Victory Marks or Kill Marks

[McMacy]

Are these painted on with a stencil?

Was there a uniform style? For example, all tanks or planes in a squadron, same artist or same stencil, same color, or the same size?
How ornate? Is there standard like two colors max?


Looked online and didn't find much of above questions. Did see airplanes with 'kills' of radar sites, drones, and some with an element of humor.

 

[NDT]

This was a WWII thing for the most part, and when found on ground vehicles, was symbols painted on tank barrels.

 

[hndrsonj]

We painted them on out E-2C's when I was with VAW-77. We were the only full time counter narcotics squadron in the Navy. If I remember right we had mini "go-fast" boats and marijuana leafs. I left there in May of 2011 so it was recent. They are now decommissioned.

 

[Another Ahab]

This was a WWII thing for the most part, and when found on ground vehicles, was symbols painted on tank barrels.

This seemed interesting, so I noodled around:

- Apparently even flak guns got in on the trend

A German 88 here (I believe).

 

[M813rc]

The basic answer is that there is no military-wide standard, they were applied by units, or individuals within units, as they saw fit. Hand painted or stenciled, depending on how fancy/same folks wanted them.

Kill/mission marks have been applied on everything from individual weapons to aircraft carriers.

Cheers