HMS Prince of Wales

[Sutho]

I agree with both above that artists depictions should be given no credibility at all. In fact zero credibility and probably into the negative number series.

I just want to point out to you about the Force Z website. Their depiction of the camouflage is totally wrong and I would give zero credibility to them as well. My justification for saying this is the stern. We know from photographic fact that the same colour wrapped round the stern from port to starboard. Like many modelling instructions and other publications Force Z website gives two different colours around the stern. It is impossible to give any reference material any credibility at all when they make this most basic and obvious mistake.

[JCRAY]

Raven states that PB 10 was in use on submarines. It was not added to the camo list till mid 1942. Do you want it in place of the MS 1 ? I don't think that the darkest color is the issue.
john

[elcejay]

Sutho,

With all respect, I make two points:

- If the artwork goes against recorded evidence, then it is certainly questionable, but even with hard facts available, comparing them against contemporaneous art works is not wasted time. Much of history is written from study that includes, and at times is entirely reliant upon, works of art.
- If we discard references on the basis that one error makes an entire reference wrong, our reference shelves would be empty. Finding errors simply says 'proceed with due caution'.

John,

I have to say that at present I am not proposing any particular colours, I am really just trying to determine the options in the absence of definitive references. But my current thought on PB10 (intuition only - I cannot justify this) is that if it were available, it is there along with MS1. Again, I am only speculating, and I have not yet braved an attempt to take the B&W photos and plot what could be PB10.

All,

Is PB10 unlikely? Yes, I agree that it is. Even if we find that PB10 was available in 1941, the references known to me, other than Dumas, say that it was used on submarines only, so it is unlikely to have been used on a capital ship. That said, there was a period when strong browns and greens were reportedly used on RN capital ships for a short period in the early years of WW2, and we had the Mountbatten Pinks, so the use of a deep blue on a battleship, as presented by Dumas, does not seem far-fetched to me. Yes, Dumas quotes other paint for PoW that was not available at the time, yes it is a submarine paint, but I don't believe that we can say 'it wasn't on the ship' unless it wasn't available, or we have evidence to tell us what the paints actually were on PoW and we find that PB10 is not recorded there.

I have no preference for one paint scheme or another, and I am not saying that PB10, Tufnell's art or the Force Z graphic are right. I am saying that they are not yet able to be discounted, and that Tufnell's is the only contemporaneous record of the colours on the ship that I know of. Little gems of truth are probably in each of the references - we just have a trial in finding the diamonds amongst the stones.

I know that I may be seen to be flogging a dead horse with PB10, but something niggles me with this colour. It's not that it pops up on the Tamiya paint call-outs, in Dumas and on the Force Z graphic (a speculative comment because only three of the five colours in that graphic approximate any of the RGB values I have for admiralty colours), I look at those things as sceptically as I do with any information that quotes no source. I can't give you a rational reason other than I haven't yet seen the evidence to rule it out, and my gut tells me not to give up on it yet.

We can rule PB10 in or out once we determine its date of availability, but I don't know where to find that information, so very much appreciate your help there. We need more information on Tufnell's painting and the Force Z graphic to weigh them for usefulness, I am chasing that and will post updates when I get somewhere, but I also would welcome any other input on those topics.

Again, I accept that we may never know what the colours actually were, but I think that we might pin them down further and that we should not discount anything unless we have evidence to back it.

I have a dozen 1/350 ships in my cabinet, all built to my moderate standard in the space of three years, having just got back into the hobby after childhood dabbling 40 years ago. This is the only model that I have gone to this extent with in trying to tie down the paint options. I have never before questioned the general references because they showed me what I expected to see and the result was a ship that looked like what I wanted it to. So please know that I am not trying to be difficult here. This ship is intriguing and I have not yet got the 'feel' for its colouring.

Cheers,
Lindsay

[dick]

Dear Lindsay,

Re PB10: as far as I am concerned yes. I have in a previous post: highlighted other inaccurate dates given for other paints; identified the blue used on submarines early war; given the date when PB10 first appeared in Admiralty Orders (1944); and highlighted the significance of the 1945 CB confirmation that the �10� referred to its reflection factor meaning that it has to be post May 1943 nomenclature in any case.

I don�t understand your logic in giving credence to the assertions of people writing decades after the war rather than to hard, primary, contemporaneous evidence from the archives?

