dickrd

Interesting to note in the port bow July 1942 photo referenced by @Our Ned that the diagonal camouflage panel on the front face of the bridge presents as darker still than the darks in the late April 1942 photos taken in Belfast Lough such as FL21547. The reproduction of this photo in the book is not of the highest quality but this diagonal dark does not appear in the photo to be as dark as MS1 would normally present, merely a 507A sort of tone. If this really is the case then this has knock on effects on options for what the rest of the (lighter) darks actually were. We really need a good quality version of the July 1942 photo.

First a comment on the Sovereign Hobbies version of the scheme posted above. In my copy of the original in CB 3098R of 1943 (Plate 113) the camouflage panel nearest the bow is G45 not G20. @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies may have found a different one so it would be good to get this clarified. But on Avon Vale it looks to have been G45 given what we see in the photos. Re pendant numbers, although the 1943 CB did specify specify G45, white or G20 depending on the background camouflage paint, I have authentic 1944 colour photos quite clearly showing the use of red and black on a couple of ships. I also know that I have come across an order not to use other colours such as red which to my mind says other colours were used or the order would not have been needed to try to put a stop to it! Given the tone I would have said Avon Vale's might have been indeed have been B30 below the bridge, but the one on the stern could have been G20.

@k7rkx I agree with you. It won't have been G20, it's too light for that. It won't have been B20 either. That too would be too dark for what we see. It is not an option anyhow as B20 that was not invented until the Spring of 1944. Going back to your suggested positioning of the other colours in your post of Wednesday 3rd April there is one final tweak I would like to suggest. Starboard side X turret G10 rather than B15. In this Plymouth Sound image both turrets are trained in the same direction so their sides should be the same if they were the same colour, but Y appears lighter (the same sort of difference is visible in the broadside photos above): Also I found this undated image which does seem to support my idea of a subsequent repaint replacing B15 with G10 - the diagonal on the bridge superstructure appears the same tone as the other darks, as does the aftmost diagonal on the hull and X & Y turrets likewise the same:

Done some further hunting around for images. Found this very interesting one on the IWM site dating to 5th September 1943. (It does not show up if you search there under "HMS Queen Elizabeth" of course - that would be too easy!) This does look like three tones on the port side. I am now beginning to wonder if perhaps she repainted sometime after joining the Eastern Fleet reducing to only two tones so explaining what we see in the April 1944 Trincomalee portside photo and hence three tones are after all possible in the August 1943 Plymouth Sound photos? Note also the funnel - is that a 4th tone?! Looking again at the Plymouth Sound starboard photos does the funnel perhaps look just a bit darker than the rest of the light areas in those photos too?

FWIW, looking further at this question and based on the very few pictures that seem to be available, too few really to be absolutely sure of things, I now question whether this was a three colour scheme. I agree with you that it is very hard to see any difference in the tones of the darks on her port side in your photo above (which was taken at Trincomalee April 1944). To be honest they all look like they could have been G10/507A. Unfortunately this is the only photo I have showing all of her port side. As a general rule I would expect the same number of colours to be used each side. So I am now questioning what we see in the the starboard side photos of QE in Plymouth Sound August 1943, one of which is yours above. Are we really looking at three tones? The slightly lighter tone to the dark band on the bridge superstructure could well be down to it being higher up (and so lighter) plus sun angles. Furthermore, on close inspection of the photos, I think that the aftmost dark diagonal on the hull, which does look distinctly lighter than the other darks on the hull, is not paint at all but shadow from the companionway ladder which is raised level with the quarterdeck. Remove that diagonal from the equation and the next diagonal forward is scarcely any lighter than the other darks on the hull and the lighter sides to X & Y turrets can be put down to their side being angled more towards the sun.

I think that there is something dodgy about the order of the clips in this colour film (IWM MGH 4574) and its caption referencing Op Pedestal. For example at the 0.44 mark we see HMS Nelson in her disruptive camouflage pattern first worn in April 1942 and with a pom pom on B turret. Yet later, at the 2.28 mark when she is doing gunnery practice, the turrets and gun barrels are all in overall Home Fleet Grey and there is a UP launcher on B turret ie how she was during 1941. Then at the 5.07 mark we see HMS Lightning in overall Home Fleet grey. Lightning wore this during 1941 but by the Spring of 1942 she was in a dark hull/light upperworks scheme and was that way during August 1942 (Pedestal). More likely is that the views of Lightning in the film are during Op Substance July 1941. This photo is said to date to 23 July 1941 and shows Lightning in company with Nelson then:

If it is not too late to fix it, you might like to increase the slope of the mast which was almost (but not quite) parallel to the forward 'edge' of the funnel:

As it happens records survive for Mignonette and you chose the correct colour!

