The Ship Model Forum

I just saw what appears to be a scan of the painting instructions for MisterCraft's 1/500 scale HMS Hero, which depicts her in a simple but striking three-tone splinter scheme ostensibly dating from 1941. I've already committed to building my Airfix H-class destroyer as Hotspur at Cape Matapan, but I'm going to add this scheme to my "one of these days" file. Unfortunately, the scan's resolution is insufficient to render the text surrounding the image legible, so it isn't clear just what those three colors are with respect to the nomenclatural system in use in the Royal Navy at the time. Based solely on how they display on my monitor, my first guess would be white, Western Approaches Blue, and Western Approaches Green, but I know there's a lot of room for error in these matters. Does anyone here know for sure how Hero was painted in 1941?

For others' reference here's the paint guide in question: https://www.bnamodelworld.com/model-shi ... -destroyer?

From what I can tell, the guide does not provide you with any references to the original paint names, only to Federal Standard and model paint matches. So no need to try finding a higher rez version - it won't help much.

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Despite the appearance of three colours in the artist's impression on the Mistercraft box, I have not seen any indication that Hero's scheme had more than two colours. See, for example, http://www.naval-history.net/Photo10ddH ... erland.JPG. Alan Raven Camouflage Vol One: Royal Navy 1939-41 (New York: WR Press, 2000) shows these colours as AP507A and AP507C.

For a port side view to match the Mistercraft one, see https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item ... /205142579 - although the foremost dark panel appears darkler than the rest, it is shaded by the flare of the bow.

I can say with a degree of confidence that that scheme is not a Western Approaches scheme and that Western Approaches Light Blue, Light Green and probably white should be discounted.

Based upon the photographs, time frame and the fact that despite the very high contrast appearance the black pennant number is clearly visible against the darker tone, I'd probably concur with the above that this is probably a fairly typical so-called "Alexandria scheme" which we think was just 507A / 507C and sometimes mixes of the two which seems common in 1941 - especially given the context of her operating theatre of the Mediterranean.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151

Is the Mister Kit 1/599 HMS Hero a new wrapper on the old Frog HMS Hero?
Rick

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On the workbench:
1/700 Jouett - JAG
1/700 Lupo - Delphis
1/700 Ulsan - Kobo Hiryu
--and dozens more

I don't know this for a fact, but that's very much my impression based on photos I've seen of the assembled kit.

Meanwhile, I must say I'm disappointed by the emerging consensus that the MisterCraft painting guide is just flat wrong about the colors involved, although I halfway suspected as much the instant I saw it. Thanks for the input just the same.

Looking at the parts breakdown of the Frog kit's instructions, and the parts layout of MisterCraft's kit (both easily found online), it appears that the parts are identical -although the Misterkit parts are laid out differently on the runners.

The same can be said of the Mistercraft kits of HMS Ivanhoe (almost excusable, she and Hero were similarly fitted on completion, apart from the quintuple torpedo tubes in Ivanhoe), Impulsive (less excusable - she is supposedly depicted in mid-war configuration) and Harvester (even less excusable, as much of her armament and other details differed significantly from Hero).

Given the prolific spread of misinformation about Royal Navy paints both in their colour and chronology, it stands to reason that the vast majority of material generated using incorrect starting points will also be wrong, unfortunately.

I will draw attention to Flyhawk who do ask for advice from various people known to them to have something to add, at least over the last year or so. The rest just seem to use Mal Wright books or eastern European ideas on British paints.

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James Duff
Sovereign Hobbies Ltd
http://www.sovereignhobbies.co.uk

Current build:
HMS Imperial D09 1/350
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=167151