Modern French Navy Ship Colors?

[Cliffy B]

Hey guys, I've been looking on the boards and on the net but to no avail so I ask you, what color does the French Navy paint their ships (hulls and decks)? I'm looking for the 1980's to modern day time frame. I know WEM makes the colors but I can't use enamels so I'm SOL there. I need acrylic (MM or PS) equivalents and/or rough equivalents please. Any and all help is appreciated as always.

-Mike

[Timmy C]

One solution if nothing specific can be found: the French frigate Prairial is participating in RIMPAC 2012 - once the photos from the exercise are published, there should be a few that show the French ship next to some American ones. This should give you a decent hint as to how much lighter (and I'm pretty sure it is lighter) they are painted compared to the Americans.

[Cliffy B]

I've been looking through photos and came to that same conclusion. Its awfully close to Haze Gray but a tad lighter. I remember seeing one of their small frigates close up in Hawaii and thought the same thing. I don't really trust my eyes to make a 100% accurate assessment though when it comes to, "well what type of gray is it; blue, green, neutral, etc...?" I have some issues seeing colors.

I'll keep an eye out for this year's RIMPAC shots

[John Snyder]

WEM no longer produce the modern French colors--dropped due to poor sales. I can provide you with the Munsell notations that we used to produce them, but I'm not sure that would do you much good.

[sandy]

Supposedly the closest colour you will get to the modern Marine Nationale colour is RAL7040.

Here is a photo of my (badly) built ETN-90 for my FLF Guepratte painted in RAL7040:-



I know it is gloss but my reasoning was that it would show up better behind the stealth screens.

I spent hours if not days agonising over what colour to paint the model and I found some pictures on the internet of Guepratte in Monte Carlo harbour and discovered, in closeup, that the ship is actually a patchwork of about five or six different greys.

Photos, taken invariably in the Med in brilliant bright sunshine, give the ships (certainly the FLF's) a very light, almost blue shade, but I am convinced that this is a trick of bright sunlight and bright blue sea. Whereas the photos of the Guepratte at Monaco in the rain show it is actually much darker. plus, it has a flat, almost rough look.

Eventually I went with good old Plastikote grey primer and I think it looks just about right:-



In case you are interested the real paint code for the ships is:- M29 Joint NSN 8010 14 4419203

All the best
Sandy

[Cliffy B]

John, thank you for the offer but as you said, it probably won't do much good unless I could get the notations for MM's colors as well to do some comparisons.

Sandy, thank you! RAL7040 translates over to FS36375 IE Light Ghost Gray. Close enough for me unless someone else can come up with a better color.

[MartinJQuinn]

Supposedly the closest colour you will get to the modern Marine Nationale colour is RAL7040.

This is an almost 12 year old post. Is there any new thinking on paint matches for modern French ships? I'm working on a 1/350 3D printed POS of the French MN Charles de Gaulle (R91), and looking for color recommendations.