Late war Admiralty Camouflage for HMS Nelson

[WI_Chris]

Sorry if this is a well traveled question, but I'm preparing to build the HMS Nelson from the Tamiya kit (1/700) and I think the scheme is G45 with the B20 blue-grey panel. MY question is this, is G45 supposed to look almost beige? I have the vallejo equivalent of G45 and B20, and the B20 looks spot on to what I've seen on models etc... but the G45 looks beige. not really grey at all. Or maybe I'm going colorblind.

otherwise what Acrylic paint would you use. I have a KGV and an ORP Conrad on the docks for the future which would be the same scheme, so it sets up that project too.

Thanks for any help,

Chris

[dick]

RN G45 was a light grey with the slightest hint of blue about it. It certainly was not in any way beige.

Here is a contemporary colour image of the scheme:

[pgollin]

IF that still comes from the RN Colour Video/DVD with the salute to USS Saratoga by the RN's Eastern Fleet - that video shows a variety of RN ships with G45 panels and the colour varies considerably - whether due to weathering or differing paint mixes I have no idea.

[WI_Chris]

Thanks, I thought not. The Vallejo equivalent chart suggests their 986 Deck Tan for G45 (1942) and and 987 Medium Grey for G45 (1943) I have the latter and I've painted it on several test pieces and it definitely looks tan. I don't see how they call it grey at all.

Any suggestions for an acrylic? I know that Akan has a G45 that looks better, but I have trouble finding those paints.

[sandy]

I believe the photo of HMS Birmingham in 1945 was taken in Home waters.

[SovereignHobbies]

The G45 should look like this:


On the subject, B20:

[kruker]

I've got an issue with actual G45 color.

Is seems to differ from greyish to beige in different sources. Ex. "Rodney and Nelson" book by Les and Robert Brown has a 1945 Nelson color scheme included and the G45 there is closest to Vallejo 987 Medium Grey or Humbrol 121. Also this source http://www.banksofthesusquehanna.com/Co ... p_camo.htm gives us the G45 closer to beige than grey I think.

On the other hand the Sovereign Colorcoats G45 is in fact grey. Hataka G45 looks grey as well.

The question is which one should I use for the actual Nelson 1945 color scheme? Please advise! Are there any color photos of actual Nelson itself to determine which color would be better?

[508medway]

The published formula for G45 used just white lead oil paste, zinc oxide white and blue black paste. I can't see how you can get anything but a slight blue grey from that. Beige etc would surely require another colour to be added.

[kruker]

Thank you for quick reply. So I guess the sources I refered to might be wrong. I've also found this: http://www.ipmsswamp.com/files/VallejoW ... alents.pdf and the author suggests Vallejo 987 for G45 as well.
So is there a good Vallejo substitute for that color?

[508medway]

There are problems with the ipmms colours as Admiralty records show that G45 & 507C are one and the same colour as were 507B, 507A and G10. The only difference being the level of gloss.

507B was actually the Home Fleet colour during most of the inter war period, 507A being introduced in Jan 1939 as a less glossy version of 507B.

The original 507A in existence when WW1 commenced was dropped in WW1 and was a pure grey. 507A, B and C all used a blue black paste by the start of WW2. 507B/A/G10 used a Pattern known as Home Fleet blue black paste.

[JCRAY]

The colorcoat G 45 needs to be revised. It obviously was based on a yellowed paint card. The new owners need to examine the evidence. Snyder & Short are in error with this color. As has been stated G 45 looks the same as 507 C. Does anyone want several tins of the WEM G 45 FREE ? Just pay postage?

[EJFoeth]

There are problems with the ipmms colours as Admiralty records show that G45 & 507C are one and the same colour

How close are G45 and 507C to MS4?

[JCRAY]

I would think about the same. Perhaps that color is what is referred to as pale gray.....
Wish Sovereign would take the time to examine the record. I know they are stuck with a lot of WEM inventory. Nobody is perfect but I feel this issue warrants a closer look.

[EJFoeth]

Nearly no scheme (assuming Raven is 100% ) uses MS4 and AP507C so I always though they had to be very very close.

[JCRAY]

I'm sorry I thought I was talking MS 4a. So stupid of me!
Pardon Moi.

[SovereignHobbies]

I would think about the same. Perhaps that color is what is referred to as pale gray.....
Wish Sovereign would take the time to examine the record. I know they are stuck with a lot of WEM inventory. Nobody is perfect but I feel this issue warrants a closer look.

Trust me, we are taking this seriously.

Knowing there is an anomaly is easy. Proving the correct colour requires much examination of lots of documentation on top of running the business itself. Lastly there's the problem of the existence and ubiquity of the Snyder & Short chips themselves which are in turn based upon references deeply ingrained in many peoples' minds about what they expect a colour to look like. The documented evidence is not readily available nor interesting to most modellers and not something we can reproduce and publish ourselves - it belongs to various national archives and so on.

