Model Forum / General / Models / November 2007

I would use both flat and satin on different areas. Note also that the
exhaust stains usually showed up on this scheme as a light grey.

As I mentioned before, Special Night was a very rough finish which affected
the performance of the aircraft. It was also used on the undersurfaces of
night bombers with an even greater effect due to the large areas involved.

One would have thought that a very flat black finish would have been ideal
camouflage at night, but that turned out not to be the case. When caught in
a searchlight beam, a flat finish turned out to be very visible indeed.
Therefore an alternative finish known as Smooth Night was introduced in 1942
for night bombers.  Smooth Night was a semi-gloss black which was much
harder wearing. Smooth Night didn't wholly replace Special Night, however.
Smooth Night was used on the undersurfaces of night bombers while Special
Night continued to be used on the fuselgae sides.

A similar situation pertained on Coastal Command's maritime patrol aircraft.
At first glance they appeared to by almost overall white, with just the
upersurfaces of the wing and tailplane and the extreme upper decking of the
fuselage in disruptive camouflage. However, the fuselage and nacelle sides
were in matt white while the undersurfaces were in gloss white.

Special Night was also found to be unsuitable for night fighters.
Hurricanes, Defiants, Blenheims and early marks of Beaufighter and Mosquito
were painted in overall Special Night. However trials showed that night
combat situations occurred above the clouds. On a moonlit night this meant
that a flat black coloured fighter could be silhouetted against the sky and
once again was very visible to the bomber crews. The trials showed that
Medium Sea Grey was a far better colour. Night fighters were therefore
painted in overall Medium Sea Grey with a disruptive pattern of Dark Green
on the uppersurfaces. This scheme was introduced around the same time as the
Smooth Night scheme. It was also used for some intruder aircraft and it
remained in service well into the 1950s on Meteor and Venom night fighters.
Incidentally, the Luftwaffe came to a similar conclusion with regard to
their own night fighters. Ju 88 and He 219 aircraft were painted in overall
RLM 76 with disruptive patterns of darker colours on the uppersurfaces.