Alternate air force roundels and markings thread (Mk III)
- Thread starter Petike
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This is very very good. Ideal for the time when people besides the USN start flying heavier than air machines worth mentioning. The first ones will have the American flag painted on them, but when other people have planes, an easier ID will be needed.
Recently, I've been making some new visual materials for my Aeroverse setting, particularly for Kymria and its overall military.
I needed a naval aviation roundel for one of the overviews, so I made one.
Derived directly from the roundel reworked for me by Marc Pasquin.Yeah, I could have made it fancier, but I want to reserve the more extravagant roundel designs for some of the other countries in the setting, and then there's also the fact that the Kymrian military favours simple, minimalist patterns for the designs of its roundels, rank insignia, etc.
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Pangur
Donor
That might work for a Welsh navyView attachment 840469
Recently, I've been making some new visual materials for my Aeroverse setting, particularly for Kymria and its overall military.
I needed a naval aviation roundel for one of the overviews, so I made one.
Yeah, I could have made it fancier, but I want to reserve the more extravagant roundel designs for some of the other countries in the setting, and then there's also the fact that the Kymrian military favours simple, minimalist patterns for the designs of its roundels, rank insignia, etc.
Thanks again. It will most likely be adopted.
Now I need one for the New Hampshire Aerospace Militia from the same time frame. No, they don't have spaceships; they have planes suitable for 1918 in 1900, but the militia claimed space to make sure that the uppity Rangers don't get it. They are dreaming of the future--and trying to grab it, not quite realizing just HOW difficult it will be.
The first post-independence seal as well as the modern day patch used by the NH National Guard display a bundle of 5 arrows. so having 5 arrows displayed in a way that fit more within a circle could work.
It certainly can, and my older roundel for Kymria was originally made for an ATL Republic of Wales. I repurposed my Welsh roundel into the roundel of Kymria, since it's a country culturally very inspired by Wales, in many ways, though not just Wales, as I note in an ealier post in this thread. Marc made the reworked, more abstract version, which I not only gladly accepted, but retconned into the "later, definitive roundel adopted by the Kymrian Flying Host (their air force)". The naval aviation roundel is intentionally just a slight expansion of the basic roundel.
I am currently working on some rank insignia for Kymria's army (Royal Army of Kymria), navy (Royal Navy of Kymria) and air force (Royal Flying Host of Kymria).
While it's not a typical ATL - their Earth is not our Earth, but an early 1900s alternate Earth (in the same style as Iron Grip, Air Power or Royal Space Force, etc.) - the fictional world of the Aeroverse is so closely historically inspired, it's very much at home both in alternate history and industrial fantasy.
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about the rank insignias, OTL, British Empire / Commonwealth countries are pretty much in the minority in terms of having distinct insignias for their various uniform branches. Most countries actually have a single rank insignias system used by all.
If you want to have distinct insignias for all 3 branches, maybe design a basic template and modify it for all 3 branches (ex: low officers use 1-3 straight horizontal stripes for army, 1-3 wavy stripes for navy & 1-3 zigzag stripes for air force)
I know. Even my country has only very basic differences for the appearance of the rank insignias in the ground forces and the air force, and the terminology for the ranks is the exact same in both the army and the air force. There's no unusual rank name in the air force at all, they're all the same names as the ranks in the ground forces. Interestingly enough, we've not had the rank of práporčík and its close derivatives (sort of like "ensign", just lower in rank) since about 2015 or thereabouts. Some of the lower NCO ranks were instead moved up and replaced it.
In the case of my fictional Kymria, I've taken most of the terminological inspiration from British, Austro-Hungarian and some other central European terminological traditions, and I've tried to make it as consistent as possible. The rank names themselves are conventional, and differ very little from the sort of ranks you'd find in the OTL world during the last ca 200 years. Nota bene, I've done this attention to consistency in multiple languages (the Welsh-sounding one is the main one, but there are also minority languages heard in the forces, and even a Kymria equivalent to "Army Slavic").
On the visual side of things, I've largelly gone for an original approach, no stars, and only the three topmost ranks of the main branches have a royal crown. The insignia is instead rooted in subtle but logical colour-coding and in a system of symbolic insignia largelly unique to Kymria and its national vexilology/heraldry.
There's also not going to be a mess of unique names for nearly every service branch's ranks, unlike in both real British tradition or Austro-Hungarian tradition. They do have a system to specify which soldier comes from which branch, but unless there's a good reason to mention it, it's not added to the rank name as standard. Thus, everyone just goes by the standard army, navy and air force rank they have. For example, you can have two sergeants of the army and air force meeting, and neither of them will have a convoluted long name for their rank. They'll just be sergeants.
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Navies having separate sleeve insignia different from army/air force shoulder insignia is actually relatively common. Thought yes, Commonwealth armed forces tend to have more distinct insignia for various branches.
some have sleeve insignias used as *secondary* insignias (look at the US navy having 4 bands representing a captain while using army colonel-type eagle on their collar). Some have naval insignias being different but air force & army using the same insignas. My point is that having all 3 (or more) branches using completely different insignias is pretty rare.
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It is somewhat more common with various navies, given that there's more inherent differences based on naval tradition and the different environment, compared to ground forces or an air force. I intend to vary the Kymrian navy's ranks a bit more than the army and air force ones, but not so much as to look completely different. They all have a basic insignia pattern of sorts, and all the internal variations are strictly logical and hierarchical.
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It could definitely work as a modern roundel, i.e. for an era in which you identify other aircraft at significant range by electronic means. But I worry that it would quickly become indistinct at range in 1918-tech-level setting when all you've got is the Mark 1 Eyeball.
it really depends on what other aircrafts they are likely to encounter in battle. The US used a roundel with a central red dot up until 1940 as their design was easy to tell apart from their enemies.
Following the entry of the US into WW2 and knowing that their major enemy (japan) used a red dot, US aircraft switched to using a white star on a blue circle.
This means that unless the 5 arrows design can be easily confused with one of their enemy, it shouldn't be an issue.
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Thought there is a reason USAF later added the bar on the circle rather than just keeping a circle.
IIRC, something about shapes being more distinguishable than colours.
So that is something to keep in mind.
Oh definitely. My point is mainly that "different" is mainly an issue when what other planes one country might get in conflict with another. 2 countries can have identical roundels but if they have no chance or getting in conflict with one another, it's not an issue.
The roundels of France and Paraguay are nearly identical (both red-white-blue but france normally using a yellow outline) but considering the chances of them going to war against each other are about nil, it's not really an issue
just a personnal feeling but unless the ATL US flag uses blue stripes, this would look odd (to me) as a national roundel.Played a bit with the US roundel.
Bit busy to be used as a roundel. You might want to only keep the basic elements such as : white eagle with red fimbriation on a white cross within a red circle.Roundel of the Krakowian Commonwealth Air Force.
The design you made might work better as an Air Force branch flag instead.