Addendum:Question about hull color at grey war paint of Varyag (=> green or hull red) I received now by chance a clear answer by a Russian colleague in my model club, who has several Russian books and other sources about. It is as i was told now as followed and maybe intresting for other people too, making Varyag:
Varyag left Baltic Sea in whithe painting, yellow / black funnels and green underwater hull when travelling to Far East (Korea) to reinforce Russian Pacific Fleet.
For this color scheme the instruction of Zvezda is correct in all parts so long, only the "real color" of funnels if being more yellow or more buff like is unclear.
After she reached Korea and before war with Japan broke out, she was re-painted from white in a dark grey (including funnels for 95% sure), but which is in shade not really clear and still in endless discussion.
Normally Russian Navy used often a very dark grey which is like about "German Panzer grey" (color of German WW2 tanks until 1943) or even a little bit darker. These dark color went - as my colleague told - often fast lighter, because sunlight and other "weathering" effects like salt water washing and because color was not of best quality. So it was in practice, if not fresh from shipyards coming, a paint with some dark grey areas and shading with medium grey around etc.
At Varyag this was lesser given, because relative fresh repainted in grey, but because white basic color before and quality of color questionable, the grey seems to be also more a medium grey at least, because some of the (not really good) old pictures show often a lighter grey and not a real dark greay at her, even re-worked photos with modern software makes it clearer that not a real dark grey.
For underwater hull, there is following point now:
It is indisputable (proofed by photo and documents) that Varyag entered in Port Arthur dry dock after her long travel from Baltic Sea. Because hull had much fouling out of travel, underwater hull was cleaned, repaired and then repainted with a new color and this color was an hull red like anti-fouling color for that warmer waters as the russian books and documents of my colleague tell.
So if this is true, instruction of Zvezda for grey war paint will be wrong at underwater hull area (they tell green as at white peace time paint).
How trustfull the sources of my colleague are, including if not outdated knowledge told, I can't rate. The books I saw were some older, but the translation of the Russian text makes sense in logical matter in my eyes. I hope this helps.
Cheers,
Christian
Edit:DariusP wrote:
Christian, don't you think that it might be a good idea for you to edit your post about Variag's colours in CASF Cruisers section?
To make it short:
Varyag was in wartime NOT painted in grey, but in a color named dark olive and hull was hull red painted, even when starting travel to Korea! This dark olive is a mix of Russian green ochre and black at least (thanks to Darius here).This means at least, that instruction of Zvezda is wrong, also my and many other Varyag built are wrong painted (if being grey painted).