The Ship Model Forum

I think this needs a more systematic treatment, rather than discussing backwards and forwards in history.

The original question concerned the colours of ships that were part of the Hochseeflotte as per designation between 1907 and 1919.

To make the discussion more systematic, one should distinguish between:

a) What verifiable information exists, such as ordinances, execution orders etc. ?

b) What evidence (photographs, surviving artefacts, etc.) exists, including an assessment of reliable it is ?

c) What conclusions can be drawn and has been drawn and by whom on what basis?

d) What secondary references in what languages and from which periods exists, including an assessment of the reliability?

Ad a) We have the ordinances, offcially published in the Marine-Verordnungs-Blatt and its successors. These ordinances say what had to be painted in which colour. However, I am not aware of any official receipes for mixing paints. These may not have survived.

Ad b) There are numerous b/w photographs, but photographs are not very reliable evidence for 'absolute' values of colours. From a photograph one can only conclude, whether certain parts of a ship may have been painted darker or lighter than others, but even that can vary as a function of viewing angle, weather, and other variables. Artefacts, of which few survive, are only reliable evidence, when they have not been 'restored' at some time during preservation - larger artefacts in particular often are repainted by well-meaning museums and the likes in colours they think would be appropriate, but they are confronted with the same issue we are discussing right now.

Ad c) That depends on many factors. Often anecdotical evidence (such as witness accounts recorded many years later) are mixed with studies of the source material available at the time. Conclusions get written up as secondary references (see below) and their value depends on the scholarly thoroughness (and honesty) of the writer.

Ad d) I think Gröner (1930ff) still is the base reference, as he in principle had access to material that subsequently has been lost during and after WW2. As this was originally a one-man undertaking, there are naturally limitations in breadth and depth, which was subsequently enlarged in breadth by co-authors for the editions in the 1960s. Hildebrandt et al. (1999) contains little technical information. The work of the 'Gröner'-Gruppe that continued after his death is being now successfully published, but also focuses on the ships' histories and less on technical details. However, this group has access to the surviving official material that had been returned to Germany from Russia in the early 1990s.
Some English-speaking authors seem to have access to original material that somehow ended up in the USA or the UK after WW2, but in many cases is not readily available for inspection by others, as it is in private hands. Hence, it is difficult to contextualise conclusions that they may have drawn on the basis of this material.
I would also group paintings into category (d), because a painting is a personal interpretation of what the painter may have seen or imagined based on anecdotical evidence by eye-witnesses or source material to which they have accesses at the time. In most cases, a painter does not produce a technical drawing, but intends to convey a certain atmosphere or image of an event. Hence, body colours are varied according to the circumstances portrayed, varied according to the light of the day, the weather, and other conditions. Only a naive painter may attempt to produce a ship image in body colours.

So my conclusions are, that it is futile to argue about absolute values and tints of colours before the introduction of RAL codes in 1927. Even after that time, different batches of paint may have slight variations in colour, but these may only be noticeable, when painted next to each other on the same surface.

I know, the 'right' colour is a pre-occupation of many military modellers. However, they are in a slightly better position, because (unrestored) artefacts may have survived and would be accessible.

What is the evidence that the colours of the Imperial German Navy and the Kriegsmarine were really different?

The attached pdf did not convinced me. E.g. there is a photo of Bismarck which claims to show a much bigger contrast between the two greys as expected. Actually, I would expect a bigger contrast between the two greys on the photo only because of the angle of the surfaces relative to the sun...

Variations in the colour batches, different weathering, different light conditions and different cameras/films could explain likely all of these differences.

Both the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy in WWI) and the Kriegsmarine (German Navy in WWII) used a combination of light gray (Hellgrau) on the superstructures and medium gray (Dunkelgrau) on the hull, but these colors differed. The Kriegsmarine's grays had a bluish tint, at least at the beginning of the war, which is a source of much confusion since these two grays appear very similar in tone on black and white photographs.

Another source of confusion is that during WWII, the Kriegsmarine apparently used another set of Hellgrau and Dunkelgrau called Baltic colors. Despite having the same name as the pre-war colors, the Hellgrau was apparently much lighter than the Dunkelgrau. The famous photographs of the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in the Baltic likely used these colors, which also seem to have less or none of the blue tint of the pre-war colors. This document provides a more extensive explanation and sources for that research: https://gurupig.com/wp-content/uploads/ ... tos_53.pdf

Finally, it should be noted that the colors of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) were probably closer to Baltic colors, as the descriptions indicated they lacked a bluish tint and the difference in shades between the grays was quite pronounced. This link is also a good research resource: https://www.sms-navy.com/paint/sms_paint-overview.htm

I am sorry you were confused. The problem is that I am astounded that there is such a dearth of information on German fleet colors in WWI (apologies, I was unaware of the origin of the Hochseeflotte term [sorry about the spelling error, I should never type with a headache]. You have to understand, there is very little in English on the history of the German navy in WWI. The best authority we had on the WWI German warships died, and the one English-speaking academic scholar of the German fleet in WWI has, apparently, given up the subject. Years ago the English-speaking world was obsessed with von Tirpitz for the naval race, which was seen as another way to blame the Germans for the war. Now English speaking historians are more interested in the Royal Navy's internal politics, and RN weapon's procurement. They deem the German fleet to be too tame compared to turbulent personalities like Fisher, Beatty, and Churchill.

