HMS Prince of Wales

[Cag]

Hi All,

Hi Sutho, I understand what you mean, I would suggest that it is not a reversed image due to the two vents positions on the barbette and the ladder positions on the barbette and the superstructure. If you compare it with the well known 1945 close up bridge and forward turret area (The one where the hull is dark and the upperworks light) the positions appear to be the same.

I too was shocked how light the B5 seems to appear and would be close to Colourcoats B6 tone but I think Dick is right with B5 as the ship is in the full glare of the sun, hence the dark shadows and the sailors half shut eyes? (Mind you a Bren gun is heavy!)

Best wishes
Cag.

[elcejay]

What if the turret is actually trained to port in which case the colour according to the Raven warship perspective series would be B6.

What we forget is that negatives are a mirror image. There are many mirror negatives floating around on the internet that were not changed to their correct perspective.

Hello Sutho,

The image is correctly presented. The locking mechanism at the front of the barrel group shows this, Please see the image below.

bren.jpg

Excerpt from Bren Manual comes from here: http://www.brpguns.com/bren-barrel-parts/

Regards,
Lindsay

[Cag]

Hi All,

Here goes hope this works!

Prince of Wales camo.jpg

This is the puzzle I spoke about there seems to be two different lighter tones maybe three!

Best wishes
Cag.

[elcejay]

Hello Cag,

I wonder what part shadow plays in our perception with that still. The water and the ship are brighter at photo-right than photo-left. The area under the bridge is particularly dark.

Also, the the angled face of the bridge (the face you have indicated, to 'SW' of the Critical Past compass logo), the of the equivalent face on B turret ,and the bow forward of A turret are at a similar angle. All seem to be reflecting a light source that other parts of the ship aren't.

Perhaps the sun is only a point or two off the port bow, perhaps there is partial cloud cover, perhaps both!

Do you have stills before and after this one that might help us to judge what is happening with the light? (I can't work out which file on Critical Path this is from, sorry.)

Regards,
Lindsay

[dick]

Hi Cag,

This fairly well-known view of KGV perhaps shows the light undercoat you mentioned and the sort of extensive weathering that could occur in that area....

KGV 1941 3 15 arriving at Halifax.jpg

And this is a clearer view of that area when not so badly weathered...

Prince of Wales m CapeTown.jpg

Prince of Wales m CapeTown stbd - Copy.jpg

Best wishes

[elcejay]

High resolution (25 to 29MB) tiff files of PoW in Placentia Bay can be found here...

http://www.history.navy.mil/our-collect ... 67195.html
http://www.history.navy.mil/our-collect ... 67208.html
http://www.history.navy.mil/our-collect ... 194-A.html

Regards,
Lindsay

[dick]

Dear Lindsay,

Thank you for those links. I owe you a reply to an earlier post and your question made me re-read this whole thread from page 1 and an interesting read it is.

Can I just underline before we go any further discussing colours that what you see on HMS Belfast today is useless as a reference. For economy and ease of maintenance she is painted in modern maritime paints: BS 381C 632 Dark Admiralty Grey, BS 381C 636 PR Blue, BS 381C 697 Light Admiralty Grey, and BS 381C 627 Light Aircraft Grey.

My suggestion for PoW�s colours made back on 7 Feb 2102 was at a time (see my subsequent post on 8 Feb 2012) when I believed that the WEM paints accurately reproduced the hues and tones of RN WW2 colours. However even then I was not entirely satisfied and so started digging in the archives - see my post on page 12 posted 3 Oct 2014.

That research is ongoing and until your question I had not given any further thought to the implications for the callout for PoW�s scheme. So I guess I am currently comfortable with the suggestion that the darkest tone on PoW was MS1, the lightest was probably generally 507C (although I would not rule out flecks of MS4A) and that there was MS3 in between. I think the other tones are open to interpretation: let the discussion continue!

As the question of what B5 looked like seems to be to be of more immediate interest, here is a sample of that beside the WEM offering:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/136806092 ... ed-public/

It has I think come out on camera a bit lighter than the actual sample. As you can see though, it was distinctly blue rather than the grey of the WEM paint.

Best wishes

[Sutho]

Just wondering what you make of this photo everyone?

