Ship colors search

[Type941]

I have a few questions that hopefully the history buffs will help to clear out.

First of all, the UK warships. What colors did they really use throughout the WW2? ANd I am not really interested in the wacky camouflage versions, from what I hear those were only used early in the war and were changed to gray color. But that's the thing. What shade of gray?

I have a few colors in progress for warships because I want to get all the british ships in this gray color - so task forces appear realistic, and not so easy to identify using the familiar patterns = especially when 2 ships of the same class in one camouflage looks odd (to me anyway).

1. So below is a few variations for the Home Fleet I have prepared. Is there a color you like and feel realistic?

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3520/ships9an.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/764/chisp6uk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2. May be there is a set of pantones or color chips to match? I have made a decent template and can play around with color, but need to decide whethere to make all ships in similar color, or in varying color? Again, I don't know if all ships had same shade of gray, or there was like Battleship gray, and Destroyer gray, etc...

ANy weblinks, etc, are helpful. If this all works, I'll give the community a full set of gray UK warships.


3. Naturally, the same will apply to the US navy. That would be next.


To get started on this, I want to know:

- should all UK warships be in similar shade of gray
- should there be rust or no rust on ships, and is it dependent on ship size
- colors for ships based on class?
- difference of HOme fleet color to german Kriegsmarine color
- is there even a need for all this??? :)

[Shadow9216]

Try this site http://www.internetmodeler.com/2003/june/ships/color_part_1.htm and/or this site http://www.cybermodeler.com/color/usn_ww2.shtml

You might be able to find a color picker to match them, or maybe you have a way to convert the FS (Federal Standard) numbers to hex equivalents.

Is there a need? That's a matter of opinion- in mine, yes! I'd love to see more authentic schemes, especially for the later war period.

Lemme know if you need anything else.

[Duncan Idaho]

I like the KGV with a little rust, looks very realistic to me. To me, ships should be Deck Grey, (but being ex-US Navy, that's just what I'm used to, it may not be historically accurate for Non US ships).

If you finish a pack decked out like that KGV, I'll grab it, for sure!

[Type941]

http://www.steelnavy.com/images/chips/RNchip01.jpg

507B is medium gray, 507C is light gray and those are the colors I'll use I think.

Oh, anyone fancy the Mountbatten Pink ?? :D Apparently it was successful, but it's as reliable as other war stories. Story has it that one of the ships, Kenya, was attacked by german battery and its markers left undistinguished on the hull, so it was difficult to pick out if the shells landed correctly or not...


That's a nice feature though to have for SH3 - the pink markers that would leave trace on the ships hull after hits!

[iambecomelife]

I have a few questions that hopefully the history buffs will help to clear out.

First of all, the UK warships. What colors did they really use throughout the WW2? ANd I am not really interested in the wacky camouflage versions, from what I hear those were only used early in the war and were changed to gray color. But that's the thing. What shade of gray?

I have a few colors in progress for warships because I want to get all the british ships in this gray color - so task forces appear realistic, and not so easy to identify using the familiar patterns = especially when 2 ships of the same class in one camouflage looks odd (to me anyway).

1. So below is a few variations for the Home Fleet I have prepared. Is there a color you like and feel realistic?

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3520/ships9an.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/764/chisp6uk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2. May be there is a set of pantones or color chips to match? I have made a decent template and can play around with color, but need to decide whethere to make all ships in similar color, or in varying color? Again, I don't know if all ships had same shade of gray, or there was like Battleship gray, and Destroyer gray, etc...

ANy weblinks, etc, are helpful. If this all works, I'll give the community a full set of gray UK warships.


3. Naturally, the same will apply to the US navy. That would be next.


To get started on this, I want to know:

- should all UK warships be in similar shade of gray
- should there be rust or no rust on ships, and is it dependent on ship size
- colors for ships based on class?
- difference of HOme fleet color to german Kriegsmarine color
- is there even a need for all this??? :)

I'm glad you're interested in doing the Brits too, 941. A request, first of all - PLEASE do something about the really common escorts, like the armed trawler, hunt class, and V&W.

