USN WW II Ships; color of deck fittings and light armament

[One-Oh-Four]

Just a quick question, two in fact:

Was there a default color for deck fittings when not visible from other ships? To clarify; The Casablanca-class CVE has a number of fittings on the focsle-deck which aren't visible, except from above. The deck should be Deck Blue but the rest?

Generally I should think the fittings etc should match the outside camouflage, be it one color or (in the case of dazzle-schemes) the color of the area at which it is fitted?

But how was it for the light armament like 40mm Bofors or 20mm Oerlikons in tubs? Was the whole assembly painted Deck Blue? Were the horizontal surfaces of those gun mounts painted Deck Blue with the rest the outside camouflage color? Were the whole assemblies painted the outside camo?

Thanks for any help to clarify this,
Cheers,
Erik.

[Tracy White]

For simplicity the Navy would classify things essentially as internal or "outside" paint; anything that was outside paint was to follow the outside paint/camouflage directives even if not readily visible. Otherwise you'd have to have separate paperwork and standards defining what was not visible and how to paint it, etc..

Equipment was painted to match the background color, and in this case "background" seems to imply the area inboard of the equipment in question. In 1942 Ordnance was ordered from the various factories in 5-O Ocean gray as a base color as that was the color most of the weapons would be finished in if they were in Measure 12; I haven't seen anything that suggests this was changed later but it's possible. So my guess, for items that weren't re-painted for whatever reason, is Ocean Gray.

In the case of Dazzle and Measure 12 Revised (AKA "Measure 12 Mod") the weapons were repainted to match the background; the exception being barrels and pieces that needed another type of preservative coating. If the line between two colors was drawn on the design sheets to cross over a weapon, they would comply with that. I've seen splinter shields on 20mms that were two colors, for example.

I have also seen variation though; some ships would carry the dazzle to the inside of the splinter shield while others would not. If you have the "Anatomy of the Ship: Gambier Bay" book (presently not cheap) then page 47 might be of interest; photo 80G-289812 (no online copy I can find) has a shot of an unlisted CVE down the port side catwalks, looking aft. It is apparent that the near guns and tubs are painted the same dark color as the bulkheads behind, but that a tub (can't tell if it's a director or 20mm in the shot, but my guess based on what I see is 20mm as it appears to show the forward stack on this side behind the aft tub in view) behind that looks to be lighter both inside and out. The gun or director in this tub is not visible, however.

[Doug]

Another questions.

If the exterior of the gun tub is painted to match the camouflage color, would the interior color be the same?

Also, if the front exterior is camouflage, would the back exterior be the same color?

[Timmy C]

I have read some camouflage design sheets for MS 32 wherein it states that the insides of gun tubs should be in 5-O Ocean Grey. Not sure how universal that was, but that's one way, anyway.

[Cliffy B]

How about the insides of partially enclosed gun mounts, like the 5"/38s on some of the older Destroyers? Would they (guns and gun shields) match the exterior color or would they be white like interior spaces?

[Tracy White]

Treating them as open mounts would be the safest bet; I can't imagine the Navy painting them white.

[One-Oh-Four]

Tracy & Timmy C,

Thanks for your insights!

[Sleepwalker]

And how about chuoks and bitts? Sides in camo color with top of deck color?

[Tracy White]

I haven't seen any chocks that had the tops a different color than the sides, but that's not to say it never happened.

[Russ2146]

NH&HC online photo collection.

Note chock

4533.jpg

Note Bollard

4542.jpg

20mm Mount

20mm Mount.jpg