Originally Posted by Earl

Are the 'cradle marks' on some of the real vehicles (the Nike-derived boosters in particular) basically just the 'true' color of the Nike booster (there were/are thousands of those booster motors left over after they were decommissioned) where they could not get white paint to while it was laying on the cradle when it was being painted for sounding rocket use (Nike-Smoke, Nike Tomahawk, etc.)? That is what I always thought, as opposed to where the cradle may have rubbed/scratched the white paint.

Earl