Calling all Queen Elizabeth-class (1914-1947) fans

[Gilbert]

Will try to look up the damage details re, pre-war photos.

Best guess, re Semtex.
Applied at the time of the refit in which the 4" twins were fitted, ie 1938.
Not replaced with wood at any time thereafter.
Area covered with semtex uncertain, but I believe it would begin from a point where the fore 4"twin was positioned and to then run aft to the fore end of the aft deckhouse. Fore and aft of these two points, the forecastle deck would retain it's wood covering. Semtex would go around and NOT under the boats that were stowed in-board.
Note that semtex darkened down quite a bit over time due to traffic and general wear and tear.
See on-board photos of the Oribi for the above, and page 54 of RN Camouflage Vol One for the as new appearence. Quite possible of course that the wood areas of deck were painted over by late 40/early 41.

Thank you very much fo these useful informations. I will tell John@WEM to have a look on our debate before he releases his HMS Barham kit

cheers

Gilbert

[Guest]

Sorry Foeth, unless you have not reached that stage in your model.

Well, as I am building HMS Hood, this should not be a problem. Dino Carancini is working on a model of HMS Barham.

[ar]

Sorry Foeth, unless you have not reached that stage in your model.

Well, as I am building HMS Hood, this should not be a problem. Dino Carancini is working on a model of HMS Barham.

My mistake.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Thank you.

There is a good on-deck photo of Barham in Ensign 4 p41. Photo is from the quarterdeck looking at X & Y turrets, catapult and Walrus with crew it would appear barrel cleaning.
Photo is dated as mid-1940 and shows crew in tropical rig and also some small amounts of camouflaging applied to the base of the aft turrets to break up the definition.
Furthermore the quarterdeck teak seems fairly dark here, not as dark at the time of her sinking appears to be, but certainly 'darkened down' or worn. There is also a strange light patch on the teak to the left of the photo on the port side. Any idea what that is?

The dark teak colour reminds me about our PoW discussion in the past (and some on-deck photos of her) where a son of a crew member on board told us about about how they were ordered to put some sort of coating on the decks in order to make them less reflective of sunlight. I think he said it was tar based. Anyway the quarterdeck on this mid-1940 sort of looks like that i.e. 'darkened down' than newly laid teak.

My position ref the Semtex is that it remained until the time of her loss, We know it was there between 1938 - Sept 1940 and we still have no clear evidence it was ever removed in the 14-months where she had only one major refit period, the other being to rectify action damage. If anyone can provide clear evidence then I would love to see!

Finally, I have asked John Roberts if he has any 1941 on-deck photos which would help clear up the matter.

[John Snyder]

I'll forward Alan's info along to Peter Hall, but I concur with him regarding it likely that the Semtex had been painted over by '40/'41. After all, Barham was operating in an area where it was vital to reduce visibility from air, and having light tan areas of Semtex on an otherwise Admiralty Dark Grey deck doesn't seem like the best of ideas to me (of course, neither does having a large area of bare teak....).

[Gilbert]

Thank you.

There is a good on-deck photo of Barham in Ensign 4 p41. Photo is from the quarterdeck looking at X & Y turrets, catapult and Walrus with crew it would appear barrel cleaning.
There is also a strange light patch on the teak to the left of the photo on the port side. Any idea what that is?

What about sun reflection on some water ?

Gilbert

[Laurence Batchelor]

What about sun reflection on some water ?

Gilbert

Perhaps, do you agree the teak on the quarterdeck looks 'darkened down' and possibly treated ref above like I mentioned.
I think we can discount wear n tear as the rest of the ship looks pretty clean in this photo.

LB

[Gilbert]

Questions A
1) WHAT ship did Barham collide with and WHEN?


Looking forward to your replies
Kind Regards
Laurence

Laurence, she collided with a D class Destroyer HMS Duchess. You have the detailed story on the HMS Barham association website

cheers

Gilbert

[Gilbert]

What about sun reflection on some water ?

Gilbert

Perhaps, do you agree the teak on the quarterdeck looks 'darkened down' and possibly treated ref above like I mentioned.
I think we can discount wear n tear as the rest of the ship looks pretty clean in this photo.

LB

Yes, I do agree with you about the possible "tar treatment" although it is always very difficult to be absolutely positive with a photo. On the other hand, what's your opinion about John @ wem deck painting in 1941 ?

cheers

Gilbert

PS - You can't say "Froggie" is not interested in the "Real Navy" can you ?

[Laurence Batchelor]

Laurence, she collided with a D class Destroyer HMS Duchess. You have the detailed story on the HMS Barham association website

cheers

Gilbert

No that was later on the 12th December 1939 in home water where she collided with Duchess due to a signaling error and sank her with terrible loss of life as Duchess sliced hull was upside down and then her depth charges went off. By the end of December Barham went in for repairs at Liverpool until July 1941.
The Barham/Duchess sinking story is also told in Harry Pleavy's more recent book, which I read last year, Destroyer Actions although he quotes heavily from the Jones Barham book.