It is clearly a King George V class Battleship. According to the Raven books Howe and Anson were also painted in the pattern with minor changes between them. T book states 507A, B5, B6 and 507C.

[elcejay]

Hello Richard,

Thank you for the post, the reminder re Belfast (a similar trap befalls people with USS North Carolina) and the swatches.

(The remainder of this post was deleted by me on 12 Apr 16 due to an error in calculation. The data in the images is correct, so I have left them, but I had presented a quick summary that was flawed. I had considered the delta in RGB values on the basis that 'a consistent variation' in colour meant that the RGB values should all go in the same direction (correct) to about the same number of points (incorrect). The values should actually change in proportion to each other based on the individual values. To put that more clearly, if colour 'x' is 10% lighter than colour 'y', each value should be 10% higher, or very close to it if we are working off scanned samples. A basic error, and I apologise for it. That error is not carried over in my recent posts as they rely on computerised calculations for presenting the comparisons. I will check earlier posts to make sure that I have not mucked them up - any values posted will be correct, but my analysis of 'close' paints might be out slightly (comparing colour 'x' to colour 'y' to see how similar they are, we expect a delta in each value of only a few points for a match, or close match). Please see my post of today (posted early 12 Apr 16 down-under time, perhaps 11 Apr in northern climes) for a colour match of B5 from CB3089.

Regards,
Lindsay

B5 sampling outcome1.jpg

B5 sampling outcome2.jpg

Regards,
Lindsay

[elcejay]

It is clearly a King George V class Battleship.

Hello Sutho, that is the same marine/sailor (apologies guys - I imagine he is a marine) as in the earlier photo. Same photo shoot on KGV.

same photo shoot.jpg

Cheers,
Lindsay

[Cag]

Hi All,

Thanks Dick, yes I agree I can see the underpainting which seems to match the lightest colour in the camo scheme (AP507c?). and some darker pathches maybe the origional HF grey? It might be my old eyes but I still see a seperation between the lower hull and upper hull tones which is not seen in the images from Cape Town which could be due to many reasons paint discolouration or wave action thinning the paint?

65675049351_001012_3.jpg

Here is a pick without my lines etc it was kindly posted by Dick earlier in the conversation, but Criticalpast has quite a few films showing PoW.

I think that KG V according to Admiralty records had 507a in place of MS1 so you may be correct Sutho, the colours could be 507a, B5 which in the photos seems to be in bright sunlight, B6, MS4 and 507c. I think you're right Lindsay he is a sailor if he was a marine he'd be in Khaki? (And much thanks the instructions worked!)

Best wishes
Cag.

[elcejay]

Gentlemen, I wonder if we have the colour on the forward face of the HACS tower correct? Here are four photos (one from Newfoundland, the others in Singapore) that suggest to me that it is not the same colour as the majority of the bridge.

PoW director tower 1.jpg

PoW director tower 2 Singapore.jpg

PoW director tower 3 Newfoundland.jpg

PoW director tower 4 Singapore.jpg

Regards,
Lindsay

[elcejay]

if he was a marine he'd be in Khaki?

Silly me! Even his collar can be seen! Sailor he is (and displaying the sort of grimace that suggests he has not yet had to use it, may his war have ended that way!).

Cheers,
Lindsay

[Sutho]

It is clearly a King George V class Battleship.

Hello Sutho, that is the same marine/sailor (apologies guys - I imagine he is a marine) as in the earlier photo. Same photo shoot on KGV.

same photo shoot.jpg

Cheers,
Lindsay

Whoever he is he must be ambidextrous if he is the same person holding that gun in a right handed manner and left handed manner.

Any thoughts on the colours that are in the photo which is my main reason for posting. I spend hours sifting through the IWM website looking for anything Battleship related, colour and WWII.

[EJFoeth]

The structure above the bridge and all (fwd & aft) HACS directors were identified as tone C, note shots below. The main light color is show at the back of the structure and the rest just slightly darker.

POW_23.jpg

[elcejay]

Good pick up, Sutho.

Looking at the chin strap on his helmet I would say that the photo with the rifle is reversed (there is only one adjustment buckle on a chin strap). That also ties in with the rest of the IWM photos which show the main armament barrels pointing to photo left. (This same shot appears on Pintrest the right way around and the sky more realistically shaded. (With a bit of digging, we could find the IWM original.)

