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?





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???