Modelers help...Battleship colors for USN BB's.

[Tracy White]

Though I should have said light grey vice white

I might not be understanding what you were trying to say - when Arizona came out of refit in Jan/February of 1941, she did not have white painted fore and main masts. 5-L Light Gray was designed to "match" the prewar #5 Standard Navy Gray, but it was a different type of paint and was less reflective and less blue. (#5 SNG has a slight blue tinge to it). So there was really no point in painting the fighting tops, etc., in 5-L and the rest of the ship in #5 SNG - especially since stocks weren't ready at that point.

Dreadnought - good catch. I have lots of photos of those ships post-salvage with the letters still welded on, but it's before they headed to the west coast for the final repairs. The only ship I have a close, high-resolution scan of on the west coast are the same Pennsylvania shots you linked to.

 

[Zad Fnark]

Tracy, does modern Haze Gray have a similar difference to the WWII version? To my color-blind eyes, the WWII Haze Gray seems to have a bluish-tint.

Welcome aboard. I've been tempted to ask this at ModelWarships, but since you've brought it up...

Ed-

 

[Tracy White]

There were two Haze Grays used during the war. The first one did have a purple-blue tint to it, being mixed from the same 5-TM tinting paste as the other paints (Sea Blue, Ocean Gray, Navy Blue, etc.) - just with a "weaker" ratio. The formula was changed in 1945, though, to a neutral paint. Stocks of the blue powder used to create the tinting paste were running low, and experimentation had shown that it was more the TONE of the paint than the color that mattered, as colors tend to fade towards neutral as distance increases anyway. I don't have any of the actual source documents for this transition (yet?), but you can see, interestingly, that by 1948 Haze Gray has a #27 tacked on at the end, and today's FS 26270 / 36270 "Haze Gray" still has #27 in the title (scroll a little bit past half-way down). I don't think that the colors are precisely the same, but there is some connection still.

 

[Zad Fnark]

Thanks. All very interesting.

Ed-

 

[blidgepump]

Modelers get it right @ WNY ....

Modelers get it right @ WNY ....

BB-63's model on display @ the WNY illustrates the detail of the bow mentioned recently on other threads.
While paravanes are no longer used on BB's, ( correction while BB's are no longer used by the USN) the detail of the model offers the detail from the original construction.

 

[blidgepump]

Details of orginal construction ....

Details of orginal construction ....

These imagines provide the AA details long gone from the BB's.
Small scale models cannot afford the detail that larger scale provides.
This model is from the WNY museum.

 

[Gun Grape]

Is that the Gibbs and Cox "Builders" model?

 

[blidgepump]

I don't know ....

I don't know ....

It could possibly be .... it has hull number # 63.
I would of thought it would of been #61 if it were the builder's model....
Detail is incredible !!!

It's to big for my living room!

 

[RustyBattleship]

You need to look at Turret II to see if it is the Iowa or not. Only BB-61 had 20 mm AA guns on it. The other three had a quad 40 on it.

 

[RustyBattleship]

BB-63's model on display @ the WNY illustrates the detail of the bow mentioned recently on other threads.
While paravanes are no longer used on BB's, ( correction while BB's are no longer used by the USN) the detail of the model offers the detail from the original construction.

Also the Paravane Chain ran down a pipe through the forepeak tank. On BB 61 & 62 it is/was a 7" IPS (International Pipe Standard). The pipe in the New Jersey was removed along with the forefoot skeg and padeye because of heavy corrosion. BB 63 & 64 had an 8" IPS pipe installed as the construction designs decided to delete manufacture of odd numbered pipe diameters from 7" on up.

Oh, and I like that top picture. It is a 1:1 model of the Missouri in a 1:1 scale Dry Dock 1 at the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard.