Camouflage Measure 31, Design 9L. What colours?

[janschu]

Well,

another colour question. I have bought the 1/700 LSD-1 USS Ashland from HP-Models and plan to build the
ship during the landings at Saipan. That is the colourful Camouflage Scheme 31, Design 9L. I have some really
nice line drawings from navsource.org that show the layout of the camouflage, but unfortunately there are no
explanations what colours are to be used.

So, can anybody help?

Thanks in advance and greetings from the North Sea Coast, Jan

[Timmy C]

It should be as listed here:
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/measure_31.htm


Edit: D'oh, amphibs!

[JimRussell]

Timmy, not quite that easy.

janschu, as you said the camo sheets do not call out the color. Go to navsource/amphibious/LSD and you will find LSD-5,7 and 14 had 31-9L applied. 5 and 14 had "fuzzy" edges while 7 had the conventional "hard" edge. To the best of my knowledge the fuzzy edge treatment was only applied to amphibious ships painted in the green colors. The use of the green schemes was popular for amphibious ships during the later part of WWII. Why the greens were put on a class of ships that were 100% deep water (were not designed to be beached) is a mystery to me, but the LSD's were classed as amphibious ships so maybe that is as far the USN's thought process went.

Following the meas 31 rule the dark color is black, the intermediate green would match 5-O in tone and the light green would match 5-H. These colors are used on both horizontal and vertical surfaces as shown on the camo sheet, which is a departure from the rule when applied to the blue schemes.

My answer is a guess, but my confidence of being correct is >90%. I am scratching out two LSDs in 1/350 so I have gone through this very exercise very recently.

jim

[Russ2146]

I don't know if it helps or not but here are some photos of "fuzzy" edge and how the effect was achieved on a factory fresh landing craft.

2688.jpg

2681.jpg

Note spotted edges

2682.jpg

2684.jpg

[Russ2146]

Looking at the camo sheets, I see four colors indicated

M31, 9L Port LSD-1.jpg

M31, 9L Stbd LSD-1.jpg

Looking at adjacent designs,

M31, 8L Colors.jpg

M31, 11L Colors.jpg

[Tracy White]

Hang on a couple minutes... I've got you covered...

[Tracy White]

I've got photos of the design sheet from Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, which stamped the colors on the sheet. They're too large to post here, so I've taken the NHC copy and marked it up.

[Tracy White]

OK, now here's the other side and the deck pattern. Note that this one's more complicated. Note the sorta-fake bow wave is in 5-O and not 5-OG... not a typo.

Should look interesting!

[Tracy White]

Why the greens were put on a class of ships that were 100% deep water (were not designed to be beached) is a mystery to me, but the LSD's were classed as amphibious ships so maybe that is as far the USN's thought process went.

The amphibious greens were more to protect from submarines or surface ships looking IN at the camouflaged vessel than from land forces looking out.

[Russ2146]

I have found a color photo (NH&HC seems to slip things into their on-line images) of LSD's 1 and 2, not at Saipan but at Iwo. Unless they were repainted between between June-July 1944 and February 1945, they were wearing Measure 21.

LSD 1 Iwo landings.jpg

Just because a Measure 31-32-33 design was developed for a ship or ship class, that does not always mean that it was actually applied.

[Tracy White]

With the advent of the Kamikaze in the fall of 1944 the Navy began to phase out dazzle schemes. By December they were ordering it painted out on most ships:
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... 04229.html
Note that the above is concerning ships assigned to ComServPac (service ships), and while it doesn't mention LSDs specifically, it does mention docks.

Here's another one, but it is less applicable:
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... 04254.html

I think the paint in the photos you found looks somewhat fresh.... maybe within a month or two.