AQs for camo schemes, the fragmented blue scheme that you see on so many warships probably shouldn't appear at the outset of the war. Initially, many RN escorts were painted a solid dark grey or an extremely light grey overall. I have one picture of a V&W in 1940 that is so dark that it looks almost black, as well as pictures of tribals in the light-overall scheme prewar. Later on, around 1940-41, the British realized that this camo was ineffective for North Atlantic vessels and switched to a mix of geometrically-patterned whites, blues, light greys, and greens.

I'm not certain about rust but I know that smaller vessels like escorts often had more rust than larger warships. The need for a fast turnaround time with all those convoys arriving and departing left little time for painting. However, even the worst-maintained warships should have less rust than a badly-maintained merchant.

Try checking out the white ensign models webpage to find common escort schemes. Their page on corvettes was pretty useful to me.

www.whiteensignmodels.com

[Gunfighter34]

Hey 941,

You might try this link:

http://www.cbrnp.com/RNP/Flower/

Click on CONTENTS, then near the very top of the page you'll see three links that start with "PROFILE". These are color plate profiles of Flower-class corvettes in RN, RCN, and USN service, which should give you an idea of the colors and schemes used and the periods they were used for, at least on this class of escort. I'd imagine schemes and colors were fairly generic across the spectrum of PAs, DEs, and DDs, but that's just a guess.

There is an e-mail link somewhere on the site to the guy who did them, his name is Bob Pearson. I'm guessing if you dropped him a line he'd be able to help you out some, as this site seems to be the biggest treasure trove of information I've ever seen on this type of vessel.

[Oesten]

I'm glad you're interested in doing the Brits too, 941. A request, first of all - PLEASE do something about the really common escorts, like the armed trawler, hunt class, and V&W.

AQs for camo schemes, the fragmented blue scheme that you see on so many warships probably shouldn't appear at the outset of the war. Initially, many RN escorts were painted a solid dark grey or an extremely light grey overall. I have one picture of a V&W in 1940 that is so dark that it looks almost black, as well as pictures of tribals in the light-overall scheme prewar. Later on, around 1940-41, the British realized that this camo was ineffective for North Atlantic vessels and switched to a mix of geometrically-patterned whites, blues, light greys, and greens.

I'm not certain about rust but I know that smaller vessels like escorts often had more rust than larger warships. The need for a fast turnaround time with all those convoys arriving and departing left little time for painting. However, even the worst-maintained warships should have less rust than a badly-maintained merchant.




I second these comments. The first priority should be to get the 1939-1941 RN ships right, plain grey ships all round. As stated, the armed trawler, V&W and Hunt classes, and the Flower corvette should be the first ships done. The C-class destroyer already done is superb - I spend ages watching it whenever I meet one - just follow that approach for the other ships.

This can be made into an RN Escorts Early War patch. Then an RN Escorts Late War patch could be done at a later date.

As stated, escorts were at sea more often than larger ships, so should have more rust. As a general rule, the bigger the ship, the less rust it should have. Battleships spend most of their time in port so should have little rust, and they have a big crew to paint them. Cruisers and carriers the same, but less so. While escorts are at sea most of the time, and have only limited dockyard support and a small crew, so painting is not a high priority for them when in port.

[Type941]

I'm taking notes... :up:

[Shadow9216]

And don't forget the USN- they had less variety in their dazzle schemes, and many of the escorts were overall haze gray, especially later in the war...mostly the capital ships kept their dazzle.

[Type941]

So early ware - grey, like light gray. The C destoyer is good as a color - I'll do that one, only will recise portholes.

late war? What's for late war? Not very clear on that.

[Oesten]

So early ware - grey, like light gray. The C destoyer is good as a color - I'll do that one, only will recise portholes.

late war? What's for late war? Not very clear on that.


Gunfighter's post with the corvettes is excellent, take a look at that for starters. Can't beat colour profiles.

[Shadow9216]

My guess would be late war= 1943 onwards