Camouflage Schemes

[R Michelin]

I need some help on getting information on camouflage used on WWI and WWII ships: schemes and colours. Can someone indicate some sources? I heard of the Warship Perspective four volumes on Royal Navy camouflage, but can�t find any of them. On-line sources would be good too, of course. Thanks !

[Sean Hert]

I need some help on getting information on camouflage used on WWI and WWII ships: schemes and colours. Can someone indicate some sources? I heard of the Warship Perspective four volumes on Royal Navy camouflage, but can�t find any of them. On-line sources would be good too, of course. Thanks !

http://www.shipcamouflage.com has them.

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/wr_press.htm#WRPress

Randy's a good guy to deal with.

[Rob]

The WR books only cover WWII patterns and colours. They are very useful.

If you have no luck getting them new, you can also find them on ebay or abebooks.com - search on author's name Alan Raven.

WWI camo information is a bit more patchy when looking for references. Are you looking for something specific?

Cheers,

Rob

[R Michelin]

Rob, thanks for your input,
I plan on building a few ships to explore complex camouflage schemes ( eye-catching schemes ).
So I am not looking at a specific ship to research, but rather becoming familiar with camouflage schemes and then picking the subject based on the camouflage scheme I will have chosen.
Anything would go, from destroyers to battleships.
I would be willing to include even a merchant ship from WWI, just to be able to reproduce a real striking dazzle scheme; but WWI is not covered well in plastic, as far as I am aware. I am not considering resin kits for the time being.
Thanks again for your help !

[Rob]

I have looked into WW1 camo myself - it's an interesting subject but info is not all that easy to come by.

The best book I can think of for WW1 is Naval Camouflage 1914-1945 by David Williams. It has some information about colours used and some excellent photographs, but you do'nt necessarily get both sides of the ship.

http://www.navybooks.com/asps/ShowDetails.asp?id=2044

I have built a couple of WW1 dazzle-scheme ships myself, the minelayer HMS London and the battleship HMS Commonwealth. As a bit of fun here's the two of them together.......

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Colours are partly guess-work based on black and white photographs and the narrative in the Williams book.

Both started life as Combrig resin kits and were converted. As resin kits go, Combrig's British pre-dreadnoughts are not really any more expensive than a plastic kit and do build quite nicely. If this does tempt you, I am happy to talk you through building one. I've built over 100 resin kits, a lot of them pre-1920 ships. There are also some HP kits suitable but they are more expensive and more difficult to build than the Combrigs. A good start from HP would be the RN T class destroyer. Again in resin, BFM have kitted a very nice Hog Islander Type A which woud look good in dazzle.

As regards plastic kits, a couple of liners would be suitable, but I can't think of much else. There is the Airfix Mauretania (as built by Jim Baumann) or any of the Titanic kits will convert to Olympic.

If you have access to the RA Burt books, you will also find some notes on camo schemes in there, albeit battleship orientated.

Hope this helps. Drop me a line on rob_kernaghan@hotmail.com if you've any more questions.

All the best,

Rob