Aeronef Ensigns

[Froggy the Great]

Is there a commonly accepted convention for which ensigns are flown or painted on Atlantis-campaign era 'nefs?  I'm trying to make a best-faith effort to "get it right", whatever that means for VSF.

Specifically, I'm making a small British 'nef that was probably commissioned around 1878 and seen hard use for 15 years.  I want to paint the ensign on its tailfins, which are diamond in shape, on point.

[Dewbakuk]

It's the standard White Ensign, assuming it's a military vessel.




If it's Merchant Navy then it's the plain Red Ensign.



The Ensigns were organised properly in 1864 and have remained the same since.

[Svennn]

You may be better just doing the three stripes like on GamerMacs nef in the recent thread. Simpler and if I read your post right, easier to apply on a diamond shaped fin?

[Red Orc]

In short, no; there are a couple of threads about 1/300 'fleet scale' battles; and a few threads with 28mm 'gunboat' nefs in them, and they're different depending on the modeller (some don't have tailfin insignia at all as far as I can see). One modeller (not in the Atlantis campaign I don't think) painted a Union Flag on the tailfin. Several fly the white ensign from rigging, but have something else on the tailfin.

As for nefs specifically serving in the Atlantis campaign (so in service between 1885 and 1900), in this thread the nefs are painted blue-white-red on the tailfin (reading front to back); in this thread, they're painted red-white-blue.

Apparently the real RAF didn't settle which way they painted them until shortly before WWII (red-white-blue). This on one occassion led me to accuse someone of painting his nefs French instead of British, because he'd painted them in WWI blue-white-red. I'd like to apologise once again for suggesting such a terrible thing!

My advice would be to follow the most common convention for the small nefs if that's what you're doing. Perhaps, and this is a bit post hoc, the Army (or the Royal Aeronautical Service, or whoever) paints their small nefs blue-white-red like the Balloon Lancers in the massed Atlantean battle, and the Royal Aetheric Navy (or whatever branch of the service it is) paints their massive capital ship nefs red-white-blue. Only a suggestion, but it might just work.

[Dewbakuk]

pfft, stripes aren't Ensigns...........

I have the Ensigns as flags on my Royal Navy vehicles. I haven't finished a nef yet but when I do I'll probably go with stripes for the tail rudders.

[Plynkes]

If it's a Royal Navy vessel I would actually fly a White Ensign, in addition to whatever recognition scheme you decide to paint on fins and the like. If it's an Army vessel then it's entirely a matter for the imagination. The RFC initially just used the Union Flag on wings and tails.* I quite like that idea as it looks "early" to me (even if it's early WWI). The White/Red/White recognition stripes used to tell British tanks from Germans using captured ones is another idea, as it looks rather striking.



*However they dumped this because it seems it was easy to mistake for a German cross at long distances, and there were friendly fire incidents.