Mr. Church wrote:
Guest wrote:
Hello! Does anyone have a good reference for the Haruna's final paint scheme. Ive seen a few photos with the striping on the turrets and on shipbucket seems the entire hull was painted a IJN gray-green color. Any help is appreciated.
Some colour footage of Haruna's wreck filmed after the war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6RAfIwsnR8It's difficult nigh impossible to judge exact colours from old films like that but it gives you some idea at least.
Logic dictates it was green because all of their camouflages were green by end of war as they sat in port. I think I read somewhere that Amagi even was planned to be kept after armistice, as Japanese believed in summer the ware will hopefully end with some agreement - not unconditional surrender, and they then would (bizzarely) get to keep some of their ships. Of course it didn't quite work out this way as Kure bombing was pretty much Pearl Harbour revenge style disaster for what was left of the navy. Everything was sunk.
So now I convinced you she should be green (and myself).
Having said that, I see Japanese modellers - who I think are worth paying attention to - paint here grey. (at least some of them). I would focus on tracking down models built by japanese modellers for ideas. They have better access to primary sources.
Haruna was wrecked very much on starboard side, just not seen in these pics.
So - in summary - I would be 60-40 to paint her grey. They put a bunch of tree branches on her, why do that if she was already green? The painted turrets in bizarre pattern then.