HMS Prince of Wales

[Sutho]

It might also be a good idea to check out flickr website and search in its engines.


There are lots there. I got to go to work but they have publised high quality images.

[EJFoeth]

HMS Howe is not painted in 1941 colours nor the first admiralty disruptive schemes; limited use I guess. I also spent so much time looking for images of HMS POW that I doubt there is much more to be found? Still, you never know. The pic with Churchill is to be found 3,000 pixels wide as well. There are images of HMS Prince of Wales at the IWM that are not online that should be inspected, plus whatever there is at the MoD, NMM, and the AWM (ridiculously expensive, avoid!). I think I'll hop over the the IWM and NMM when I'm in London. http://www.history.navy.mil has a few pics of PoW, but not for sale? I thought I found them on ebay once but it was a fraud who sold those preview pics printed on photopaper as genuine pics (you can still find those pics on ebay occasionally). My patience with people selling pics that are not originals is wearing extremely thin.

There are many pics here: http://www.atlanticcharter.ca/index.php; a collection of images and stills from video footage.

Bookwise, there are interesting images in Burt and Raven & Roberts BB books, Raven (Ensign), the Dumas articles in Warship volume 3, Nicholson's book "hostages of fortune". I suggest owning at least all of those. I also think that Burt & Raven have access to more images; that is, perhaps they already have in print what they have in their collection. (One image I bought from IWM was of worse quality than what was printed in Raven's Ensign and camouflage volume IV). I also think there must be more of HMS PoW during trials and construction somewhere.

The printing quality of my copy of the KGV class book by Tarrant is so deplorable that it is utterly useless for its images.

The IWM DVD of the KGVs is a must-have as well, even though the quality of the film is a bit less than what you have on critical past.

There is a very interesting thread with everything 'borrowed' at the worldaffairsboard here.

[Sutho]

Ok you have me convinced now that colour D is mainly on the upper structure now that I have stared at the photo more and more and seen what you have to say.

I think we only have to fully examine the fore funnel, and the second starboard side 5.25 gun for colour E. Also the port side second 5.25 gun I think there may be colour B in a patch behind that gun. As Dick pointed out the carker colour projects from there onto the hanger bay which is clear from critical past was painted in a camoflauge pattern at least on the port side hanger door.

I will be in London 30th June and 2nd July this year. I will be with a girl I am seeing so maybe I will get time to look at IWM prints but I think it might bore her going to the warship museums when she has not been to London. I am taking her on a Baltic Cruise departing from Southampton so have little time to play with when I am there.

[Sutho]

More from flickr:


Another one here I haven't seen before:

[EJFoeth]

I stand corrected That's a great find.

Should you go to London, most ship models are in the Science Museum and the builders model of DoY is in the NMM. The ship collection in the IWM is a bit small.

I'm still working on my variant of the scheme but what I have so far is this one

POW_14.gif

So far I have D on only the ST #2 gun, the rest a patchwork of A-C. Anyway, have to look a bit closer. I now think HMS PoW was actually painted in red, blue and green on a grey base. I have to add some more variation to A-turret and the catapult area.

[dick]

Sutho's photo from flickr shows Prince of Wales sometime after Capetown but before her arrival at Singapore (20mm now fitted). Given the low-level land in the background of a second photo taken of her at the same time, my guess is that the location and date is most likely Addu Atol 26 Nov 1941. Ceylon is another possibility I suppose.

This is the original source of the flickr photo along with the second: http://www.ianmeadows.me.uk/jackbaker/warships3.php

(The camouflage pattern did extend onto the starboard hangar door. There is an image that shows this on one of the Critical Past films.)

[Sutho]

heres a bit of a strange tinted one



and that other one

[EJFoeth]

I updated my image a post back with a few small corrections and the superstructure front/rear. The colour B over the portside hangar 'starts' as two stripes but I cannot see the pattern on the portside itself.

I think that D on the starboard #2 5.25 turret may work; same tint as the rest of the ship but stands out in direct light.

