Scharnhorst, final camouflage

[ingura]

...

[MartinJQuinn]

Thanks Peter

[Olaf Held]

Nice link Peter, thanks for sharing

@ MArtin ~ Back to the RAL numbers ~ I only refer to them as a general guideline. They are mentioned in the 1941 and 1944 editions of the KM paint regulations. The associated paints are:

RAL 7000 => Deckfarbe Dunkelgrau 51 (hull in piecetime livery)
RAL 7001 => Deckfarbe Hellgrau 50 (superstructure in piecetime livery)
RAL 7016 => Schiffsbodenfarbe III Grau I (boot-topping) AND Trittfeste Au�endecksfarbe 59 (dark grey painted steel decks; 53 in the 1944 edition)
RAL 7024 => Absatzfarbe Dunkelgrau 2 (and 52) => I'm not sure how to decipher "Absatzfarbe", I believe it has something to do with contrast, i.e. painting a very dark grey pattern on a light or medium grey base coat. Such as dark grey turret tops or dark grey bow and stern in the so-called Baltic camouflage. I could be wrong though ...

RAL 8013 => Schiffsbodenfarbe III Rot 5 (brownish-red antifouling, ship's underbelly paint)

All of the above are available from WEM, since you've asked ...

The two-tone pattern the ship wore before, was an off-white on bow and stern plus everything in between painted in either 7000 or 7024. I believe in the latter.

Happy painting ~ Olaf

[MartinJQuinn]

The two-tone pattern the ship wore before, was an off-white on bow and stern plus everything in between painted in either 7000 or 7024. I believe in the latter.

Thanks Olaf. Decks would be 7016, as in the final scheme, correct?

[Olaf Held]

Thanks Olaf. Decks would be 7016, as in the final scheme, correct?

I hope so.
I think they did not change the colour of the steel decks, no matter what (or if) a camouflage pattern was applied.

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[kubaro]

This topic has been very helpfully for those of us who intend to build the Dragon�s Scharnhorst. Thank you very much....

One more question......Can anyone tell me the color of the grey band painted through all the waterline (between the camo scheme of the hull and the Schiffsbodenfarbe III Rot 5... )...please?


Thanks in Advance.....

[Olaf Held]

RAL 7016 => Schiffsbodenfarbe III Grau I (boot-topping) AND Trittfeste Au�endecksfarbe 59 (dark grey painted steel decks; 53 in the 1944 edition)

The grey painted band is called boot-topping. Take care of it's width. On the actual ship it was 2 m (6'-6"-something). The 6-mm-Tamiya-masking-tape is a good match for 1/350 (wink, wink). On my model, the upper edge of the boot-topping is the top edge of the model's lower hull.

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[kubaro]

Didn�t knew what boot topping meant... (new term added to my list...xD)

I got the Schiffsbodenfarbe III Grau I from WEM. I assume that it works too for the steel decks.. isn�t it?

Thanks again, Olaf...

[Olaf Held]

I got the Schiffsbodenfarbe III Grau I from WEM. I assume that it works too for the steel decks.. isn�t it?

Yes, the boot-topping and the steel decks had the same appearance - at least when applied freshly. The difference was, that the Schiffsbodenfarbe featured the antifouling ingredients which, as far as I know, had no effect on the shade of the paint. Of course, due to friction from salt water and whatever, the boot-topping faded much quicker. To be honest, I don't like KM 05 very much as it has a distinctive blue-greenish hue, which I think is incorrect for (not faded) RAL 7016. If you take WEM's AR G 08 (Armour/German ==> Antrazithgrau (anthracite) RAL 7016) your boot-topping and decks will look better (IMHO!). For the faded boot-topping, KM 05 is okay, but it looks silly on the decks.

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[kubaro]

[dick wood]

Thanks all:

I stumbled upon this thread, and thanks to all of you I am now ready to start some painting on my model. The final answer on the deck color was so helpful.

Thanks:

Dick Wood

[Skiper]

I've been following this thread with interest together with the 3 threads in the "work in progress" section of Scharnhorst but there is still an issue that is not clear to me. The 4 color pattern is easily identified as far as on what colors are used and where they start and stop on the hull, but what exactly happens for the superstructure? Apart of the 3 gun turrets, I still haven't figured out how many shades were used and where they were applied on the various supestructure sections. Anyone able to help on this?

[Olaf Held]

Anyone able to help on this?

Not me, sorry. If I had the financial background to soak eBay empty, I'm sure I could help with this or that close-up photo. I'm pretty sure such photos are somewhere, and I wish those in the posession of them would share them, no matter if they put them into a book or sell them off. Until then we have to rely on the few known photos on which you just see shadows and clutter on the superstructure. To make matters worse, I think they applied slight changes to the pattern from time to time (but this is just me).

Did you compare the three WIP models? The same pattern on all three models?

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[Skiper]

Did you compare the three WIP models? The same pattern on all three models?

I did. There are variations in all pictures of the actual ship and in all the finished models in camouflage I have seen. That's why I was wondering. Everyone seems to interpete the pattern differently (not much different but still different). Probably I will end up with another slight variation in the pattern.

[richtea]

Did you compare the three WIP models? The same pattern on all three models?

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

As much as I like the disruptive camouflage paint scheme,
( and will most likely use it on my build.)
It was a wet weekend so I started looking at my references and found that on the Kagero
Scharnhorst Pages 5 & 10 it states that the ship had a two tone grey camo scheme at the Battle of the
North Cape.

Is there a definitive answer to this discrepancy ?
Or is it a coin flip ?
Regards
Richard

[Olaf Held]

I don't know when the Kagero book came out, maybe at that time they didn't know better. It is known for a couple of years now that the final camouflage is the one known as 'mountain profile', look HERE for one variant.

Happy painting ~ Olaf!

[richtea]

Olaf,
Thank you for the link.
I had that site bookmarked before my pc crashed in March.
As I said in my post I like the disruptive pattern and will most likely use one form of it.
The details of the Kagero book are.
The Battleship Scharnhorst
By Mariusz Motyka and Grzegorz Nowak
2nd edition 2010
ISBN 978-83-61220-38-1
Regards
Richard

[SeanF]

I've gone through the pages of this and the CASF thread, and haven't seen a specific answer to these questions:
In Scharnhorst's final scheme, should the extreme bow and stern be white, or hellgrau 50? In some photos they look quite light.
It looks to me like the funner cap is not black, but is it aluminumbronze, or just a continuation of the colors below the cap?

- Sean F.

[Tracy White]

This.... thread.... LIVES!

(but sorry I can't answer your question)

[SeanF]

This.... thread.... LIVES!

(but sorry I can't answer your question)

Yes, yes it does.

I remember reading and studying it heavily a couple years back when a group of us were building the Dragon Scharnhorst together, before we all put them on hold (not a specific,deliberate decision - it just happened). I've pulled mine out and looked up this thread that I remembered... finding it on page 8! It's been longer than I thought! But since it always annoys me when someone creates a new thread relating to something that's already been discussed, I opted to add on to the existing one.

Anyway, to clarify: I do mean the final "mountain" pattern, and not the preceding dark middle/light ends scheme. I have my hull above the boot topping painted white (well, slightly off-white) and need to mask for the wavy thin white striping before spraying on the darker colors, and need to know if I ought to mask off the bow and stern while I'm at it. Throughout this thread I see the color pallet discussed well and thoroughly, and a nice color rendering of the forward superstructure with the individual color patches identified, but not the same treatment for the hull.

- Sean F.