dickrd

After looking at the film properly and then looking more closely at my 1942 photos I have realised that there were two versions of the 1942 scheme as well! The first was three colours, the second only two. ( I have corrected my earlier post.)

Nice find! As @Our Nedsays there are a range of dates to the various clips. However Rodney in the Spring 1940 Flotta scheme can be seen at 05.40, 07.42 and especially at 09.00 and from these clips it should be possible to draw the pattern on the hull much more accurately than anyone has before.

@thekz Some nice views of her darkened decks in this scheme to be seen here also:

(Edited) There were two versions of the 1942 scheme as well! Your photo and PM depict the first version with three colours. It was later simplified to two. The first version does not tally with Profile Morskie's on the starboard side. This May 1942 photo shows the area your photo does not: You are correct in your thinking re the 'exotic' nature of the deck depiction. Everywhere was dull/darkened although by the time of this photo (August 1942) perhaps the darkening of the deck around B turret has weathered at bit lighter but no different really to areas of the forecastle:

Before going on to 1942, @thekzcan I suggest a few further small tweaks to your excellent port side drawing of London's second 1941 scheme? On the first image below I have indicated some places to compare with your drawing. And also, like @Vladabove, I really don't think there was that extra dark at the stern and that it was just a trick of the light or something in the photo you were referencing.

That looks very much like how Raven depicted it. The bit of film is not very clear but, no, what I think I see is something more like this: I see a relatively small amount of brown at higher levels, light grey at the lower level and a lot of green in between. No Oerlikons on B turret, Walrus on the catapult. Note that Flotta green was much lighter than the green in the illustration in Kozela's book:

I think you will find that she was in a so-called "Flotta Scheme". This seems to have been 507C lower hull then Flotta Green and Brown above on the upper hull and superstructure. Raven had a go at it on page 8 in Vol 1 of his Warship Perspectives booklets but a short bit of IWM colour film (DVD: Royal Navy at War in Colour) of Rodney at that time appears to me to show the 507C extending all the way to the stern not changing to green just aft of the funnel as Raven has it. I don't have any clear photos of it I'm afraid so hard to be sure.

Obviously it has to be after your 6th May 1941 photo (which was taken on the Clyde) and before the first positively dated photo in my collection of London in the second scheme which is 22nd September 1941. Also I think that photos A8229 & A8230 are both incorrectly dated by the IWM: London emerged from her winter 1941/42 refit at the end of January 1942 with Type 273 radar on the searchlight tower aft of the aft funnel/immediately forward of the mainmast and with Oerlikons. Looking at the movements of London and Ashanti the IWM photos are either September or October 1941 with the earliest possible date being 18th September 1941.

Well it's pretty obvious where the Polish book got it's 'information' from! Raven is interesting. He lists MS1, 507B, B5 and 507C for the first 1941 scheme and MS1, B6 and 507C for the second. It’s probably easiest to focus on the second scheme of which there are many more photos. If it were my model for this scheme I would go with MS1, B5 and 507C. Whatever that middle colour was I think it was darker than B6. To my eye, in general it presents on London in a very similar way to the way B5 presents on ships where we know for certain that there was B5. This for example is Anson sporting MS1, B5, MS4 and 507C (MS4 RF 32%: B6 RF 30%):

Sadly I do not have a broadside photo of the first scheme. But if I put these two photos one above the other the many differences in the design of the pattern between the two are a think fairly clear: For what it is worth, my thinking at the moment is that the lightest colour in the first scheme was MS4 and the lightest colour in the second scheme was 507C. I am still working my way through what I have got before I offer any suggestions as to what the other colours might have been.

I am unaware of any contemporary source documentation that lists the colours. I'm not sure what these 'references' might be but they can only be the guesses of people looking at black and white photos or people copying what other people have suggested in earlier books . Perhaps @thekz can tell us where he has seen these colours listed ("Everywhere I've seen a description of this circuit the colours MS1-B6-507C) and we can judge their credibility.

Nice photo which I think rather clearly illustrates why the repaint was needed! On the starboard side the obvious significant differences are towards the stern: My photos K & J also answer your Question 3 above: no extra small dark spots in the large patch there. Less clear, but I also think there was a difference at the bow between the two schemes: The photos of the bow area are of poor quality so I would accept that there is an element of doubt about both my suggestions

I think that as a first step you need to decide if you are trying to reproduce the first or the second scheme that London wore in 1941. There are a number of small differences. Your photos are from both schemes. I have labelled them for ease of reference: Your drawing of the starboard side is essentially the first scheme but your drawing of the port side is essentially of the second scheme.

Re the starboard side, I consider it a racing certainty that there would have been more of that 'MS3' (if that is what it was) than just that small triangle on the hull. To my eye the starboard side of the bridge itself, the funnel and the searchlight platform are all slightly darker than the lighter areas of the hull below. So I suspect that everything above the cupped 507A band was this other colour with tricks of the light/the angle of their sides on some features such as the shielding/canvas dodgers around 20mm positions appearing lighter. I would also expect that the shape of the inverted triangle carried on upwards onto the forward deckhouse below B gun mounting although this is, as you have found, impossible to discern. This hopefully makes the point about the funnel being darker than the hull below but lighter than the presumed 507A band: On the port side this image shows the pattern with the obvious third tone panel at A. Again I think the bridge itself is also the slightly darker/middle tone, whatever it was: On this side I think the pendant number is all one tone.: It think the funnel is 3 tones, darkest at the bottom, then a light strip and then the middle tone above: All quite unusual and quite a bit of uncertainty about it all really. It will be interesting to see what this looks like on your model!

Whilst I agree with you re the location of the forecastle (focsle/f'c'le) itself I cannot agree with your deck names in relation to RN WW2 destroyers and corvettes. The deck the forecastle (focsle/f'c'le) was on was the "Forecastle Deck". The Upper Deck was one deck lower, in the case of Pathfinder and Penn, the one the torpedo tubes were mounted on: In the case of Flower Class corvettes I think the problem is that some people have incorrectly omitted the word 'deck' when referring to the aftwards extension. As "As Fitted" plans show it was the Forecastle Deck (not the Upper Deck) that was "gradually extended aft": If an RN WW2 era ship had one flush weatherdeck from stem to stern (ie no raised forecastle deck) then that was the "Upper Deck". The Main Deck was the first internal deck below that: