USS Barb paint scheme

[jbt308]

Hello,

I'm finishing up my Barb build of the 1/72 Revell Gato and am having some trouble finding the exact paint schema. Everything I've seen through books and the net show that it has the black decking up top with gray sides, is that correct.

I also understand that the US Navy did not mark their subs during WW2 with their ship numbers.

edit:
Sorry, I forgot to add that I did find this site:
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/gato_class.htm
And it shows that it uses Measure 9, which is all black and dark gray, but this goes against what I've seen in the photos, granted they are b/w.

Thanks for any help or picture references.

[Kapt Z]

I think the US Navy in WWII had about as many paint schemes for the subs as they had subs. The photos I've seen of BARB just by surfing the net have looked like light gray sides and tower, dark grey/black deck and fading from light grey to dark grey/black along her sides as you get to her exhaust ports.

I believe the 'Measure 9' was the standard all black scheme that the boats had from pre-war to about '43.

Good luck!

Oh, forgot. The boat numbers were painted over during the war.

[jbt308]

Thanks for the info. It's funny, because I see the pix in Thunder Below, and it seems that the boat had all manner of schemes, but with the grainy b/w pix, it's hard to tell. The first one though has the more modern black/grey combo with the black back half.

I guess it doesn't really matter all that much in the grand scale of things, it'll be a nice looking boat no matter what.

Thanks again.

[TLAM Strike]

http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/0822031.jpg

I think Kapt Z got it right. Looks like grey sides and a black deck and sattle tanks.

[jbt308]

Great! That's a perfect picture, I hadn't seen that one before! Thanks for all the help.