The Ship Model Forum

My next project will be building the WWII Starling 1/350 River Class Frigate model HMS Nadder as HMCS Annan and have questions about the colour scheme used for Annan, there are not very many photographs available for Annan. The best one is produced here with some questions about the use of off white and a darker colour, perhaps B55, which was common at the time (1944) and recommended as the darker colour for Nadder, along with off white as the light colour.

So my questions are what the pattern would be applicable and what colours if not off white or B55? Any other comments on the photograph would be useful too. As a final option perhaps any pattern and colours used by Annan or any other UK built frigate used by the RCN would be useful, I noticed that there may be one profile in this thread. Also, the pattern depicted in the Annan photograph does not look like any other pattern that I have seen in other reference books Malcolm Wright, Friedman, or in the MacPherson’s books.

I’m avoiding the extra work of converting a UK built frigate to a Canadian built one, which means there are fewer UK built frigates that were operated by the RCN totaling 7 vs 60 Canadian built ones. My reference material, beyond the Canadian Internet sources, includes Macpherson’s Frigates of the RCN and The Ships of Canada’s Naval Forces.
Thank you
George

George,
As I looked through Macpherson's book, the only other ship with a similar pattern that I could see was HMCS Matane, even though she was of a different group of Canadian Rivers. Matane's photo was almost as washed out as that of Annan, but perhaps with better light on different parts of the ship than Annan's photo. I hope that might help your search for the pattern, although I know I am not contributing anything for the colors.
Rick

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

Thanks Rick
That is interesting, the diagonal stripes on Matane could be also on Annan but Annan's pattern is too weathered to tell. I could switch to another UK built boat which has a clearer pattern. Curiously, Ribble (MacPhersons Frigate book, pg 97) which has a centre section that is identical to Annan but in the darker colour. Generally, I prefer Annan as it got a u-boat.
Thanks again
George

George,
I think that with those particular diagonal stripes running the whole way up her hull, Matane is in another camouflage design. She was built in Canada and it may be a Canadian design. I think this (see below) 1943 Admiralty design for River Class frigates is what Annan’s was based on. Annan was built in the UK and more likely to apply an Admiralty design or variant of it. For some reason some individual ships inverted (reversed) the lights and the darks in WA designs and it looks like this has happened on Annan. It also looks like they may have dispensed with the two camouflage panels further aft (as on Teme: p 98) and just kept the one amidships. As you suggest, she may also have used a very pale light grey in place of pure white on that panel.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that the darker hull is the earlier light grey B55.

Here's my best guess on the pattern based on the faint lines I think I see. I've played a little with lightening up the superstructure, so don't use it as gospel. The dark areas look like shadow, but I think it's all white.

_________________
Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Darren,

Any chance of seeing your original photo in its original state (un-overdrawn)?

Thank you Dick (I think we have exchanged email before on RCN destroyers) and Darren (glad to hear from you again and hope all is going well).
I appreciate the time that both have you have put into this and I have been going around in circles on this!

Dick
Thanks for the diagram and its applicability to Annan. The aft panel also fits in with what Darren thinks. As well as the relationship to Teme that pattern also applies directly to HMCS Ribble (MacPherson Frigates, pg. 97).

Darren
You put a lot of work into this, thank you. I can see some patterns now that were not evident to me before. I thought that we were working with the same photograph then I noticed the anchor differences. I seem to remember that there were two B55s, is that correct? If so, is the old B55 close to 507C? I have the WEM greenish - blue B55. I need to look into this and refresh my memory. I have a number of Colourcoats that I can mix and match, i.e. B20, B30, and WA.


Sorry for double posting this request, I originally planned to post it at BritModelers but being a new member I couldn't get the OneDrive to provide the link, then I posted it to MW, and then returned to Britmodelers when I thought I had a solution, it failed, then I cross-linked them to remove all doubt about the double posting

Thanks again
George

When I thought that Annan and Matane shared a paint scheme, I was focusing on the unique (to me) faint vertical color division just forward of the ship's pendant number.

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

Hi George, also posted on Britmodeller, but reposted here for completeness.

B55 is a colour which has left me a little less certain than the rest, although there are some aspects I consider to be fact.

What is a fact is that from introduction of B55 in April 1943 through to end of the war the published formulation and ratios of pigmentation remained unchanged. There is no evidence in the documentation record of an early/late version.

Richard and I have reason to believe that there were still civilian ready-mixed paints in use after the change over to the B&G series paints.

I've ended up offering two variants of B55 under our new range because when I made new oil paint from the official formula I ended up with a very weakly saturated shade. This 'feels' like it's right when used on Admiralty Disruptive Schemes, but juxtaposed with white on Western Approaches designs it feels like it would need to be a bit more saturated. Indeed the official formula gives something which looks a lot like MS4A is now known to (not the old Snyder and Short medium-light green) and nothing like the printed portrayal in CB3098 which Richard shared a photo of on the other forum*.

Hence I've made two versions, both 55% LRV in tone, one weaker and the other stronger in hue, and the modeller can either use one, the other, or blend them and still be confident of maintaining the right tone.

*This doesn't alarm me too much however as there is another formula in the official documents which doesn't really work and that's G20, which when I carefully weighed it out lacked enough staining pigments to get the white base pigments close to 20% LRV in tone, never mind the colour saturation. The Confidential Book's were issued with shade cards to match to which is what civilian suppliers would have used to determine their own formulae, and aboard ship or in a dockyard mixing oil paints I expect the official formulae would have been treated as instructive of the pigments to be used and the mixer would have used more of them if the formula gave him something lighter and paler than the shade card.



If the WEM-era paints you have are the RNxx ones rather than our new NARNxx paints, then the B55 is rather too dark at 39% Light Reflectance Value rather than 55% as is correct so if you're going to blend it with anything, blend it with a healthy dose of white rather than a darker still colour.

_________________
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

Thank you Jamie
It is particularly useful to have your recommendation to lighten B55 a lot. I suspect that I have the WEM range as they date before international shipping became a problem. The LRV adds to my very weak knowledge of paint.
Thanks again
George