Is there a way to change the skins of External Fuel Tanks on the F51?

[SOL-4-KEV]

I've been making a custom skin for the F51 and the dilemma I'm running into is that the external fuel tanks don't match the aircraft or just stand out way to much. Is there a template for IL2 Korea fuel tanks or is it included in the original F51 template itself. Any help could be appreciated.

[Rocket_Knut]

I´ve had a go at it. Boy oh boy, went that one wrong... 🤣

[MGMSwordsman]

Nah, that's just an early stealth prototype.😆

[Rocket_Knut]

9 hours ago, MGMSwordsman said:

Nah, that's just an early stealth prototype.😆

There is a Mustang hidden in every Raptor, right?🤣

[Dash,Polder]

Linda Carter Express.

[Stonehouse]

You'd have to make it a mod and enable game modifications to get the repaint to work.

The tank textures are held in plane1.gtp and you would need to use the unGTP tool to unpack them.

The mod file structure (assuming you are using JSGME and the JSGME.exe is in the IL2series folder) would be something like

mod name\game\data\graphics\planes\f51d\textures and you would put your modded textures in the textures folder in the aforementioned folder structure.

There are 6 files for each size tank. I believe the ones prefixed with an exclamation are used for distant LOD textures. Probably a lower resolution copy of the main textures.

 

Edited October 3 by Stonehouse

[actionhank]

On 10/3/2026 at 1:35 AM, Stonehouse said:

You'd have to make it a mod and enable game modifications to get the repaint to work.

The tank textures are held in plane1.gtp and you would need to use the unGTP tool to unpack them.

The mod file structure (assuming you are using JSGME and the JSGME.exe is in the IL2series folder) would be something like

mod name\game\data\graphics\planes\f51d\textures and you would put your modded textures in the textures folder in the aforementioned folder structure.

There are 6 files for each size tank. I believe the ones prefixed with an exclamation are used for distant LOD textures. Probably a lower resolution copy of the main textures.

 

This is one area I'd love to see Il-2 steal a page from the DCS devs on.

With the formatting of skins in DCS, you've got the description.lua file that lets you configure stuff like the name that the skin appears under in game, the countries that the skins shows up for (not really useful in Il-2 Korea) and then which textures that are used on the model that will be used.

So if you wanted to replace the fuel tanks, you can, you just have to edit the right things in the .lua file to get the game to pull the texture from your folder instead of the default fuel tank included with the core game packages.

It's definitely more of a learning curve, but I would love to have something similar in Il-2, even if it's only to let me easily package my skins in a folder and add a thumbnail to create a cleaner appearance in game with all of my skins. Having them all displayed by the file name isn't the most useful way to select skins.