Re MS4 and MS4A, as with certain other colours, I think you have to forget modern modelling paints/chips etc. With usual caveats about camera/PC monitor settings/aging, this is what real samples look like (on the left) compared to WEM (on the right):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136806092 ... ed-public/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136806092 ... ed-public/

These are actual 1942 samples on file at The National Archives, Kew.

Well that painting by Tufnell is a joke. Like so many of his other paintings it is just a crib of a photograph, in this case the well-known photo of PoW leaving Singapore which can be seen on page 8 of Denlay�s report. Tufnell has then embellished it with some imaginings: by the look of it fully automatic 100rpm 5.25�s for example! He also seems to have given her 2 x Bofors on the quarterdeck. But crucially, if he had seen PoW at Colombo and accurately based his subsequent painting of her camouflage scheme on what he saw then, he has missed out the white top to the aft funnel which would have been a rather stand-out/memorable feature of her paint scheme.

For entertainment, here is his depiction of Repulse at the same time: note both ships are under attack by Japanese single-engined dive bombers! There are a number of detail inaccuracies in his depiction of Repulse herself as well.

Repulse by Tufnell.jpg

Some artists are good and some are bad and I agree with you re the value of contemporaneous images. But Tufnell was painting years after the war, churning out inaccuracies. For example I have not yet found a single one of his paintings of a ship in the late war Standard Scheme showing the dark rectangular hull panel as the blue they were - in Tufnell�s world they are all grey!

Bone however I have a lot of time for. From 1943 he was an accredited war artist but before that he actually worked at the Camouflage Directorate at Leamington Spa so he probably did know the correct colours. Here is another one of Rodney by him, painted at the time.

Rodney by Bone.jpg

Note the amount of MS3. This can be confirmed from IWM colour film. Now note how Tufnell paints Rodney in that scheme: no blue, no green � just his usual shades of grey.

Rodney by Tufnell 1.png

Rodney by Tufnell 2.png

Re the Force Z illustration, my apologies, I now see that it does show 5 colours. For some reason I had not registered that slight difference in tone in the two dark blues shown probably because there were no two dark navy blues in the potential 1941 palette. There was one dark navy blue then and that was B5.

I will let others more knowledgeable than I comment on the correct names for the likely colours of the Walrus. This is the sort of subdued tone I imagine it to have been: http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/co ... seagull-v/

Best wishes.

[elcejay]

Thank you Dick,

I am not disputing archival references by any means. - I have not explained myself well, sorry. It is exactly that information (contemporary records) that I was hoping for. My focus on Tufnell and Force Z was due to the possibility of them being based on more contemporaneous evidence than the references that I have access to - the usual suspects of the past 30-40 years.

I now accept that PB10 was not available as per the archived records, and I apologise for not having picked up on that as being definitive in your earlier post.

Your images of MS3, MS4 and MS4a tie everything together for me, thank you. I do not see green at all.

Your proposal (post of Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:00 am, back on page 3) that PoW was likely to have been in MS1, MS2, MS3, B5 and 507c/MS4a (with MS4 a potential sixth colour still?) now makes perfect sense - have I quoted your current belief?

Could I impose on you to post images of MS1, MS2 and B6, please?

And thank you for the Bone and Tufnell images, along with the commentary. It is easy to see Bone's background coming out in his paintings. They are quite splendid. With a few seemingly casual brush strokes, he has elegantly captured all of Rodney's colours, whereas Tufnell's PoW simply hints at her's.

Kind regards,
Lindsay

[Sutho]

Sutho,

With all respect, I make two points:

- If the artwork goes against recorded evidence, then it is certainly questionable, but even with hard facts available, comparing them against contemporaneous art works is not wasted time. Much of history is written from study that includes, and at times is entirely reliant upon, works of art.
- If we discard references on the basis that one error makes an entire reference wrong, our reference shelves would be empty. Finding errors simply says 'proceed with due caution'.

John,

I have to say that at present I am not proposing any particular colours, I am really just trying to determine the options in the absence of definitive references. But my current thought on PB10 (intuition only - I cannot justify this) is that if it were available, it is there along with MS1. Again, I am only speculating, and I have not yet braved an attempt to take the B&W photos and plot what could be PB10.

