MiG-3 colors: standard bands schemes
updated on April 3, 2009                                file name: colors2.html
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The introduction of bands camouflage painted on in factory looks to have been more or less contemporary to the war outbreak and to the introduction of the late type MiG-3.
While the aircraft were probably painted AII green and light blue when still disassembled, the darker bands were painted on already assembled planes, and don't show interruptions on panel lines; the quick fading of the AII green visible on German photos of solid-green painted aircraft is not visible on camouflaged aircraft, perhaps because it is covered by camo bands, and/or because few operative MiG-3s had a life long enough to fade.
Two colors are known to be used to paint darker bands:

It is difficult to distinguish black bands from dark green bands on bw wartime photos; this is probably due to the quick fading of the black, to dust or to the use of thinned black paint over green background.
Some wrecks (not of MiG-3s) in Finnish museums seem to show the use of black green paint, unknown on Soviet sources and possibly made by mixing black with green paint.
The use of dark green looks to have been more common during the summer of 1941, while the use of black looks more common during fall and winter 1941.
The camo bands on the wings appear forthemost longitudinal from the leading to the back edge; few images show different, Spitfire-like oblique and interrupted bands.
The red stars were forthemost in six positions: fuselage sides, tail, wing undersurfaces.
Originally the red stars were plain or with a thin black outline; occasionally white outlines were seen in 1941/42; the use of wide white outlines was generalized in 1943/44, when MiG-3s were no longer used on first line units.

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NII-VVS test aircraft
MiG-3 AM-38F
white 04, Cap. Polyakov, 7 IAP, Leningrad front June 1941
yellow 5 with UB pods, 
possibly fall 1941
yellow 32
possibly summer 1941
rough 28 captured by Germans, 
unknown unit
Za Rodinu, unknown unit,
summer 1941
silver 46, 6 IAK Moscow PVO
MiG-3 of captain A.A. Lipilin,
 41 IAP, July 1941, Moscow front
blue 19 of 162 IAP, 
Leningrad front, summer 1942
cutten 76
Moscow front, summer 1941
white 67, 7IAK/PVO
Leningrad 1941
"smert nemetskim okkupantam!" ,
Moscow front 
red 17, 
Moscow front, winter 1941/42
2 GSAP/VVS-SF, Vayenga
spring 1942
red 47, 12 GIAP
Vnukovo, March 1942
yellow 21 of 7 IAP 
Black Sea Fleet, Kuban, 1943. 
white 28 of 7 IAP 
Black Sea Fleet, Kuban, 1943. 
blue 1
Moscow front
tail ski
 white 1 of Black Sea Fleet
62 IAP VVS ChF
 
 White 5, outlined
unknown unit
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