HMS Prince of Wales

[EJFoeth]

Dumas has PB10 in his list, which is a colour applied to subs and is not in any other admiralty disruptive scheme. I'm certainly skeptical about his scheme. He, and all others, also seem to miss the camouflage pattern on the starboard side of B-turret.

[John Snyder]

PB10 is absolutely incorrect--that was strictly a submarine color used in the Med.

[Sutho81]

Ok thanks to this thread I discovered I had incorrect Prince of Wales kits. I originally started with the Tamiya colours before I met WEM. Before I get to my latest Prince of Wales I will show what I have done with my old kits. I pulled them completely to pieces bit by bit and rebuilt them.


Here is HMS King George V as of Bismarck action in May 1941



Please excuse its incompleteness as I still have much work to do.

I also managed to construct the HMS Duke of York as of Scharnhorst action.


After that I took apart my older HMS King George V in 1945 that was painted in Tamiya colours and turned it into the HMS Howe




Now finally to HMS Prince of Wales. As we discovered it had 5 colous on it from application of camouglage to sinking which we called A to E. We also discovered that colour E (AP507C) was not on as much of it as all models had and that colour D (suspected B6) was more widespread over the model.

The thread went round in circles with experts telling us that colour and B&W film will never give us a good example of what to expect. I decided to paint my latest model in WEM colous MS1, B5, MS3, B6 and 507C. I did not alter the paints in anyway and applied them as the scheme should have been as of sinking. If any colour is wrong then so be it for now.

[Sutho]

Ok not sure what is going on with the forum but I have just posted and it did not appear then I logged out and it appears I have two user accounts for some reason.

[EJFoeth]

I spent some time looking at the model I still do not believe the WEM b6 variant that they tinned is the correct one. I'd use the HMS Farndale tint. Contrast wise it works out with some photographs (The ones where B6 and MS3 are not indistinguishable)

[John Snyder]

The WEM B6 is based on an actual sample. The S&S Farndale colour chip is not and is only an estimate.

[EJFoeth]

I see, I'd thought otherwise. The colour charts gave me the impression that several variants of B6 were found and both were catalogued for the charts. I like the Farndale variant one more; if HMS PoW was really painted in that colour in your tin I choose a different ship to model or use a more neutral blueish gray

BTW, what I should have written is: I still do not believe the WEM b6 variant that they tinned is the correct one for HMS Prince of Wales colour D.

[dick]

I've lost the plot here! John/EJ, please could you explain this supposed B6 Farndale variant. What date? What does it look like?

I really doubt that PoW would have been painted in anything but standard colours. She was a premier capital ship painted by a dockyard to an Admiralty designated pattern at the then main battleship handling facility and for Home Fleet service.

Farndale went straight to the Med in 1941.

[EJFoeth]

I attached a part below. Not entirely colour accurate so you still have to buy RN set II... I'd love to compare it to set I but I've seem to have permanently misplaced it.

[Sutho]

The colour has always troubled me since I saw that colour video footage of the ship. After seeing this thread and all the new photos come to light it became clear that the camoflauge pattern was slightly different from what is published. Too many people are getting the stern incorrect where it is the same colour from port to starboard and too many people are ignoring the shade creaded by the bow.

Even modern photos never really tell the truth these days with regards to colours. There are also so many factors to consider when a ship is at sea. The reflection of the water often colours the side of the ship.

With the tins I photographed on the other page I could not get MS2 to appear any darker than B5 in B&W photos. Although modern digital will never take the same as WWII ere cameras it just reinforced what others were telling me that the reason for contrast differences on photos of the time were the colour spectrum they could pick up.

I decided that I had to use the WEM B6 as there was no other alternative to use and their paints have proved accurate.

I think Prince of Wales will forever remain a mystery as to its exact camoflauge scheme.

[dick]

Thanks EJ.

When and in which scheme is Farndale thought to have used these particular tones? What is the provenance of the paint used to create these chips?

[EJFoeth]

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/royal_navy2.htm

In Williams, 2001, Naval Camouflage 1914-1945, B6 is described as Mid Blue Grey, close to Humbrol 128 (US-Compass-Grey) as matched to the ADM 212/124 paint ship at the Public Record Office, or, Humbrol 34/109 (50/50) matched to the paint chip in file C196 at the Admiralty library.

Humbrol 128:

[dick]

"...the alternate colors were matched to the original hand-painted camouflage design sheets for HMS Farndale."

"All colors have been carefully matched to Admiralty-issued paint chips or actual samples from ships� paint lockers when available, to HMS Farndale�s design sheets...."