All,

Is PB10 unlikely? Yes, I agree that it is. Even if we find that PB10 was available in 1941, the references known to me, other than Dumas, say that it was used on submarines only, so it is unlikely to have been used on a capital ship. That said, there was a period when strong browns and greens were reportedly used on RN capital ships for a short period in the early years of WW2, and we had the Mountbatten Pinks, so the use of a deep blue on a battleship, as presented by Dumas, does not seem far-fetched to me. Yes, Dumas quotes other paint for PoW that was not available at the time, yes it is a submarine paint, but I don't believe that we can say 'it wasn't on the ship' unless it wasn't available, or we have evidence to tell us what the paints actually were on PoW and we find that PB10 is not recorded there.

I have no preference for one paint scheme or another, and I am not saying that PB10, Tufnell's art or the Force Z graphic are right. I am saying that they are not yet able to be discounted, and that Tufnell's is the only contemporaneous record of the colours on the ship that I know of. Little gems of truth are probably in each of the references - we just have a trial in finding the diamonds amongst the stones.

I know that I may be seen to be flogging a dead horse with PB10, but something niggles me with this colour. It's not that it pops up on the Tamiya paint call-outs, in Dumas and on the Force Z graphic (a speculative comment because only three of the five colours in that graphic approximate any of the RGB values I have for admiralty colours), I look at those things as sceptically as I do with any information that quotes no source. I can't give you a rational reason other than I haven't yet seen the evidence to rule it out, and my gut tells me not to give up on it yet.

We can rule PB10 in or out once we determine its date of availability, but I don't know where to find that information, so very much appreciate your help there. We need more information on Tufnell's painting and the Force Z graphic to weigh them for usefulness, I am chasing that and will post updates when I get somewhere, but I also would welcome any other input on those topics.

Again, I accept that we may never know what the colours actually were, but I think that we might pin them down further and that we should not discount anything unless we have evidence to back it.

I have a dozen 1/350 ships in my cabinet, all built to my moderate standard in the space of three years, having just got back into the hobby after childhood dabbling 40 years ago. This is the only model that I have gone to this extent with in trying to tie down the paint options. I have never before questioned the general references because they showed me what I expected to see and the result was a ship that looked like what I wanted it to. So please know that I am not trying to be difficult here. This ship is intriguing and I have not yet got the 'feel' for its colouring.

Cheers,
Lindsay

Just in regards to art. I don't mean to disparage the history of art or artists. I just want to point out that in this case any artwork like that has zero credibility when it comes to the accurate paintings and representations of the ship which is what we are after.

Art is creative and often hangs on board ships but I think to be realistic we do not need it in regards to deciphering camouflage.

A little off topic but I believe there is one artist who has painted Titanic regularly who is reputed to be the only artist to accurately recreate the white star line buff of the funnels.

[Cag]

Hi All,

Thanks Dick for posting the ADM colours its much appreciated. I do think that there is still areas of PoW camouflage that are unknown and perhaps different at certain times. I'm affraid I'm unsure how to place an image in my posts (I've tried but as yet no success!) but the close up image of the starboard side at the Atlantic meeting on page six that Dick posted from Critcalpast has me puzzled (The one that shows the pattern on B turret).

On the hull there is the dark MS1 shape on and around the armour belt, and the second darkest shape (MS2?) coming down from A turret and down the hull. Between these two we have what appears to be two colours, one low down on the hull, next to the start of the armour belt, and quite light that matches the shade on the bridge area, and one adjacent to it and a darker shade that carries on up the hull above the armour belt and onto the turrets? (I wish I could put up an image!) It is almost like the Tamiya 1/350th scheme for that area but in reverse i.e. the lighter and darker areas swapped.

I've studied this and thought of areas in shade from the hull overhang etc but area on the armour seem darker too which is the puzzle! (The area behind the MS1 on the hull appears this shade too) Later shots of PoW especially the one from Cape Town this seems all the same colour, if this was a MS3 and a MS4 area maybe this is the MS3 area that sometimes is reported to have been painted out?

Anyhow it is all my speculation at the moment and may be totally wrong and if anyone can help I'd be grateful!
Best wishes
Cag.

[Sutho]

Thank you Dick,

I am not disputing archival references by any means. - I have not explained myself well, sorry. It is exactly that information (contemporary records) that I was hoping for. My focus on Tufnell and Force Z was due to the possibility of them being based on more contemporaneous evidence than the references that I have access to - the usual suspects of the past 30-40 years.

I now accept that PB10 was not available as per the archived records, and I apologise for not having picked up on that as being definitive in your earlier post.

