WWI Air Wargaming
in Miniature
Part II

Modeling and Painting the Miniatures

Britain: colors and markings

by Bill Rutherford

Colors

In 1914 and 1915, aircraft served in natural finish. Fabric surfaces were clear-doped and wood and metal surfaces were varnished but not colored, though metal surfaces were sometimes colored light gray.

In early 1916 several proprietary khaki finishes were introduced, generally applied to aircraft upper surfaces to make them more difficult to spot. By mid-1916, this had standardized, in Europe, on the PC10 khaki color. PC10 ranged from an olive green to a dark chocolate color and served as the standard upper surface camouflage color for the remainder of the war. PC10 generally covered the fuselage completely, leaving the undersides of the wings in clear-doped fabric. Metal areas were generally painted battleship gray, though, rarely, they appeared in unpainted (but varnished) metal, and occasionally they appeared in PC10 or PC12.

Throughout the war, struts were generally varnished wood. Landing gear struts, however, sometimes appeared in PC10 or PC12, as appropriate.

The only widespread variation to this scheme was that aircraft serving in the Middle East used a red-brown, PC12, as their upper surface color, and Bristol Bullet monoplanes serving there also had their undersides painted light blue. There's some evidence that some Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) fighters - Sopwith Pups, mainly - appeared in Europe with PC12 upper surfaces, as well. The only multicolor camouflage scheme officially sanctioned was that on the Sopwith Salamander (a sort of ground-attack variant to the Sopwith Snipe), but, as the Salamander didn't enter general service during the war, I'll not spend more space on it.

Markings

In 1914, British aircraft, if they carried national markings at all, wore Union Jacks on their wing under surfaces to prevent friendly troops' firing on them. Unfortunately, the St. George's cross (the vertical red cross on the jack), at a distance, looked a lot like a German cross patée, and actually drew fire, so the Royal Flying Corps had to find a better solution. The RNAS, ever mindful of their independence, had already gone to a white roundel with a red outer ring.

By mid-1915, what was to become the standard British roundel was in use: Proportioned per illustration A, the British roundel had a red center and a blue outer ring. When applied to a dark surface, the roundel was surrounded by a thin (perhaps 1") white ring to make it stand out. Aircraft carried the roundels in the normal six positions, with tricolor vertical stripes on the rudder, with red in front, white in the middle, and blue on the trailing edge.

Serial numbers appeared, white on dark surfaces and black on light surfaces, on the rear fuselage or vertical tail.

Squadron markings generally consisted of simple geometric shapes and stripes, and appeared in white or in the appropriate flight colors (red, white, or blue), on the fuselage and sometimes on the upper wing. The British frowned on elaborate personal markings. Though there were exceptions (photos…), a simple aircraft name, in small white letters, below the cockpit, was as elaborate as most pilots got.

French Morane monoplanes acquired early in the war had their black metal areas repainted red to avoid confusion with the German Fokker and Pfalz monoplanes. Other French aircraft purchased by the British could appear either in PC10 or in their original French colors (e.g., yellow, aluminum-doped, or two-tone camouflage in 1916).

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