What colour D-Day landing craft ?

[aleccap]

Hello there, sometime in the future I wanted to build a D-Day landing diorama, although at the moment, I have seen both in camo and dark green, LSM,LCI,LCT and hedghog LCT, while I am thinking of a time just before the landings, the problem still remains, would these craft be roughly half and half camo and dark green, or would these be all the same green colour, I am not sure if each different landing would refelct in the difference of these craft, look forward to your reply.

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

If you have a chance , check out the series WW2 in Color. The film is clear Kodachrome and has held up nicely . They have plenty of film from the D-Day landings. You would have to freeze the picture on your DVD to get them.

[John Snyder]

Very unlikely that any were in dark green for D-Day.

[Tracy White]

US Landing craft were green in the pacific theater but not at Normandy.

[aleccap]

I do believe this is where I have made the mistake over green and camo, while I have seen several Normandy landing craft, they appear painted one colour and also camo, I never even thought of Jiggersfromsphilly advise, D.V.D in colour, once again due to age of the film, I'll still end up with only a rough guess on colour.

[Seasick]

The old color film from WW2 looses blue out of proportion from the other colors. They can correct it for TV, but the accuarcy is not 100%

[aleccap]

The L.S.T Mk2 would appear to have been constructed in a hurry, looking more like some short oil-tanker then an armed transport ship, how would those vehicles truck/jeep arrange on the deck, I can only assume between the up-right posts, my instructions are Skywave and all in Japinese, this is one of the many reasons I am asking about hull colour rather than copy someone else's model.
So if possible, could I please have the following -
Deck arangement of vehicles.
Deck colour.
Hull colour - solid or camo -
Look forward to hearing from you.

[Graham Boak]

Osprey do a nice little guide to the LST. Some of the colour schemes may only be appropriate to the Pacific, but if you go looking on Navsource you will find a number of examples.

There are photos around showing the deck with vehicles, and when I recall just where....

[aleccap]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2753/410 ... 273f_o.jpg
I wonder if anyone else will find a better pix then the one I pinched above, obviously this appears to be very clean, and although many photographs are B/W I feel you can tell this colour is wrong for D-Day - by all means please let me know.

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

I do believe this is where I have made the mistake over green and camo, while I have seen several Normandy landing craft, they appear painted one colour and also camo, I never even thought of Jiggersfromsphilly advise, D.V.D in colour, once again due to age of the film, I'll still end up with only a rough guess on colour.

On the contrary, the film from WW2 is a different process than after the war. If you watch the color of War series it is still as bright and vivid as it was the day it was shot.

Try this link.

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... 8Aax14H2Cw


http://www.shipcamouflage.com/index.htm

These are a few of the ones I can think of. I willl do some more digging I have seen green LST s in the ETo as they wee there to help woth Normandy Sicily and South of France.

[aleccap]

Thank you for the links, once again I seem to have stumbled upon rocky ground, either people don't like this subject or simply don't know, at a guess if someone wanted to know the colour of a battleship to a destroyer there'd never be a problem, the largest naval engagement in history D-day and no one can tell me what colour the hull and deck of a LST is suppose to be.
I will have to wait until my dvd arrives and go from there.
Thank you everyone on this rather difficult subject.

[John Snyder]

Most of the USN LSTs were in Ms.21 or Ms.14 at D-Day.

[Tracy White]

if someone wanted to know the colour of a battleship

Alec, this might surprise you, but we don't *know* the colors of most of the battleships at Pearl Harbor during the attack!

[phil gollin]

Doesn't Alan Raven's RN Camouflage series cover landing craft ?

RN landing craft were, I believe, used on all five beaches so that should be useable.

.

[aleccap]

Tracy - most Japinese surface craft can get away with TS-66 and TS-69 while sea or gull grey will generally cover most G.B U.S.A shipping, while never 100% spot on as we can no doubt agree, we can also agree these colours are a good starting point to painting your model battleship, I have 4 LST's all now painted a single gull grey, but is this the correct colour for D-day ?
John - you say MS14 and 21 how can you confirm this for D-day, so far we've established there's no dark green, we do know a single colour was used and also a camo was used on some L.S.T Mk2's during this time.

[ar]

[quote="aleccap"]Tracy - most Japinese surface craft can get away with TS-66 and TS-69 while sea or gull grey will generally cover most G.B U.S.A shipping, while never 100% spot on as we can no doubt agree, we can also agree these colours are a good starting point to painting your model battleship, I have 4 LST's all now painted a single gull grey, but is this the correct colour for D-day ?
John - you say MS14 and 21 how can you confirm this for D-day, so far we've established there's no dark green, we do know a single colour was used and also a camo was used on some L.S.T Mk2's during this time.[/quote]


See Gollin's post.

[John Snyder]

Because the photos I've seen of D-Day LSTs show them in a monochromatic measure, and a dark one at that. Also, I've seen color photos of D-Day LSTs that were clearly in Ms.21, overall 5-N Navy Blue, albeit faded. Decks for either measure would have been 20-B Deck Blue.

[ar]

if someone wanted to know the colour of a battleship

:rolf_3: :lol_pound:

Alec, this might surprise you, but we don't *know* the colors of most of the battleships at Pearl Harbor during the attack!

I believe that I do know what the colours were. But, I am not one of the we's.

[Jiggersfromsphilly]

Has anyone ever tried contacting the Imperial War Museum or the Admiralty for the specific paint specifications for landing craft?

The paint colors in the pictures may vary due to sunlight in the picture , age of the paint on the craft or just variations in the batches of paint use. Tints have been known to be off .

[Tracy White]

I believe that I do know what the colours were. But, I am not one of the we's.

Alan, my statement comes from the fact that there is conflicting documentation concerning 5-D; earlier pieces Del gave you assigned it a munsell purple-blue hue, but a formula that I found that was sent to Mare Island Navy Yard is neutral. At this point we don't know which is accurate for the pacific fleet.

we can also agree these colours are a good starting point to painting your model battleship,

Sure, if you're just building to slap something together for fun. I like to build for an accurate representation though.