MiG-21MF - Egypt - Nile Camouflage - 1973
Comments
David2703Looks great, may I ask what paint Brand and Numbers you used? Very hard to match middle eastern camo schemes
MariusThank you Dave and David!
I agree that is very difficult to match the Eastern colours. I never actually had a direct reference for most of the colours I used on my Arab MiG-21s, except rather recently. Here is maybe a reference that might be useful, which I found on a forum:
"From an Egyptian friend working with the MiG-21s:
Upper Surfaces:
sand - Gunze H318
grey-green - Polly Scale RLM 68
dark green - Polly Scale RLM 71
Lower Surfaces:
light blue - Gunze H67 or Revell Enamel #49''
But I have personally always used only mixes of colours until they optically matched the reference. It's of course not always a success and I don't always succeed from the first try. As reference, I used mostly the "Arab MiGs" of Tom Cooper and David Nicolle especially Volumes 5 and 6. A highly recommended read. If you are interested in a specific colour I used, I can tell you the colours I mixed. I am still using the Revell Enamels.
David2703Very comprehensive, thanks a lot! Might get back to you on some specifics. I use coopers work also, great stuff!
MariusManaged to do some weathering and postshading. This camouflage looks better than I expected at the beginning.
MariusSo I finally managed to finish this one. I had to adjust the green stripes again and now I think they look closer to reality than before.
Cheers for watching!
David2703Oh wow looks great! Did you end up using the colors you initially posted?
MariusThank you Neuling and David!
@David:
For Sand: I used the Revell Enamel #314 (applied first in a slightly darker tone mixed with a bit of #382 and then post-shaded again with #314).
For the green stripes: to be honest, I am unsure if my color is the most correct one. While looking closely again in the profiles from "Arab Migs" with the Nile Camouflage, even there you find 4-5 different variations of the green. The historical photographs are also showing major variations depending on lightning, camera exposure, contrast, etc. I thought at the beginning that there was only one shade of green, but know I am unsure of that. Maybe there were several different ones? You can see in my gallery that I started initially with a more greyish green and eventually corrected the tones at the end with a more true green. I improvsed too much already, but I remember I started with the Revell Enamel #360.
For the Black/Dark-green: I used mostly black with 10% of some olive green.
For the underside I did use the Revell enamel #49 which fits very well in my opinion.
MariusThank you Cuajete!
I learned in the mean time that the Egyptians used at least 3 very different shades of green for their famous "Nile Camouflage".
Album info
As of the October War of 1973, except very late deliveries of MiG-21MFs in early 1973, all Egyptian MiG-21s were locally painted at the Helwan factories in the early 1970s. It appears that car paint was used for this. Two different partially standardized camouflage patterns were developed and applied at Helwan for the Egyptian Air Force (EAF):
#1 The camouflage with green or brown stripes on top of a sand colour (see my other Egyptian MiG-21):
MiG-21PFM - Egypt - 1973 | Project by Redicus (1:72)
#2 The famous and unique "Nile Camouflage" composed of three main colours: sand, grey-green (FS505310) and dark green (FS505056).
The underside was painted in the same manner (admirality blue) regardless of the camouflage pattern from the upper surfaces.
The Nile Camouflage was unique for each machine, with not two aicraft having the same pattern. Commonly, there were relatively thin green stripes separating the dark green from the sand background, but in some cases the colours were reversed, where the stripes were sand or even dark green instead. In some rare cases, the camouflage was completely random not showing any distinctive stripes.
My subject is the MiG-21MF number 8444 which is depicted in a colour profile in the "Arab MiGs, Volume 6" of Tom Cooper and David Nicolle. I accidentally managed to find a real photograph of number 8444 on the internet (see first picture in my album).
The number 8444 is for sure a veteran of the October War of 1973, but it is not certian if it actually survived the conflict.
Overall, all MiG-21s painted in the Nile Camouflage (and most likely all other Egyptian MiG-21s) maintained their wartime camouflage patterns until final withdrawal from service in the late 80s. The external fuel tanks were sometimes also painted on the top in the Nile camouflage, but sometimes they were switched from other machines (painted in admirality blue).
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15. March until 31. December 2021