I have some trouble with the searchlight platform of the fwd funnel. There appears to be a contrast difference between the funnel and the platform on some pics but not on the critical past footage.

Other areas I'm not certain about is the colouring near #3 5.25 turrets, stb and port side.

[dick]

EJ,

Could I suggest a few tweaks.

For your portside depiction:

I think the pattern on the barbette below B turret was different - there was an angled demarcation.

I think that there was a second bit of camo coming up from the hull onto the lower bridge so that when viewed from exactly broadside A and A and B and B lined up.

detail fwd.JPG

PoW crop gh.JPG

Aft, I think that there were two tones in the panel C. It shows up or is hinted at in many pictures, even the one of her leaving Singapore.

detail aft.JPG

Starboard side I think there was a pattern on on B turret's barbette (see my thin red lines on the Critical past stills) but I'm not sure yet exactly of the full pattern there.

POW_14b.jpg

b barbette b.JPG

b barbette pattern a.JPG

Higher up both sides - work in progress!

Best wishes.

[EJFoeth]

I updated the image (repeated here for convenience). I focused on the barrels; I started by scaled the barrels on a good top view of HMS POW and putting up demarcation lines. So I'm pretty confident the location of the top contrast changes---barring silly errors---are correct. A top/bottom view proved to be far to simple, so large side views are included. I found a few shots that show that all 5 colours must be present on the barrels and that C is on the bottom and top of some of the barrels. Need to continue this work; I'm lacking good shots of A/B-turret, glacis plate, inside of the barrels (current scheme there are 'notes' only). Anyway, the footage of the Atlantic Charter allows for wonderful all-around shots (how's that for a change!). For both quad turrets, it appears the camouflage scheme on the inner barrels was the same (within margins). I think Q-turret is pretty well done?

I changed the B-spots on the bridge PS. I've yet to look better at the C/D combo patch and PS B-barbette. I see your point and you are probably correct. You also show some spots on the PS bridge and hill as A, but this must be B. The new pic from Flick shows the ship near dead-on beam, so a few patches (#3 5.25 gun) were moved a bit.

[Sutho]

I like the camoflauge scheme. It seems to fit and has come from pages of discussion with everyone with the same interest to solve the puzzle.

This is a little off topic but with regards to the rigging I did my model with the stabilising cables tied to the main mast at the same height as the forward HACs. I did this because I found a photo of HMS King George V and naturally assumed that the rigging would be the same for all KGV class Battleships:


It is a 1945 picture I believe on wikipedia with a high resolution available giving a really good detail on the rigging set up for these ships.

In the mean time I will make some minor alterations to my model to reflect what is here.

[EJFoeth]

The forward mast has a combination of signal halyards, wireless cables and mast stays. The latter is the combination of thick cables running from the finger tips of the starfish to the middle of the topmast, with stiffeners from the bottom of the starfish going downwards to the main mast. For older ships those lower stays were thin metal strips; they almost appear to be cables. There's a nice pic in dumas' kgv-class article showing the rig for all ships for various configurations.

[EJFoeth]

I have some images to back up the drawings I made for the barrels. The basis is one image from a series of three of HMS Prince of Wales at anchor showing the outer ST barrel of A-turret elevated. There is one good top view without much perspective deformation; all barrels appear equally long per turret in each image, so ideally suited to measure the length and position of contrast changes. I think we can assume a less than 5% relative error of the colour position on the barrels.

POW_15.jpg

Even without knowing what colours are used on the turret roofs, this image tells us that the darkest colour is not present on B-turret barrels and at least three tones can be distinguished on A-turret.

POW_16.jpg

We get the same information for Q-turret; at least three tones, even though we cannot be certain from this shot what goes where (From the same image, so same contrast).