Regarding the Hamburg SMS Graudenz (Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg: Depot, to be precise) I was interested in it despite the weakness of color photography as evidence because the neutral gray of the colors fit the commentary of the German naval paint scholar who wrote the article. I was not concerned about color shifts due to sunlight became (1) the model was in perfect shape, (2) it appeared to be well away from intense sunlight, (3) the slight blueish neutral gray hull was neither yellow nor green in cast, as it would be if the model had been subjected to bright sunlight. The German commentator had warned of Gröner, and I have seen even WWII Kriegsmarine commentators caution that WWI and WWII German naval colors were not identical. Basically, I am making the best out of a bad situation with Graudenz. The only other authority I can find is the paintings of Claus Bergen. Maybe the best rendition he did of the upperworks color is the famous paining of a König under heavy fire at Jutland with the view seeming to come from the navigation bridge. I once had a very good quality reproduction of this paining, but it is lost.

I appreciate your cautions about the variations in German naval colors due to wartime shortages, ingredient variations, etc. This certainly would account for the wide variations in the ship colors in the Bergen paintings. In other words, give up on the fantasy of all ships looking exactly alike. An American paint manufacturer laughed when I asked him if he checked his paint batches against US government paint cards. He said batches depended on the weather at the time they were mixed, the ingredients, and the attention the paint machine operator paid to measuring the ingredients. In other words, there was no such thing as identical batches. Now with computers doing all the batches the precision might be improved. Though, when I was last at Norfolk US naval base in 2011, I noticed the hulls of Arleigh Burke destroyers looked like patchwork quilts, and the looming giant, the Truman, looked like it was wearing some kind of blue patchwork camouflage with all the dissimilar paint batches, and the ages of the paint patches. I was forever off of using airbrushes for uniformly perfect warship finishes.

i am disappointed that there seems to be no intense research done on German WWI naval colors to compare with what has been done with the Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, and Panzerwaffe. James Duff of Sovereign Hobbies has done an extraordinary amount of excellent research on the Royal Navy colors of the 20th century. There are people doing some amazing archival work on RN WWI naval colors in the UK. This is long overdue, and the results have overthrown the long out-of-date conventional wisdom. American researchers continue to add to the enormous body of knowledge accumulating on USN warship colors of WWII.

Thank you for your comments.

Sorry, but your post is a bit confusing. 'Hochseeflotte' was an operational denomination used by the Imperial German Navy from 1907 until its end in 1919. So I don't understand your reference to WW2 colour schemes.

(Museum-)models are not necessarily a good colour reference. There is no guarantee that the original colours were used, in particular in the days before the RAL references were introduced in 1927. I don't know the model of SMS GRAUDENZ (1913) im Maritimen Museum Hamburg (MHH), but if it is an original builder's model, we don't know how the paints have hold on in the 113 years since its construction. At that time only oil-based paints were available and lineseed oil yellows with age, which may lead to yellowish tint in lighter colours.

I assume, that you only have seen photographs of SMS GRAUDENZ and that you were not able to inspect the model in person? Unless photographs were taken under studio conditions with a careful neutral white illumination, all sorts of tints may appear in amateur photographs taken in a museum, particularly also, when there is a mixture of daylight and artificial light.

I am not sure, whether and when pre-mixed paints were available/used by the Imperial German Navy. Usuall paints were mixed from prescribed ratios of incredients on board and at the shipyards. During WW1 supplies became irregular and the quality of some pigments and other incredients degraded, leading to a deviation in hue relative to the ordinances. For this reason (later) war-time photographs are not necessarily a reliable reference - a part from the fact that no colour photography was available during WW1.

Gröner and the group that continued his work after his death (the first volumes of a new, enlarged edition have been published last year) are probably the best reference, as he could still draw on information that then has been lost during WW2. I would assume that his colour schemes are in principle correct, though in detail, individual ships may have deviated somewhat for a variety of reasons.

In essence, there is little point in getting worked up about the exact hues of particular colours in the days before standard reference charts and samples were introduced. I know this from experience, when I tried to determine the evolution of the 'buff' colour used in the second half of the 19th century by the German navies.

I saw some information about HSF colors a few years ago by a German HSF scholar. Unfortunately, I lost the whole lot in a move. He emphatically claimed the standard in the USA, the Gröner info in his books on German warships is long obsolete because he maintained the fallacy that WWI and WWII (until 1942) standard warship colors (the upperworks light gray and hull gray) were identical. The scholar maintained they differed. I was looking at photos of large scale model of SMS Graudenz in a Hamberg naval museum. I noticed the upperworks of the model was a light neutral gray with a tan cast, and the hull was about the same value but a gray with a slight bluish sast. These reminded me of the colors the German scholar had suggested.

Are there any people who have made a study of HSF colors?