You are not annoying us. It's entertaining to dig through the dusty files trying to find one little thing. It gives us a reason to post a lot more pictures, too! And unaccustomed as I am in on-line speak...or squeak...please do not take my response as anything other than what it is...a response and the logic behind our decision to paint the tower a color we know it was painted in its life.
Here goes:
The National Archives photos: The first photo, you admit is a long time before the day in question in terms of the Navy who likes to build things and likes to paint things. So we have to ignore that. The others are very brightly back lighted and the shadow side could be anything. So we must ignore those also.
We also have seen that artist's conception of Kakuichi Takahashi's bombing of the PBY base as the first attack of the morning. (sorry. don't have the name of the work or artist's name handy.)
His major building placement is correct. Ours are not in final position. But he has an advantage. Paint. He does not worry about the disappearing skins, jerky maneuvers or downright Crash to Black that happens when we overload the computers. His doesn't fly or explode. Ours does. So we will have fewer poly's dedicated to non-target items. The same goes of IL-2. We want TK's light and shadow, Deuces clouds, Hinch's ships and YAP's planes and you cannot have it all. But it's a great picture.
I flew over and took this shot...then I blew up the new hangar just to test the destroyed model.
One note on the artist's picture: Asphalt is oil and crushed rock. These two items determine the color of the surface. The dominant rock in Hawaii is....red lava. Most surfaces around the islands have a reddish cast depending upon when the surface was lain. While it may have been black, it was more likely like everything else is there. We are unlikely to diddle with Deuce's island tga very much so this is our offering. It also offers more depth perception when you land on it.
Before it is taken out of context, I will say that IL-2 is an excellent piece of work, has its own direction and all the 6-point type required to fend off whatever. I will accept IL-2's vision of Novaya Zemlya. I have crawled all over Ford Island...in color and I prefer mine. In their Pacific Fighters, this is Pearl Harbor:
So I assume the picture you posted is from an add-on and one done from a lot of research as is the artist's painting above. They have their research. We have ours. They also have their limitations as do we. I can see they used what they had in many instances. So do we (and two of them are much too white in the morning sun I see). TK didn't use all those simple forms because he is blind. He had to contend with the target computer and his vision was flying at altitude...and delivering a product on one CD. Ours is low altitude combat in slow aircraft so we need more detail and more computer.
Detail can become absurd and we are purveyors of absurd levels of detail. Why? Screenshots interest people. But the test of the product is if it's goals are accepted by the players as worthwhile and if TK's engine will deliver our interpretation. But I think I am an expert on what is seen in these situations and nobody should see the detail we provide. They should be doing everything they can not to become a crater and we are going to make that the key element because that is the story we wish to tell. For our story-telling, this is a 90% final version of how Ford Island looked just before the first bomb dropped.
I have also run across conflicting statements about when the tower was painted but the looming fact is that there is very little about it because there is so much more interesting about the day. I have little faith in a library that puts as much nonsense on their shelves as truth...the Internet. There are many more articles on alien abduction, the shroud of Turin and hobgoblins than there are on microbes in the human body.
But let us say that it was not red and white until January 1942...the earliest of the TWO statements I can find. Red and white? I have pictures and that is what I posted. Their offering is "a dark color". Rising Sun is supposed to be entertaining. So what "dark color" would our players find entertaining? I would have to guess. I don't have to guess about red and white. I have seen pictures. But here's an idea that is just as legitimate as any other guess:
...and I can get paid for that!
Having said that about absurd detail, here is some from this week as we start to wind this thing up. Some are of Oahu...which all took place on one day...and some are of Burma and Southeast Asia which was a war unto itself and the main concentration of Phase One.
Paint shop has the Lex...
The last piece for Phase One is in hand and headed for paint. I can't believe we were thinking of skipping Kunming because the expense of a one-mission airplane. Great fun.
Shots of the Kunming area terrain.
Our new runway to replace Desert3...pieces still in place from old set up. Takeoff and taxi programming today...thanks MPPD.
Don't stop looking for errors. They are not Easter Eggs. We want it to be as much like the day as we can create. But we got a deal on red and white paint so we went with it.
We knew we were playing to an audience of experts, fanatics and aficionados when we picked up this ball. We enjoy the challenge and the audience. If the players know that they are being offered the most accurate scenario, then they ease into the experience of being there much more easily...and that is our goal.
So find me a skin for a Ki-48 that is THE skin from the 21st Hikotai (82nd and 84th Chutai) stationed in Hanoi on the morning of 20 Dec 1941...and did they have Kana numbers on their rudders.
Otherwise I have to paint them red and white with a Snickers logo on them.