Your images of MS3, MS4 and MS4a tie everything together for me, thank you. I do not see green at all.

Your proposal (post of Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:00 am, back on page 3) that PoW was likely to have been in MS1, MS2, MS3, B5 and 507c/MS4a (with MS4 a potential sixth colour still?) now makes perfect sense - have I quoted your current belief?

Could I impose on you to post images of MS1, MS2 and B6, please?

And thank you for the Bone and Tufnell images, along with the commentary. It is easy to see Bone's background coming out in his paintings. They are quite splendid. With a few seemingly casual brush strokes, he has elegantly captured all of Rodney's colours, whereas Tufnell's PoW simply hints at her's.

Kind regards,
Lindsay

I have said this before but I will say it again. In regards to all the colours and measures used by the RN in WWII. I think we need to start collecting images of all warships in B&W photos and looking at the shades and identify for certain what colours look like in B&W and compare. It will be a hard and long task but it is a job that needs to be done. There will be problems doing this but it is the only way to narrow down the options of what paints were used on the ship and how they looked compared to others.

I am happy to get involved in something like this if others want to as well and research and examine photos, crop boxes from the photos and make a dictionary of shades as we call it to work out what colours were used.

[elcejay]

I have said this before but I will say it again. In regards to all the colours and measures used by the RN in WWII. I think we need to start collecting images of all warships in B&W photos and looking at the shades and identify for certain what colours look like in B&W and compare. It will be a hard and long task but it is a job that needs to be done. There will be problems doing this but it is the only way to narrow down the options of what paints were used on the ship and how they looked compared to others.

Hello Sutho,

If there was a way of doing this to make it a fruitful exercise, I would sign up immediately, but I believe that it is not possible with any current technology, and perhaps not at all. (Hopefully not taking us too far off topic here - this does have relevance to analysis of PoW photos.)

I think that the problems of analysing B&W images for colour matching have been given fair coverage already, but to add my two-bob's worth. Such analysis certainly helps to discern where one paint finishes and another starts, and to compare the shades of one panel against those that adjoin it at a similar point on the hull. The complex curves of the hull, however, make it nigh impossible to tell what is what along the length of the hull in the same photo unless it is a very simple scheme. Using another photo of the ship from a different angle or a different point helps, but unless it is taken with the same camera on the same light settings in exactly the same ambient light using the same film which is then developed through the same process on the same paper without error, it can only be indicative. Then there is the question of the deterioration of the photograph between the time of its developing and the time that it was reproduced, and the quality of the method of reproduction.

Those issues plagued you all in the early part of this thread. You plowed through, and we ended up with the best available 'map' of the PoW paint scheme, but all that analysis of B&W photos, colour photos and colour footage, along with now 17 pages of discussion with expert input (and back seat drivers like me) has not allowed us to positively define what the paints were. You, Dick and EJ, in particular, have led us to the likely candidates (and again, I for one am very grateful for what you have done for RN modellers), but I think that that is all we can hope to achieve from imagery alone - a paint map of a ship, and the likely colours.

Even given the excellent reproduction of photographs taken with the degree of sameness described above, there is no certainty that we can tell one paint from another. As an example, here are two shots of Rodney that I believe to be in the category of 'sameness' in their taking, developing, storing and reproduction. I believe that the originals were taken minutes apart on a clear, sunny day, that they belong to the same collection and were scanned for reproduction at the same time. We can make a stronger assumption that the same camera, same film, same developing process, etc, was used here than we can for many photographs. Despite that, I cannot tell with a mark 1 eyeball, or by loading them onto http://scalemodeldb.com/paint and checking the 'colours' (even at 300% resolution looking pixel by pixel) whether the three patches on her bow are different or the same colour.

Rodney BW demo 1.jpg

Rodney BW demo 2.jpg

I see the first patch as darkest in both photos and the other two patches as being so similar that I would call them the same. To my knowledge, those three patches were painted differently over time, but always either being the same colour, or the middle patch being different.

(Of interest, the second photo is reproduced on pg 24 of Man 'o War 3 where it is described that '...the bright sun almost washes out the light colours...'. Perhaps the collection of original copies was not available to Raven and Roberts - there is significantly less colour wash out in the one posted here.)

On another note...In my early days of reading this thread, I tried to match grey-scaling of admiralty colours (plugging Raven's Munsell values converted to colour hex codes into http://encycolorpedia.com) to individual B&W photos of PoW to see what I could find. Here is a working image of my third attempt (the only one I seem to have kept). It got me nowhere.