All based on photos. Here is a fairly clear photo of the starboard side. You can see the pattern on the central funnel, the bridge, B turret and the deckhouse below dark. It is interesting how different the tones appear to the original photo: On close examination I have decided that the photo I had which was claimed to show the port side of Dorsetshire in this scheme was misidentified. So this is the best image I have of it: From what very little can be seen it hints at the possibility that the port side's pattern could have been a mirror image of the starboard side after all! (To avoid future visitors to this thread being mislead I have edited my previous post to reflect this.)

I would not take the Kobayakawa painting seriously. He has given Dorsetshire the pre-war full height masts and I suspect the idea of a battle ensign is fanciful. The bridge and the starboard side of B turret was dark-toned. In the original photo you can see that painting is actually in progress on the hull. The aft funnel has been patterned but the the central one not yet. Dark tone has yet to be painted onto the bridge and B turret and the deckhouse below both. The original photo cannot have been taken on 4th April 1942. Dorsetshire was at Colombo that day at that certainly is not Colombo. If the location of the photo can be confirmed that would help to date it. The photo is normally held to have been taken at Trincomalee. Dorsetshire was there 5th March until probably 22nd March and certainly no later that 25th March. (And yes she was wearing this scheme as sunk. Japanese photos show enough to confirm this.)

In some photos you see bits of boot topping at the waterline, especially towards the stern. My interpretation is that they have overpainted the upper boot-topping area with the camouflage paints down as close to the the waterline as they could go, but that if the ship was out of the water you would see that quite a wide band of boot topping was in fact still there underwater extending down to the light load line.

Here is a candidate for the sort of palette we are now considering from CAFO 679/42: But the draught marks on Newark near the bow are dark and they should be light if it was B5 there. But at least the CAFO shows the colour combination MS1/B5/MS3 was potentially possible.

Aiming for a dark disruptive scheme with an overall RF equal to that of the RF of Home Fleet grey/507A would be perfectly in line with their thinking at the time (1941). My interpretation of the 1942 report is that it was an RF 12 scheme at the time they designed it in January 1941. I need to think about the MS3 option and look for examples of the colour combinations we are now considering. What slightly concerns me is that we have no photo of Suffolk in the scheme pre May 1941, ie when it was first and freshly applied.

@Ships docLeamington's understanding of the tones of one or two of the paints they were using in their designs varied a bit over time. But at time of their observations of the Home Fleet in late July and early August 1942 (and earlier) they thought that MS1 had an RF of 4%, MS3 an RF of 20% and MS4 an RF of 32%. Given your above estimated percentages of the amount of the side of the ship covered in each paint, this palette would give an overall average of 19.56% RF. In the Fleet Orders in force at that time, Leamington categorised their disruptive designs for their lay audience as dark, dark-medium, light-medium and light types plus Western Approaches type. However, in-house the Leamington team further categorised their designs in various ways including by their overall RF. According to the Leamington team's Scapa observations report, Suffolk's scheme was a "Type 12 approx". So the question is, is 19.56% close enough to 12% to be covered by "approx" (probably not), or can we get closer to 12% by either by increasing the areas painted the darker tones or do we need to consider darker paints? I feel you have got the way the different areas were painted, and so the proportions, as correct as can be given the available photos. So for consideration: a) If the middle paint was B5 with RF 15% then we get an overall 18.46% scheme (with MS1 & MS4 as the other two). This is still some way from 12%. Does it 'look' like B5? b) Then if in addition the darkest paint was black with RF 2% (rather than MS1) we get to an overall 17.6% scheme which is still some way from 12%. I consider it perfectly possible that black was used in what was one of the very earliest Leamington designs at a time (January 1941), before the final slate of MS&B series paints was selected and codified (by late July 1941). (JD: Black was included in the RE/CAM 30/1/1 list) The Scapa observations were done 18 months after Leamington designed the scheme, and they were not focused on Suffolk in the observations. When you read the report they were clearly not that interested in it and don't dwell on it. They dismissed it as one of their old designs and as too dark and doubtless just looked up what 'Type' it was in their records. My point being I doubt they cared enough about any of the changes that had been made to the original design to realise that their original calculation of the overall RF was perhaps by then slightly out. As a side note, Norfolk's scheme was noted as a "Type 25 approx". This would confirm the impression you felt you were getting from the aerial photo FL 3943 that Norfolk was lighter than Suffolk.

Gosh, this must be more than a decade ago now and before I mentioned the correct RN WW2 camouflage colours to the new owner of the Colourcoats paint range @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies! As @foeth mentions, there is a very clear overhead photo of Euryalus on 8th August 1941 in the IWM collection showing her wearing the deck pattern as drawn above. Sadly it is not available to view on-line