should think going with the 90+% aligned scheme would be the best choice for being mostly accurate.

If you look at the photographs here:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

you will see that you will need to add other squadrons to those of 19 & 22, which had stepped lettering.

True, there are additional non-aligned Spit photos, 603 Sqdn for example. I find it interesting that at your linked document, there is a photo of 610Sqdn DW-T extremely Non-aligned supposedly in May '40, yet further down there is a photo of two other 610S Spits, DW-O and DW-K with very neatly aligned letters supposedly in June '40.

Even those squadrons which had even lettering, had aircraft within them with slightly eccentric application, probably due to time constraints or inexperience of the lad that painted them on. I suspect that if it could be clearly read, it got passed as ok.

I agree. I've seen other indications that in general standards/dictates of all sorts were loosely applied/implemented, certainly early on in the war.

If you wish to enforce rules...

I have neither the authority nor desire to "enforce" anything. I've simply made some observations which I believe could be considered in order to preclude any significant historical errors at time of SOW:BOB release. I also made no claims to being an Expert on the subjects at hand.

Photos of warbird repaints and pretty profiles will not do if accuracy is your aim.

I agree that not every Profile will be perfect, but they come from various sources and they seem to be based on reasonable research/documentation. In almost every case where I have compared a Profile (from the Wings Pallette collection, for example) with an available photo, they have been consistent in details. For example, at your linked document, there is this photo of 602S Spit LO+G.

Here is the Wings Pallette Profile.

Here is the SOW WIP placeholder LO+G.



Also DW+Oand DW+K profiles



The DW+O and DW+K photo. Note that even the somewhat uniquely and seemingly extremely slanted angle of the DW+K is accurately reproduced in the Profile. :


I repeat that I did not start this thread to be critical of the SOW:BOB team, but rather to offer additional historical information, hopefully well-founded, on matters which appeared in the updates to not have been taken into consideration.

Aside from SOW:BOB, an exchange of views and supporting data/references is, in any event, an interesting endeavor for some of us who are historian hobbyists...on this matter of WWII aircraft markings as well as on many other subjects.

If everything is coming along perfectly in the accurate skinning of SOW:BOB aircraft, that is absolutely wonderful. My comments and 'evidence' can be completely disregarded as having been unnecessary. No harm done.

S!

[Theshark888]

Originally Posted by jameson

I have to say that your "catholic" rules regarding Spitfire lettering are a bit over the top

Speaking of over the top.............Thank goodness he wasn't being "anglican!"

[FlatSpinMan]

Commented over at Ubi but just watched the video. Very very interesting. Thanks to you and Biltongbru for making it. It really helped tell the story.

[DoolittleRaider]

I posted the commetns below in the 4 March Update Thread, but I am putting them here also so as to keep all comments on RAF and LW ID Code lettering in one thread....just in case someone wants to use this as a quick reference to correcting the COD skins at some point:

Very nice wallpapers! Oleg and team are doing a great job; all aircraft look realistic and historically correct as far as I know (I'm not particularly knowledgable on detailed features of aircraft design).

In this thread, http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=17959, I did offer some constructive comments with regard to historical accuracy in aircraft markings, both RAF and LW, specifically unit/aircraft Identification Codes.

I have to constructively note again that the markings(code letters) on the two Stukas in the Stuka Wallpapers are incorrect...as had been the code letter markings on some Bf110's in an earlier update. A small point, perhaps, but one offered with good intentions and constructively.

The Stuka S2+AC would have been the mount of the Commander of II Gruppe of St. G 77.
S2 would designate St. G77
The third letter refers to the unique aircraft of a 'unit'. Its color is based on the unit/staff it belonged to.
The last letter refers to the Staffel or Gruppe...in this case "C", which is the letter for II Gruppe Stab (staff).
All Gruppe Stab (I., II., and III.) aircraft had Green third letters.
Thus, the "A" on this Stuka should be Green, not white.

The Stuka S2+KC would be the aircraft of some other officer on the II. Gruppe staff, though it would be unusual for it to be a "K" (tenth or so aircraft of the staff), as the Gruppe Staff probably didn't have more than 4 or 5 officers, I should think. Again, the third letter "K" should be Green, not white, because it is a Gruppe staff aircraft.




The use of the older Narrow white-bordered balkankreuz rather than the Wide white-border has been noted in the other thread,as well.

[DoolittleRaider]

That GUI screen is interesting...I'd overlooked it in the updates, I guess.

However, it's not clear what the Color Selections are for. It shows three color choices for RAF acft...in this case, Yellow White and Black. Individual RAF aircraft did not have differently colored ID letters according to Squadron Flight or Wing, etc... as did the Luftwaffe aircraft for Gruppe Stab's and Staffels.

Without a manual, it is hard to determine what the Color Selections relate to...

I'd certainly like to see a similar Selection screen for Luftwaffe aircraft.

[=KAG=Bersrk]

Gents: in final version all will be ok.

[jocko417]

Interesting posts, I did a lot of RAF skins for IL-2 so I'm a bit of a markings and colours nerd too.

I'm willing to accept the discrepencies as noted as I think the default skins in CoD are a HUGE improvement over what IL-2 had, and to be honest we won't know what is 'wrong' until we have the final version in hand and can see for ourselves what choices we have in the GUI for markings.

Having said that, I have three things to point out about the RAF paintschemes I've seen so far in the screenies that really do bother me as they are such basic items:

1) Why is there no B camo pattern seen on any RAF aircraft, all I've seen is the A scheme? Odd and even numbered serials carried different camo patterns, A for odd, B for even. A simple matter of assigning a mirror image camo layer to the aircraft if an even numbered serial is chosen in the GUI.

2) Red in RAF nationality markings is far too orange, especially under certain lighting.

3) Font used for RAF serials is unlike any I've seen in period photos. Different manufacturers had different fonts but they didn't look anything like what CoD is using. Stands out like a sore thumb.

BTW, if I've learned anything from skinning it's that artist's profiles are usually inaccurate. Period photos for the win.