I believe that the photo shoot was done when CIC Home Fleet was on board KGV in Nov 42. To my knowledge, it is well accepted that from June 1942-February 1944 she was in Intermediate disruptive type, colours 507A, B5, B6 and 507C. So two blue-greys, yes, but the painting of the barrels, top to bottom, is 507a, 507c and white. 507c (your 'MS4?) looks greenish/brownish against the adjacent colours in whatever photographic medium they were using. Here's two more shots from the photoshoot showing the main armament. (Photos are known to be copyrighted to IWM and presented here for research purposes only.)

KGV1 Nov 1942.jpg

KGV2 Nov 1942.jpg

May I also add (in the hope that you or others can confirm) that to my understanding, Admiralty white was not a true (RGB 255,255,255) or pure white (i.e. it is not simply pure white with a dash of black mixed in). I have RGB 255 values for it of 235, 230, 225 - more of a creamy colour.

White.jpg

Cheers,
Lindsay

[dick]

Just wondering what you make of this photo everyone?

Well now that one I think is the wrong way round! Partly this is because when I was taught the fire the .303 you were not allowed to handle or fire it left-handedly (hard to work the bolt left-handedly) and partly because I think that camouflage pattern matches the starboard side of KGV's bridge but not the port (so B turret remains trained to starboard in this photo too).

[elcejay]

The structure above the bridge and all (fwd & aft) HACS directors were identified as tone C, note shots below. The main light color is show at the back of the structure and the rest just slightly darker.

POW_23.jpg

Hello EJ. I don't dispute the rear of the tower - I believe you have that right, but the front has been identified in the camouflage map (unless I have an old version (see image below), in which case, ignore this post!) as being the same shade as the bridge and I suspect that it is not. Were it just one photo, I would not have bothered posting, but it appears to be different to the bridge in four of the clearest photos I have.

POW-playingaround - bridge detail.jpg

In those photos, the tower is not in shadow and it receives the same light as the forward face of the bridge. The two surfaces (bridge and tower) present themselves to the sun at the same angle. So if the two were the same colour, I should see that, but I don't and the difference is quite noticeable.

The tower may not be the same shade as the cam spots on the bridge and B turret, I have not yet attempted to check that, but it certainly appears to be a darker shade than the main colour of the bridge, unless there is some photographic trickery or lighting mystery that is deceiving me (as there well might be!).

Cheers,
Lindsay

[elcejay]

Hi All,

Here goes hope this works!

Prince of Wales camo.jpg

This is the puzzle I spoke about there seems to be two different lighter tones maybe three!

Best wishes
Cag.

Hello Cag,

I found that file on Critical Past, and there does seem to be some light changes from the start of the sequence where we begin to see the bridge are and forward more closely, but it is hard to tell if it is cloud cover moving, or simply the quality of the footage/stills. I certainly see a colour change in the area that you point out, but I do believe that it is a mixture of paint flaking and the vertical line made by the different reflection off the bevelling of the armour belt where it ends, along with the constriction of the shade D panel at that point.

There are four stills at the very end of the footage of PoW returning to Scarpa (http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675 ... Scapa-Flow) that shows to me that the paint either side of that constriction are both the same. The text is right over the area that we want to look, so this is not definative, however I suspect that EJ and Dick may have looked at these in their earlier analysis, along with other shots, as what I see seems to back EJ's map perfectly (including the small patches and the 'runner' near main deck level in shade E).

Here are the stills from that link...

shade differences PoW stbd bow rtn to Scarpa1.jpg

shade differences PoW stbd bow rtn to Scarpa2.jpg

shade differences PoW stbd bow rtn to Scarpa3.jpg

shade differences PoW stbd bow rtn to Scarpa4.jpg

(Do these also show the HACS tower as darker than the bridge, or is it simply that with only sky to either side of it, it looks darker than the forward face of the bridge to me? Aaargghh!!, where's the Visine???)

Regards,
Lindsay

[EJFoeth]

Ah, I see that drawing you posted is an old example. The entire Hacs tower emplacement is one shade darker (C) than the main superstructure color (D). The front view of the sketch does not show that. Perhaps I should update it..