POW_17.jpg

However, from this shot we get most answers. If we assume that the barrels were also painted in no more than 5 tones, knowing that the darkest tone is not present on B-turret, and seeing the contrast change between upper and lower barrel halves close to the glacis plate we can conclude that B & C are on the barrel upper halves and D & E on the lower halves. This is one of the few images showing the C/D contrast; it's impossible to tell even for the rest of the same barrel in the same shot. From this shot I made and worked from the assumption that A/B/C are dorsal and D/E ventral colours.

POW_18.jpg

This shot is quite interesting: note the one-but-closest barrel to the camera (barrel once removed sounds a bit odd?). Anyway, there is one contrast change just in front of the diameter change from light to dark and then there's a second contrast change from dark to darker. I conclude that C must have been applied to the ventral side.

POW_19.jpg

The farthest barrel barrel seems to show a band of C to the ventral side as well.

Genreally speaking, it appears that dorsal A and B are usually teamed with ventral D & E respectively (plus a lot of deviations). The rest follows from an analysis of all frames we have of HMS POW at Critical Past and British Path�. I have about 100 Mb of individual frames saved to disk from both sites: a bit too much to post!

[EJFoeth]

In approximate colours (need to take good pics of the colour charts).

POW_21.jpg

Colours MS1/(B5/AP507B)/3/4 AP507C.

[JCRAY]

Thanks EJ I think you have nailed it. With the B 5 or 507 B.

[EJFoeth]

Arr, I still don't know for sure. The colour chart B5 is too light and MS2/AP705B fit 'better' with the contrast maps? I'll make a few photographs of my colour charts to get better colour references (Scanner removes most greens hues, or so it appears!). Plus, I have to correct the scheme a bit here and there using some of the corrections from this thread; it's not entirely complete.

[Sutho]

Arr, I still don't know for sure. The colour chart B5 is too light and MS2/AP705B fit 'better' with the contrast maps? I'll make a few photographs of my colour charts to get better colour references (Scanner removes most greens hues, or so it appears!). Plus, I have to correct the scheme a bit here and there using some of the corrections from this thread; it's not entirely complete.

Regarding old photos if the photographer had any sort of filter on the camera at the time then it can drastaically alter the shades opposed to what they really are.

[EJFoeth]

POW_22.jpg

The rear of the fwd funnel is E as well. It wraps around fully as far as I can tell. This area was denoted E already int his topic based on one image, but appears confirmed by several images.

POW_23.jpg

Note the light spot on the HACS stand. (The image top left was taken while HMS PoW was camouflaged. You can also see the contrast difference between the search light platform and water tanks (at least, that's what they look like) and the funnel itself. ). Also note canvas around the HACS themselves causing them to appear darker than they really are. This explains the erroneous camouflage as on other schemes. There are in fact quite D (or C). The white band at the rear of the HACS if reproduced as well.

Camouflage images updated!

[JCRAY]

I plan on using 507 C on the back & upper side of the foward stack of my model. It has always looked very light to me in many photos, i don't think it is caused by it's rounded shape ( i do know that can happen in some photos). Thank you for this discussion

[dick]

That light patch on the forward funnel must have served a purpose other than camouflage. KGV had one there too in early 1941 when in overall AP 507B. See new Burt pages 403 & 404. Here is a still from a colour film of KGV at Halifax. It looks to have been very light. Perhaps it was the same colour on PoW? I wonder what the purpose was?

KGV at Halifax c.JPG

Re the light pach on the rear of the HACS stand, I think there was more going on up high on the bridge than the photos we have enable us to discern. In a number of photos there are hints of a faintly darker panel in the area around A,

PoW p bridge.JPG

and around the office between the legs of the forward mast B.

Viewed from the side the HACS stand seems darker forward of vertical line at C


Note also the colour banding on the legs of the forward mast D which may relate to what is "behind" them.

Pr m.JPG

Also in this crop of the photo of her arrving at Singapore there is that hint of a faint extra panel up high on the bridge (demarkation A), and how very much darker the forward face of the HACS stand seems than the forward face or angled side of the bridge panels that you have as the same tone.

Pr n.JPG

I wish we had clearer photos!