British Battleships p221. expressly suggests MERCHANT SHIP hit Barham early 1937 and shows 4 photographs showing the damage and no semtex under the mangled twin 4-inch.
See my previous concerns about the date and ship depicted damaged in those photos as we all concue twin 4-inch was fitted at Portsmouth in 1938.

You have impeccable taste Gilbert, that is why you like RN ships!
ref. John's opinion, I am glad he can see what I suggested earlier in this topic, than at the time of her loss (Nov.1941) her decks were possibly over painted, making the whole Semtex debate a little less significant.

Cheers
Laurence

[Gilbert]

Yes, that was an other collision indeed, sorry, my mistake. I have searched on the web about the previous collision but haven't found any mention anywhere so far. It is not even mentioned on HMS Barham Association website. But for sure, looking at the photos and at the damage, she did'nt hit but was hit by a ship with some quite high freeboard.
I am still not 100% convinced about deck painting but I agree the deck looks too dark at the time of her sinking to be teak only. If we assume they were painted, what will be then the proper colour, as, like Mike said, the turret tops look darker than the deck ?

cheers

Gilbert

[mike mccabe]

I think the only way to sort this out is if somebody finds a photo of Barham near the time of sinking showing her decks, otherwise it is all fair game.

Lawrence -

Nice to see you came round to my thinking on the PoW decks finally.

'Strange light patch' - water

Twin 4" shows no non-slip surface under the mount, just teak deck, so the time or accuracy or otherwise of the caption still disproves your point that there must be a non slip surface beneath these mounts, you didn't say when there had to be.

Mike

[Laurence Batchelor]

Checking my copy of British Battleships 1919-1939 by Ray Burt, he also states Barham had by 1941 Type 281 radar fitted at each masthead! see p101.
Curious I was led to believe she never received fitting of any radar before being sunk.
To quote Raven & Roberts British Battleships p205. "There is no evidence to suggest that any further additions were made to the close-range anti-aircraft armament, or that she was ever fitted with any radar equipment."

Misprint by Burt perhaps?

I agree the ship which would have possibly struck Barham in early 1937 (if it was her that was hit) was a ship with higher freeboard than a destroyer looking at those photos.

Mike please at least spell my name correctly.
You have heard from one of the two most experienced living people ref. Barham's decks. His opinion will be based on 'the best available knowledge' and concurs with what I've been saying.
If we cannot locate an on deck 1941 photograph, then you will have to go along with this information and not your previous thoughts as per her decks at time of loss.
Semtex still there by November 1941, Semtex itself not over-painted. Teak Decks most likely over-painted at time of loss or at lease 'darkened down'.
Of course modelers can go against this opinion, but they have even less evidential backing to base their semtex removed opinion on. It just seems it was and still is more convenient to model them that way and no one has ever looked at the issue thoroughly like we are here.

I haven't changed my opinion as regards to PoW's decks. You said all that time ago that per Bismarck action her decks were dark grey.
All I implied above was what an ex-old hand told us via his son that a solution was applied to the decks of PoW when serving in hotter climates to reduce sun reflectivity making aerial spotting more difficult.
NOT at time of the Bismarck action when she was operating with the Home Fleet. If you wish to base your idea, as per 1940 PoW decks being dark grey, on the 1 aerial Ensign 1 photograph which could be wet decks or taken on an overcast day, that is fine. No one can ever say your wrong, like me they can just have a different interpretation.
I do remember posting a few on-deck PoW photos and the teak looked the normal tone on those, I forget the dates though, probably when Churchill was on board.

As per deck coverings for the twin 4-inch, it was possibly only found out after training excises; for example, the Home Fleet in the Atlantic shortly before the war, that Semtex was needed at these mountings due to them becoming wet from spray in any kind of sea state. Certainly in 1937-38 the 4-inch Mk. XVI guns on twin HA/LA Mk. XIX mountings were new and needed some service before the problem could be seen. They only started being fitted to new construction cruisers at around that same time also.

I do concede though what your saying about the omission of Semtex ref the questionable 1937 photos, but to stick to point and the period we were talking about, during wartime; at those mounts which are expected to have to maintain a HOF for HA or LA (depending if dive or torpedo bombers), a deck covering of Semtex would have much more likely to have remained there until the time of her loss for just such reasons as outlined.

Kind Regards
Laurence

[mike mccabe]

Changed my mind, going to do her in 1940 instead.

Mike

[Rob]

I tend to go for John's logic - if you are going to darken the decks it would make sense to darken the semtex as well.

