The Ship Model Forum

The Ship Modelers Source
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:35 am

All times are UTC - 6 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 287 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:25 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:31 pm
Posts: 52
G-Opt wrote:
Right, she was painted...prior to the war. During the war? Not too much evidence of that at all.
Wavy lines of paint on her gun barrels? Not quite convinced yet.

But, I never say never; it's not entirely impossible, and an energetic researcher might still turn up something solid.

There were a number of early scratch-built models of CA-30 (long before kits; the original builder's model had an especially remarkable history in its own right), and many survivors saw them over the years. I was lucky enough to be with some of them on a few of those occasions, and never heard anybody say, "You know that's a beautiful model, but doggonit they forgot the wavy lines on the 8"gun barrels!"

This morning, I did locate one CA-30 survivor's interview in which he recalled painting the ship, "...including the deck, just before the war--darker gray..."
In fact, he provided the original photo below to the Navy many years ago.

First, sorry about the delay in responding, I've been a bit busy as of late. From everything I have heard, I do not believe that Houston was painted once the war started (aside from her decks being possibly painted blue, I don't have the source for that on me though). I'm pretty sure her quasi Measure 1 camouflage was added in November 1941 during her overhaul from everything that I have read, and she just carried that until her loss.

Also, with all due respect (and they deserve a lot of it!) to the survivors of Houston, I don't find their lack of recollection of the wavy camouflage on the guns very compelling evidence of the guns not having those wavy lines. Memory is unfortunately a more fluid thing than we like to admit at times, and its very easy to forget minor things like that, especially if you had been on the ship for a year or two and those wavy lines would have been added only 2-3 months before her loss. A great example of this is the shields on the 40mm Bofors on the De Ruyter. The the shields were added in December 1941, and when asked about them, the officer in charge of the 40mms denied the shields existed, until he was shown a photo of them which jogged his memory into remembering them. Thus, I would not be very surprised if a crewmember of the Houston, after three and a half years of horrific treatment as a POW and then several decades as a civilian, forgot a minor detail about the paint on the 8 inch gun barrels which they only had for a very short time. Obviously if there was no other information regarding this, I would certainly just go with whatever a crewmember said was the case, however, we have a photo in this case, and those don't change.

I suppose it could be water from the earlier rain you mentioned evaporating from the barrels causing that effect possibly. But I am unfamiliar with water ever evaporating off of a cylinder in such a consistent wavy pattern, and especially not to produce such a clear color change. Given it happens on both the 5 inch and 8 inch barrels, I'm still more inclined to think that is a purposeful thing, to the point I'm pretty convinced it is, though certainly I'm not going to say this is definitely 100% the case.


Quote:
And I'm tossing in an image of LANGLEY survivors on WHIPPLE (Feb 27, '42) which shows that the AF four-pipers didn't have wavy lines on their tubes...but, what is more intriguing is that it appears the funnel is deliberately half-painted (?)
Had not been aware of that before, and I do not know what to make of it...

HTH
I'd rather not get side tracked on the 4 pipers as it is off topic on this thread, but I would be interested in continuing talking about this on the thread in calling all destroyer fans. The Asiatic fleet destroyers seem to have some interesting things going on in the photos (USS Stewart's camouflage pattern for an example) I have seen of them from the time, and I think that would be a good discussion to continue there. Great spot on that funnel by the way, I had never noticed that before, that's really interesting!


Last edited by GregoryC on Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:35 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:31 pm
Posts: 52
Also apologies if this was already posted earlier in the thread, but here's another image of the Houston showing her camouflage from 1942. Its certainly more grainy, but again shows the Measure 1ish (IIRC Cavite Naval Yard did their own variation of what the Pacific fleet was doing at the time) type camouflage Houston was wearing


Attachments:
800px-USS_Houston_(CA-30)_seen_through_the_sight_of_an_Australian_102_mm_gun_on_18_February_1942 (1).jpg
800px-USS_Houston_(CA-30)_seen_through_the_sight_of_an_Australian_102_mm_gun_on_18_February_1942 (1).jpg [ 55.83 KiB | Viewed 1658 times ]
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2022 11:21 am 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:24 pm
Posts: 62
The questions re CA-30's paintjob resurface every few years.

The more I look at it again & the more I think about it, I now wonder if this wasn't blast/fire damage. I still do not believe it was a deliberate camo paint scheme. I have some photos of CA-30 being repainted (well before Nov. 1941) and there's nothing resembling that, nor was there anything remotely like it in the Asiatic Fleet from the immediate prewar or NEI periods.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 11:07 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:31 pm
Posts: 52
G-Opt wrote:
The questions re CA-30's paintjob resurface every few years.

The more I look at it again & the more I think about it, I now wonder if this wasn't blast/fire damage. I still do not believe it was a deliberate camo paint scheme. I have some photos of CA-30 being repainted (well before Nov. 1941) and there's nothing resembling that, nor was there anything remotely like it in the Asiatic Fleet from the immediate prewar or NEI periods.

I don't think that blast/fire damage could be responsible for that. That would have required the blast to manage to perfectly discolor the entire turret roof and 8 inch gun barrels the exact same color, or for a fire to have burned on the turret top and barrels at the same intensity for the same amount of time on both the turret and barrels, and that seems too unlikely for me to believe, fire usually doesn't behave like that, especially when it is unintentional. I don't see why that could not have been an addition to her camouflage during her November 1941 refit. It seems pretty clear to me that the turret top and barrels are the same color and the turret top even has the circles in the paint from the wear caused by the life rafts that were there. That wear to me indicates paint on the turret top (as that is consistent with how paint wears), and as the color on the barrels is the same color as the color of the turret roof, it seems to me that it is intentional paintwork on both the turret and the barrels.
Fire/blast damage does not fit that well, and that doesn't look like water to me, so I don't see what that could be other than intentional paint, especially as the 5 inch gun seems to have a similar pattern


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Sun Feb 18, 2024 12:13 am 
Offline

Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:31 pm
Posts: 52
Hey all. I was recently doing some research for a different project and came across a few more photos of the USS Houston that I had not seen before that I thought might be of interest on here.
https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/933831
https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/314862
https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/933826
They need to be downloaded as a TIFF file to be properly viewed for some reason with that website. Of note the first photo, while grainy, shows the life raft placements on the aft and starboard of the ship, and the Peary is alongside the Houston in that third photo.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Tue Feb 20, 2024 11:23 am 
Offline

Joined: Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:24 pm
Posts: 62
A fantastic resource for Asiatic Fleet history buffs. The tanker/oiler next to CA-30 & DD-226 is presumably George G. Henry.

Thx v. much


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
PostPosted: Wed Feb 21, 2024 7:54 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:31 pm
Posts: 52
G-Opt wrote:
A fantastic resource for Asiatic Fleet history buffs. The tanker/oiler next to CA-30 & DD-226 is presumably George G. Henry.

Thx v. much

Good spot on that, and glad to share!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 287 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

All times are UTC - 6 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Michael Potter and 52 guests


You can post new topics in this forum
You can reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group