POW_03.jpg

None of the above takes into account reflective values, paint mixing, paint deterioration over time between photographs, differing rates of deterioration of different paints on the same ship, or of how the same colour painted over different colours would appear (e.g. where 507c might be painted over adjacent patches of, say, MS1 and B5, in a hurry, or poorly mixed, the 507c patch might appear in a photograph to be three different paints).

We would need a range within each paint falls, from 'yard fresh' to 'scrubbed on by the crew three months ago when in a hurry to get underway, no time to cure, insufficient blue in the mix and patches of same in varying sizes and varying ages applied with varying degree of rigour thereafter'.) The grey-scale range for any given paint in a colour range (e.g. blue-grey, or green-grey) would likely overlap those above and below it in grey-scale, and perhaps even more than one paint in either direction and paints outside that colour range. In my PoW image, the row of greys directly below the photograph are the grey-scales of the paints listed above it. These are the grey-scales per Raven's Munsell values for the 'yard fresh' paint. Some are already hard enough to discern from each other, how would we fare if we introduced a range for each of those paints?

The last hurdle (from my quick brainstorm) is pixellation. Unless we had high-res photos, as soon as we have to enlarge to the point where individual pixels are obvious, we will be lost. The range of pixel shades in any one paint panel will be impossible to correlate to our overlapping range of grey-scales for each paint.

Perhaps there is a scientific way of approaching this, but I really feel that it would lead to insanity. A library of photos would be great, though - is that worth doing?

Regards,
Lindsay

[EJFoeth]

These images were taken mere moments after each other; some position, same camera. Both are (almost) direct scans from museum reproductions. Any guess to which picture matches the contrast of the colour we like to see most?

Contrast-min.jpg

Same area, different camera's. Any guess to which picture matches the contrast of the colour of the spot on the hull to the right of the catapult we like to see most?

Spectral-min.jpg

[elcejay]

Yesterday I took RGB values for the paint swatches Dick kindly posted of MS3, MS4 and MS4a. Because the samples are photographs of a textured surface that is not fully flat (good approximation of a hull?), they give a range of values. (This was done by averaging 'blocks' of 25 x 25 using http://scalemodeldb.com/paint in two areas of each paint 'sample' - the areas I found to be the lightest and darkest. The images were at 100% resolution.)

MS3. R = 104 to 118. G = 125 to 139. B = 138 to 152
MS4. R = 125 to 134. G = 141 to 151. B = 158 to 167
MS4a. R = 144 to 151. G = 155 to 163. B = 162 to 172

I have converted those ranges to grey-scale as well. Munsell values are shown, but they are modern Munsell, not 1929 Munsell (they do not correlate, and I am not sure if they can be converted). If this is useful, and Dick can provide other paint samples, I will do the same for those.

MS3 MS4 MS4a.jpg

Regards,
Lindsay

[elcejay]

These images were taken mere moments after each other; some position, same camera. Both are (almost) direct scans from museum reproductions. Any guess to which picture matches the contrast of the colour we like to see most?

Same area, different camera's. Any guess to which picture matches the contrast of the colour of the spot on the hull to the right of the catapult we like to see most?

Love a quiz, EJ.

Two guesses, no peeks at other photos (I promise)...

Hood = bottom photo?

PoW = Top right?

Happy to wait for other responders (to embarrass me) before you post an answer!

Cheers,
Lindsay

[elcejay]

An apology to Dick, Michael, EJ, Sean...

I have just read the thread on Commonwealth camouflage. Very informative. Had I realised that was there before, I would have found a lot of what I was looking for, saved you from some unnecessary questions and saved myself a bit of money on a book that is of no more use to me than hip pockets in a singlet.

Thank you for your patience!

Regards,
Lindsay

[Cag]

Hi All,

I agree Lindsay, it is difficult to accurately state what colours were used due to the many reasons you have given above. Dick, Evert-Jan and Sutho worked hard to come to the conclusions they have and have all of our gratitude for doing so.

I too consider myself an amateur and as I posted earlier I spotted what I saw as a difference in shade on the starboard side in the Criticalpast image trying to use panels that were at the same orientation etc. But this difference could still be due to lighting conditions, hull curvature, worn paintwork (I think in the ADM files there is mention of certain % reflectance 'primer' colours under paintwork), and the fact that these paints were not oil based as were the old AP paints but emulsion type and very prone to wear and tear (Hence the later issue of A1 A2 paints later on in the war).