Also the other possiblity is that as Alan says semtex would wear and darken. Effectively by the time you tone this effect and paint in the shadow round the splinter shields etc you will end up with virtually the same colour as if you painted them a straight Ap507c. Effectively you could just paint the AP507c colour then highlight it and the darker colour will shadow naturally or paint the lighter semtex colour and then tone it into corners. I would think that you could not tell the difference once the paint is on and dry.

Rob

[mike mccabe]

I've been looking into this a little further and still remain unconvinced by the dark decks idea, though accept Rob and John's logic, but here is something else to throw a spanner in the works. Flicking through the pages of British Battleships and other publications it is obvious to me how dark the decks of warships often look. This is not just those vessels at war, but runs the whole range through 1917, mid war and all through WW2, in all cases there are plenty of photos to suggest that it would appear a teak deck had been darkened in some way, when there would clearly be no circumstances in which this would be the case. I know little of photography of the period but have often heard reference and seen examples of instances were we clearly know that the shade of one colour is lighter than another, yet in a photo it appears darker.

To me there is clearly more at work than merely, it looks dark, it makes sense it should be dark, so it is dark. Why would Repulse being fitted out in 1917 show a dark deck? This clearly needs more understanding and I feel that there is some degree of fitting the facts into the scenario at work. I would greatly appreciate any comments from anyone who does understand the photography at work in the first half of the last century and the reasons for the effects I have just mentioned. I don't think another round of guessing games is of much benefit to anyone, certainly of no great interest to me. My desire is to build a model of Barham which is both as accurate as I can make it, but also attractive, though certainly at times the facts do get in the way of a good story.

Mike

[Laurence Batchelor]

I can confirm Barham had by 1941 Type 281 air warning radar atop her mainmast.
Something missed by Raven & Roberts in Ensign 4 and British Battleships and also the Profile Morskie doesn't pick up on it either.
Source: Clear closeup 1941 photograph.

[Gilbert]

Thanks Laurence for the info.

Back to our debate regarding Barham's deck colour, I am still not convinced her deck was painted over in 1941. The anlysis above being mostly based on interpretation of a poor quality video shot during the sinking. I am not at all a photo expert but I know some few things, one of them being the relative position of the subject to the sunlight. If the sun is behind the subject and low in the sky, then everything appears darker. Even more when there is an angled surface in-between the sun and the subject. In other words, Barham's deck appears on the video when she begins to list, making her decks possibly darker than normal due to the relative angle to the sunlight. What makes me wonder is the fact that, as Mike has said in one of his posts, her turret tops look darker than the deck, there is no doubt they were painted in grey, but as their relative position to the sunlight is higher than the decks, if the latter were to be painted as well, they should look darker no ? Moreover, as she was sunk in November 1941, the sun, in this season, is low on the horizon, reinforcing this theory.

Unless, a clear photograph showing her deck painted turns up, I will stay with teak and semtex.

cheers

Gilbert

[Laurence Batchelor]

Agreed deck being painted or 'darkened down' is nothing more than a theory based on interpreting bad quality footage and photos and the PoW 1941 information.
For on-deck 1941 Barham photos I am still looking, but the chances are low.
John Roberts has looked and he could not find any for me.
One thing is clear, Barham's 1940-41 fit isn't correctly documented in ANY published source.
If people are building kits on these facts they will make errors.

Question ar what month was the UP mount atop B turret removed please?
I ask as Ensign 4 & British Battleships merely state early 1941.
Pinning this down will help date the very clear photo I have which shows Barham with it is still atop B turret; no 0.5-inch yet fitted and she has the Alex camo, degaussing coil and type 281 and she is in an unknown port.
Also any luck on confirming the p221 British Battleships photos are in fact taken of Barham in early 1937?

One final thing I am pursuing is the Semtex may have been fitted at the time Barham had 1.5-inch protective plating added to the forecastle deck intending to improve her protection against bombs.
To fit this the deck planking would have had to be removed. Evidence is VERY poor to this modification, but it is reasonable that this additional protection was added from the point shown in photograph 26 (on the Barham website) to the after end of the forecastle deck and that therefore is the extent of the Semtex. There would of course have been the minor problem of fairing off the forecastle deck between the forecastle deck planking, further forward, and the steel/semtex further aft to provide a reasonably flat deck. However, we are only talking about a 1 3/16 of an inch so the difference isn't too difficult to slope off the ends of the deck planking to provide a reasonably fair surface.

Cheers
LB

[Laurence Batchelor]

Photo's on p221 of British Battleships are of Malaya NOT Barham

Oh and I forget to add the 1.5-inch deck plating added to Barham on her forecastle deck was done in 1940 at Liverpool.
This could therefore be when the Semtex was added.

Cheers
LB