The Ship Model Forum

Building several USN WWII warships with 20MM, 40MM, 5" open mounts. All ships painted in purple - blue based colors (1941 - 44). I know the deck plates / catwalks are painted 20B Deck Blue. I cannot find what color the inside of the tubs (Side facing gun, probably not seen by surface observer) should be. My first guess would also be also 20B since it could be seen from an aircraft. No reason to match outside colors that I can see. But would appreciate confirmation or disavowal either way since I have not gone beyond any point of no return yet.
Thanks for info.
John

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Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

I'd say the safer option is to paint them the same as the "facing out" colour.

Examples:

Iowa upperworks in MS 22: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/016144.jpg
Missouri in MS 32: http://navsource.org/archives/01/063/016337.jpg


But for 40mm tubs, often times there is canvas covering the clips, and the canvas is a darker colour: http://navsource.org/archives/01/061/016107a.jpg

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De quoi s'agit-il?

I believe that is what the regulations called for.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Timmy and Martin -
Thanks. Obviously I was thinking the reverse way - dark colors in front of the gunners as well as uniformity gun position to gun position.
Oh well.
John

_________________
Some people make you happy, then they leave.
Others make you happy when they leave. (apologies to Oscar Wilde if he ever said anything similar, of which there is some doubt . . .)

Also, the canvas covers designed to protect the ready service rounds from weather and potential flash, were "flipped" over the outside of the bulwarks for the sections of the racks being used when the guns were actually in operation. Then flipped back over when no action was expected in the near future. No one models these canvas covers, because the reload racks are "sexier".

Not related to the original question I know but this 1947 post-war view of President Truman aboard U.S.S. Missouri is interesting in that it seems to show the insides of Missouri's forward 40mm Bofors Tubs as being a dark colour, one would guess the same dark grey as the steel decks:

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/truman-family-at-sea-underwood-archives.html?product=canvas-print

Low resolution extract posted here for discussion purposes only, copyright rests with original owners:



Dark grey Bofors tub insides same as the deck colour would make a modeller's job considerably easier!

You do realize that the ready use 40-mm ammo clips stowed on the inside of the bulwark surrounding mounts were covered with a canvas cover to protect the rounds from exposure? These covers appear to have been "painted/coated" with a dark paint. Largely making what the bulwarks were painted, irreverent.

There are photos in this book showing the interior of No. 2 Turret's Bofors tub as being dark coloured (presumably deck grey) after the Second World War (Page 88). It also shows No. 3 Turret's Bofors tub interior as being light (presumably light hull grey) during the Korean War (Page 111). You can see the empty ammunition racks in both cases so I'd be fairly sure the canvas covers were absent at the times of the photos.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/USS-Missouri-Bb-63-Americas-Battleship/dp/0764355627

You need photos of the ship at the time you're modeling her. Photos show camo including the pattern carried inside, deck blue and even black with some tubs/splinter shields in the blue or black having train marks in yellow or white inside.