I hope to have most of these RN ones corrected by spring time 2017, but the burden of proof on these colours is on me. I can only update something if I can have confidence in a colour sample reference more solid than what the existing colours are based upon. We've made many samples of 507 patterns using the Rate Book formulae and pretty much the only thing we've proven is that we don't know what Blue Black Paste looked like or what its staining power was - and as such we can generate large variances in our home-made samples with minor tweaks in ultramarine blue and black content.

What's perhaps not apparent to the observer is whilst that the Rate Book formulae would be easy to follow as some guy on a ship retrieving pre-made cans of paste ingredients and simply emptying the contents into a bucket, in order to reproduce these we need to identify and track down copies of second and third level references - such as (in the case of Pattern 507s) a 1929 copy of a long defunct British Standard covering oil pastes. This 12 page booklet alone costs us �150+ postage for a black & white copy just to find out what one of the key ingredients to RN greys is supposed to consist of. We can then try making samples again, but it all takes time and that's a commodity I'm not overly endowed with these days ...

If this all sounds a bit defensive, I apologise. I reiterate though that I do take this very seriously but there's a great deal more to it that just running a still from a video above through MS Paint's colour pipper thing and matching paint to that. We're spending a lot of money on a trip to the British National Archives in London soon to view some old paint samples they have, but even then we have to expect those to have aged to some degree. What Snyder & Short have tried to do with their chips is reverse the aging they rightly expected their samples to have. I acknowledge there may still be anomalies there, but until I get something concrete, their methods are better than just guessing at colours and telling our customers they are correct.

Thanks for reading - that was longer than I had planned to post!

[kruker]

...

So the conclusion is that you admit that your G45 might in fact be wrong and it is better to use 507c instead?

[JCRAY]

I don't think he is saying that. I think he said that they are continuing their research. That is enough for now. I bought the WEM G 45 but I didn't use it! I used the WEM 507 C I'm just an old guy who likes to make RN ships, no expert. Just an opinion.

[SovereignHobbies]

...

So the conclusion is that you admit that your G45 might in fact be wrong and it is better to use 507c instead?

I don't think he is saying that. I think he said that they are continuing their research. That is enough for now. I bought the WEM G 45 but I didn't use it! I used the WEM 507 C I'm just an old guy who likes to make RN ships, no expert. Just an opinion.

As JCRAY interprets - I don't know yet. I have a document which states that 507C are zinc white, lead white and blue-black paste, and I have another document which states that 507C and G45 are the same shade, and I have Snyder & Short's chips which show them differently.

Part of the danger here is that people used and still use terminology interchangeably when they are ignorant. Colour scientists might use different terms to mean specific things. The word shade might have been used to mean reflectance, or lightness/darkness. If someone says "a shade darker" we all assume they mean a darker variant of the same hue, hue being the actual colour. If someone is talking about similar hue greys they might use the word "shade" in this case to state that a light yellowish grey was the same shade as a light bluish grey. Or, it could be that the word "shade" was used to mean that 507C and G45 were exactly similar in appearance as was the case with Ministry of Aircraft Production Dark Green and BS381-241 Dark Green post war, which had different formulations but looked exactly the same. The word "shade" should mean a mixture of a specific hue with black, but most people don't know that and use the word however the define it personally. I have a memorandum stating they were the same shade, but it didn't come with a CV for the person who wrote it. It would be a dangerous assumption to declare "case closed" on the strength of one sentence written by a source of unknown qualification.

I haven't yet gathered sufficient evidence in all of these colours. I am aware there are anomalies. John Snyder and Randy Short didn't just make their colours up, so they have/had sound reason to believe they have a good representation of G45. It would take a genuine fool to dismiss their work on the grounds of a potentially ambiguous memorandum stating that G45 was the same "shade" as 507C. As such, all the memorandum mentioned above has done is cast doubt over G45 and prompted much more research into as many sources as possible to try to determine for sure what it looked like. In order to dismiss S&S chips, I need a package of evidence more robust - to be honest so robust that when John and Randy get copies and samples from me they say "yes, we agree with you and will update our chips".

I am an engineer by background, and expect certain words to mean certain things. If for example, I hear that something has "snapped off" I know I'm probably not hearing the words of anyone who understands fracture mechanics and doesn't understand the difference between a bending fracture and a tensile fracture - all they know is that something has broken off.

There is great value in these old documents members of this forum are sharing with me in the background (and have been for many months now) but I'm not about to endorse 507C in lieu of G45 yet. Suspecting that Snyder and Short G45 is too yellow does not mean that 507C is any more correct. All I know right at this moment in time is that G45 has 45% reflectance (so a very light shade - of some hue) and in all probability has very low saturation of the hue - so greyish.

[dick]

I have a memorandum stating they were the same shade, but .....

James, not sure what memorandum you are referring to but the relevant sentence in the relevant AFO does not include the word "shade" reading "...are in fact the same as..."

Also "shade" had a very specific meaning in WW2 RN usage - it meant the specific paint, G10, B55 or whatever.