The Ship Model Forum

Here ya go, Dan.

I thought it might be you, Jeff. Thx!

So, as previously stated, my take on Tennessee on 12/7/41 is that only her wood planked decks have been painted deck blue, strictly as a result of the visibility experiments. I suppose we could debate the impact of the revised SHIPS 2, but the way I understand the timeline, the deck painting directives for experimentation came after it was released, in October, with formulas released in early November. I could well have that wrong.

More concrete, I believe, is the photographic evidence seen in overhead photo above of 12/10/41. If you look closely at Tennessee’s deck, it seems clear to me that metal plated deck areas are far darker than the wooden decks. The plating at the bow around the hawseholes, the anchor chaffing plates and capstans, the mooring bits, deck hatches, deck winches, top of the conning tower, the 5.25” gun mounts on the port side of the 01 deck, etc. are much darker. The stern main deck is less well defined, but I imagine that all the smoke/fire/heat of Dec. 7th may have had an impacted on all the painted areas.

My interpretation is seen below. Reactions?

metal might be darker then the wood even tho using the same paint because wood absorbs paint, metal does not. also is the wood deck painted or stained as the appearance would be different between the 2?

A note, "Deck Blue" was NOT available for this evaluation. The supply of this paint had not arrived at PH. A substitute paint mixer was authorized basically using the same paint applied to vertical surfaces. As such the paint didn't wear as well as a deck paint and was probably a different shade than the paint already applied to the metal surfaces. And as David said, the same paint applied to porous wood doesn't appear the same as to metal. The same effect was noted when non-skid was painted.

Noted. I realized this after I posted my response.

I agree that the finish of the same paint will appear differently when applied to different surface compositions. However, I strongly suspect that a paint covered metal will fade, chalk and weather more quickly in this climate than that of paint covered wood. Particularly a paint which doesn't wear as well to begin with. In which case, the metal covered areas would appear lighter, not darker. The areas I've referred are pretty dark in comparison, like a 5-D would appear.

Other considerations;

The wood covered decks normally see the most foot traffic and wears the paint off faster. The metal coated areas (like the top of the conning tower) saw far less traffic and had been painted with a "for the purpose" horizontal surface paint. Finally, this photo was taken after the attack when USS WEST VIRGINIA was sunk next to USS TENNESSEE and fire fighting efforts from TENNESSEE was quite active. The impact on the experimental deck paint would be a question mark.

The whole idea of the deck paint was to eliminate the very noticeable visibility of the wood decks as observed from the air. Everyone knew this was true, but the battleship commanders didn't want to "paint" their beautiful wood decks. One commander suggested keeping the decks wet, which produced a darker appearance. (How would you like to be one of the sailors during an attack standing on the deck spraying water?) So, an evaluation was created to prove that painting was a good idea. The IJN made the whole effort moot.

As for if the linoleum covered decks were painted over. I kind of doubt it, but don't know for sure. The square footage of these areas on the bridge is small. Paint likely wouldn't have adhered well in any case. The linoleum was stripped off after the war started as a fire hazard.

As far as Linoleum brown on outside weather decks go, a lot more research is needed to nail down why it appears some ships had it while others did not. Here are some stills of USS Colorado and USS New Orleans going under the Golden Gate Bridge in the late 1930's. Neither appear to have Linoleum brown decks.







Maybe the Colorado Class Battleships did NOT to use Linoleum Brown? Maybe it was a Flagship thing?

USS Oklahoma's Booklet of General Plans did a great job of identifying the decking type on each deck. It lists her superstructure decks as "Mastic".

Black and White photo's of other ships wearing MS-1 camo show that the decks were indeed not 5-D like the rest of the ship. But what color were they?
For example, here is a look at USS Astoria's superstructure decks in July '41. Astoria also took part in the Low Visibility Evaluations in Oct/Nov.





This is basically what "Mastic" is. I don't know if this came in any color other than shades of Gray.







Linoleum was also widely used. This came in Gray and Brown.

Exactly. So, the wood decking was covered with this new paint mix. However, the other horizontal deck surfaces were already dark (Dark Grey?), so there was no need to paint them for a temporary experiment. I think this is what is seen in the overhead photo. That's how I interpret it, anyway.



My linoleum coverings are speculative. We do have a hint, as Jeff discovered, of California's signal bridge deck being covered with linoleum. Plus the 1940 color photo of Idaho's signal deck platform also covered in a brown linoleum. (Maybe it is a flagship thing.) I just went with it.

No one can prove you wrong (yet). Though I'm feeling like a trip to the archives is in order to try and do just that...

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

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