It would be hopeless to match to the design sheets. The colours used in them did not match precisely the actual tones in the colours to be used. The design sheets were simply illustrative. The instruction was to match to the accompanying paint specimens (chips).

So unless these Farndale tones came from actual paint samples I would disregard them.

[EJFoeth]

Perhaps some other color Does it apply to other 5-tone camouflage patterns?

[Sutho]

I know the story of colours and colour spectrum has been going around in circles but I am getting more convinced now that the experts are right about what they are telling us.

I served in the RAN back in 2000 I was on HMAS Brisbane and took these photos with my film camera





The above two colours are the decks which were painted in a colour called pewter N63 under the Australian Standard colour scheme. the ship was painted in storm grey N42 under the same scheme. I have had proper colours of these tins mixed for my RAN models

note this photo here:
is showing the correct colour of the decks. The entire ships decks were painted in this colour.

Again under direct tropical sunlight

The point I am trying to get at is I dont think it is productive to anyone to trust the images we are seeing on the screens and from film, prints or anything as they can get the colours wrong. I think its probably best to trust the paints we know to be correctly matched to paint chips.

WEM may or may not be right but I think I will stick to their colours for my models. If the colour for my POW is wrong I will just call it artistic licence

[dick]

Correctly matched but to which chips though?

E-J, see my e-mail to you re the B6 paint chip at TNA.

[sargentx]

Okay,
I'm doing POW's as I write this. I've been reading and re-reading this thread ad-nauseum. Everyone seems convinced that B6 was a predominant color. some have modeled POW to be almost entirely the bluish color. What information is there that this color was in fact B6 and not some gray color?
Should I be worried that I'm doing the ship according to the mostly bluish theory? My gut instinct tells me its wrong. Looking at the video still, I am certain that since the sky and water show adequate amounts of blue, that a bluish POWs would have appeared at least slightly blue in the picture. It doesn't at all...not one bit. It 'looks' like a predominately gray ship with aspect of blue and green as per Tamiya's box cover/instruction roughly. (minus their strange colors.). But gray.

Should I be fretting over my bluish dominant scheme? It is out of character with other ships of the time?
This is driving me completely nutso.

[EJFoeth]

Actually, I think B6 was not used at all on HMS Prince of Wales. I've once made a small analysis of early-war camouflage schemes and colours of about 140 RN vessels; it appears that AP507 A/B/C were replaced by MS2, B5, MS4 and the combination of APs and replacements did not appear in the same scheme (I have one exception for each in Ravens books, but that might be an error or is really an exception )

My table for excluding colours is

� 507A and MS2 (exception: HMS Neptune?)
� 507B and B5 (exception: HMS London?)
� 507C and MS4 (exception: HMS Bridgewater?)
� B6 with either MS3 and/or MS4

My Colour Combo set is

� MS1 (darkest)
� B5 or AP507B for the blues (nearly the same colour?)
� MS3 for the greens
� MS4 for the main colour
� MS4a for the lightest patches (only a few)

I also have strong reason to believe that the WEM tins for B6, MS4, and MS4a are not the "correct" colour (many others are) with MS4(a) less greenish and more grayish with MS4 going towards AP507C (light grey).

(My camo scemes above do not really have the colours I have now, BTW)

[sargentx]

Thanks.
So. Instead of B-6, Which makes most of the uppers bluish (and seems wrong to me looking at other ships of the period and the film still) I will use MS4. I actually just went and hand-painted out all the B6! What a pain, but a relief as well. It just 'feels' right. This will look better too I think. Can you clarify the 'white' areas? Are you meaning on the funnels and port bow?...are those the only locations? 507C is what I used, could that work? It's a more neutral, slightly lighter gray. Is it arguable that 507C could be the color?

This thread hasn't discussed decks. What about:
-Launch deck
-Bridge decks
-horizontal surface etc.
I'd really appreciate some help in this regard.
And what about the launches themselves?

This is so damn confusing!
c

[EJFoeth]

The darkest and one-but-darkest where applied to the decks (see my sketch above), with the A-turret having a bit of the side camo pulled onto the top, but *not* those odd patches that Tamiya has in its scheme. Better to forget that scheme altogether!

The 35ft fast motor boat stored on the portside boatdeck is clearly darker than the others, so it might be a blue hull (Admirals barges where often blue); a few others where just hull colour. Don't have many pics though. I know that for some ships the camo was continued on boats and barges but the boat deck doesn't have too much camo so overall gray should be ok?

Can you clarify the 'white' areas? Are you meaning on the funnels and port bow?

Funnel, but this was only white on her last leg; it's the band around the top of the aft funnel. The port bow does not have white.