The Ship Model Forum

Ladies (there is at least one amongst the membership) and Gentlemen,

I am trying to obtain the latest information/thought on the colour scheme used on capital ships of the Imperial German Navy at the outbreak of WW1. Can anyone help with precise information and if possible the commercial or personal mix of paints used?

Notwithstanding the matter of there being no apparent laid down standards (RAL) at the time though they must have been officially specified. However, according to information that I have, a book based on official British Admiralty intelligence information states that the ships were painted light grey. Gröner states that the hull was medium grey, the superstructure, light grey. A remembered anecdotal quote read somewhere states that "the German ships looked particularly fine in their silvery (grey ?) yacht-like paint." There is one model of SMS BADEN in the National Maritime Museum (NMM); which is believed to have been built at around the time of the prototype. This shows the ship in what appears to be an overall light grey scheme though closer examination shows that there is a discernible difference between the hull and the superstructure: the latter is slightly lighter than the former. The boot topping is noticeably darker than the rest. The paint on this model is, of course, likely to have faded over time.

Otherwise, the information that I have found appears imprecise and rather dated. However, the blog for the construction of a model of SMS POMMERN that I found did give what should be a reliable specification for the hull colour by a very well-known German authority: Herrn Dip.-Ing Lothar Wischmeyer who stated that the paint mix was 1 part black to 7 parts white. I have to say though that I tried this and the result turned out rather darker than I would have expected, however.

Photographs of course, are a notoriously poor reference. Apart from the matter of film type; which I know about but don't fully understand, there is the matter of the camera and exposure (if any) used. Thus in some images, the paint shades used can appear almost white added to which some ships also differed from the rest and in parts some ships showed differences in shade of their own superstructures.

Does anyone have any more precise information, please? Thank you.

81542

There may be some relevant correspondence in the military section of the German National Archives (BA-MA) in Freiburg, but this remains yet to found ...

The RAL (Reichs-Auschuß für Lieferbedingungen), i.e. the body to develop norms for materials to be delivered to the government, was set up only in 1925.

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Eberhard

Former chairman Arbeitskreis historischer Schiffbau e.V. (German Association for Shipbuilding History)

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Thank you, wefalck.

81542

https://german-navy.tripod.com/sms_paint-overview.htm


Hope this helps

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Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! - David Glasgow Farragut

Hello misterme,

Thank you for posting that link; which I did know of. However, I understand that the information can now only be taken as a guide to the shades and not definitive as regards the specification of the colour mixes: the rest of Tanner's site is good value though.

81542