HMS Canopus camouflage

[GrahamB]

Hi,

I am thinking of doing a collection of ships involved in the Coronel/Falklands battles - have Combrig's Good Hope and Monmouth in the stash so far.

With regard to HMS Canopus it was stated that the crew camouflaged her upper-works with green and brown paint, beside removing the top-masts, while she was grounded in harbour waiting for the East Asiatic Squadron. I don't know if any photos show this but wondered if the excellent view of Canopus at Mudros, a few months later, in a rough but dramatic scheme (see the IWM collections site for this), was the Falklands paint job or a a new one painted on for the Dardanelles operations? Another photo of Canopus at Mudros shows her in overall grey. Does anyone know the sequence? If they know that she was repainted after the Falklands episode and then re camouflaged at Mudros I would grateful - but I would be interested in evidence not mere speculation.

Cheers,

Graham

HMS Shearwater (WEM 1/350) finished but awaiting some decent photography
SMS Elster (Wiener Modellbau 1/350) going on nicely.
HMS Montogomery (Mirage 1/400) next in line before tackling the beauties below:
HMS Monmouth (Combrig 1/700)
HMS Good Hope (Combrig 1/700)

[Matthew in TO]

Hi,

I am thinking of doing a collection of ships involved in the Coronel/Falklands battles - have Combrig's Good Hope and Monmouth in the stash so far.

With regard to HMS Canopus it was stated that the crew camouflaged her upper-works with green and brown paint, beside removing the top-masts, while she was grounded in harbour waiting for the East Asiatic Squadron. I don't know if any photos show this but wondered if the excellent view of Canopus at Mudros, a few months later, in a rough but dramatic scheme (see the IWM collections site for this), was the Falklands paint job or a a new one painted on for the Dardanelles operations? Another photo of Canopus at Mudros shows her in overall grey. Does anyone know the sequence? If they know that she was repainted after the Falklands episode and then re camouflaged at Mudros I would grateful - but I would be interested in evidence not mere speculation.

Cheers,

Graham

HMS Shearwater (WEM 1/350) finished but awaiting some decent photography
SMS Elster (Wiener Modellbau 1/350) going on nicely.
HMS Montogomery (Mirage 1/400) next in line before tackling the beauties below:
HMS Monmouth (Combrig 1/700)
HMS Good Hope (Combrig 1/700)

This might help http://www.steelnavy.net/CombrigCanopusBCicconi.html

[GrahamB]

Hi Matthew, and Happy New Year!

Thanks for this. The camouflage scheme on HMS Canopus in the Falklands "in...futuristic colours" [Taylor 2016: 47] seems to have been carried over when she relocated to the Dardanelles, but there is evidence that another disruptive pattern was applied there - a hard-edged splinter pattern recorded in an illustration by Norman Wilkinson in 1916 [Taylor 2016: 47-48].

Taylor, James, 2016. Dazzle - disguise and disruption in war and art. The Pool of London Press, 128 pp.

Cheers,
GrahamB