Thanks for the input Cag, interesting only B5 is the common point between my assumption and your reports. I am basing on the L'Arsenal kit instructions and as I said colour call-outs for RN ships operating on similar duties at the same time (Belfast being key here, but also HMS Howe, both these ships use B5 and B6 as the middle 2 in a 4-tone scheme). The L'Arsenal instructions call for AP507A, B5 and AP507C but their render of the ship clearly shows 4 colours of which 2 ambiguously match the B5, leaving it up to the observer to decide if there was a 4th and what it was.
I'm going off 5 pictures, 3 starboard and 2 port, of which the port ones seem to be taken at a different time as the ship has the "lighthouse" style radar in front of the bridge, missing (presumably not yet installed) on the starboard side shots. Of course that could be the other way around, but at the very least the scheme could have changed in between shots (and indeed did at least at the bow). This is made worse by the terrible quality of one of the port side shots. Here's where I am at the moment:
The first two pictures (to my eye) show a fourth colour in use at the bow, in the area running under B turret and forward to the anchor, split by a small segment of the darkest colour (MS1 or AP507A). This is consistent with the way the L'Arsenal instructions show 4 colours. I think there is little doubt about which panels were in the darkest colour and in B5, really the issue is if this apparent 4th colour is real and if yes which of the light panels use it as opposed to the "standard" lightest colour (I'm sticking with AP507C here as MS4 is green and that doesn't sit well in my mind with ships in arctic service).
But let's not dwell on what each colour is, instead call the colours
A,
B,
C and
D with
A being the darkest and
D being the lightest. My interpretation of the scheme is as follows (more for my own benefit than anything else but hoping to spur discussion):
Starboard side:Hull:- stern -
B- X turret to under torpedo tubes -
A- dark splotches amidships -
A- light spaces amidships -
D- under bridge and B turret -
B- under A turret and bow to anchors -
C broken up with a splotch of
A- tip of bow -
BSuperstructure:- Y turret -
B- X turret and rear control position -
D or
C (in order of likelyhood by my observation)
- aft funnel -
C or
D (in order of likelyhood by my observation)
- most of rear superstructure -
A- bridge and B turret -
C with
B on bridge side and fore funnel and
A on hangar side
- A turret -
DPort side:Hull:- bow -
B- dark section tapering from A turret to waterline -
A- light section -
D- midships -
A- light strip -
D- dark section aft -
B (mostly according to the larger stern quarter shot, from the other small picture it could be anything...)
- stern -
D or possibly
CSuperstructure:- A turret -
D- B turret and splotch going down to hull -
B- bridge - looks like
D with large splotch of
B on bridge side, but if the bridge front is C (see starboard side) then this should have wrapped around, but then the hull directly underneath is
D... or is it... argh!!!
- hangar side -
A- most of aft superstructure side -
B- X turret and aft control position -
C- Y turret -
B- stern -
D or (less likely)
CWhat do you think? Apologies if that's confusing, tomorrow I might repeat this exercise by annotating the drawings instead!