I do think that using lessons learnt in this thread, the continuing work of Dick and others including yourself, a greater understanding of the camouflage colours could be achieved, and perhaps square them with the colourcoats range. There is a CAFO that details the ships painted in camouflage from 1941, and the most interesting part was according to the Admiralty disruptive camouflage was meant to be effective from the air and from the surface. When we look at these patterns and their colours, speaking as an artist, the patterns do also reflect the shapes made as a ship moves through the water.

As you say we can choose the way our models are painted (Which surely is half the fun), PoW fresh from Rosyth, or, using artistic licence, dirty and patched sailing on her final voyage. Therefore together with Dick's kind posting of the ADM colour samples, your red/blue/green work and paint match, which is of great help, we can choose how we 'see' PoW in camouflage (I personally love Suthos PoW). Until we have an origional Admiralty document in our hands that shows the paints supplied to each individual ship according to their alloted scheme, then we buy another kit and start again!

Best wishes
Cag.

[Sutho]

I think a colour spectrum of B&W photos collected and compiled might help slightly if done in a manner that can assist our research.

In regards to the colours I have added some attachments of photos I have taken for reference of the warship perspective series. On the back of volume one is a collection of paints. I note that there are paints like Dark Blue (1941) which has not been discussed in this thread.

I have also added a photo on the back of volume 2 which has a colour photo with pennant number C58. The blues on that photo are of interest because there is a darker blue with a very faint lighter blue on the same ship which is hard to discern. Perhaps Western Approaches Blue was used, B5 or B6.

If the medium blue in that photo is B5 then it does suggest that the paint tins by WEM are different to what colour photos are saying. Then again how can we trust any photo of the period colour or black and white.


If anyone wants to head over to the calling all HMS Ark Royal fan page in aircraft carriers and help get the ball rolling on paints for that ship now that there is a 1/350 kit available I would really appreciate it.

[508medway]

Personally I wouldn't put too much credence in the colours on the back. As most of us have never seen the real thing, we really don't know how accurate they are and trying to reproduce paint colours in ink is not too easy unless you want to spend a lot of time and money on the exercise.


Isn't Dark Blue 1941 the colour also called Berwick Blue after the cruiser which used it?

[elcejay]

Here are the Admiralty blues according to Raven http://www.shipcamouflage.com/3_11.htm

Admiralty blues per Raven.jpg

[Sutho]

Personally I wouldn't put too much credence in the colours on the back. As most of us have never seen the real thing, we really don't know how accurate they are and trying to reproduce paint colours in ink is not too easy unless you want to spend a lot of time and money on the exercise.


Isn't Dark Blue 1941 the colour also called Berwick Blue after the cruiser which used it?

Absolutely. The only reason I mention the book is that there is an obscure colour such as Dark Blue which was used in 1941. Then on the second last page it describes one scheme that used a mix is 50/50 Western Approaches Blue and Western Approaches Green to come up with a green colour.

With mixing going on we are doomed.

[Sutho]

,

My personal thoughts I think WEM has accurate paint.....

v

,

It is exactly what I want to know. What colours are they in the picture above. To me some look like a good candidate for B6.

Note the third photo down. To the right of the frame is a bright flare from the sun reflecting on the paint. What a photographer would do is either use a polarizing filter or neutral density filter or the equivalent of what was available at the time. This would have darkened the image if we are talking about B&W which explains why it is hard to interpret B&W images.

You cannot have it both ways! There are no colours like those blues in the WEM range.

The third photo down is taken at the base of B turret barbette with the turret traversed 90 degrees to starboard. The blue colour there is the second darkest tone in KGV's colour scheme and is identified by Raven in his WP series as B5.

WEM B5 is scarcely different to their 507B and is quite different to what you see in the photo. However the examples of B5 that I have found in UK archives have been distinctly blue and one of them a good match to that photo (given that it is taken in strong sunlight).

Sorry to bring this up again, but it is a puzzle we all want solved and we have a colour photo here.

By all observations the turret appears to be trained to the starboard in which case B5 would be the colour.

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.

[dick]

Sorry to bring this up again, but it is a puzzle we all want solved and we have a colour photo here.

By all observations the turret appears to be trained to the starboard in which case B5 would be the colour.

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.

Have a look at the offset foresight on the Bren gun.......