dickrd

Ah, I think you have misunderstood what I meant by the black leader band being at the top of the forward funnel. It was wide and at the very top:

I still remain somewhat doubtful that lower side of the hull aft was a different paint to that low down further forward. Suspiciously the position of the fore/aft demarcation seems to move around quite a bit in relation to the curves of the lower edge of the dark camouflage above. It appears to be as far forward as the rear of the bridge superstructure in the stills from the b&w film clips back to somewhere around S1 6” turret in the Burt photo. It may also be relevant that the port side image (found above) does not show any such demarcation whereas otherwise the treatment of the port hull side is similar to the starboard side. In the image that most clearly seems to show a demarcation (Burt) it occurs where the shape the hull would cause the aft end of the hull to go into shadow given the sun’s position relative to the ship. Right there is a boat boom and a boat in the water below it. I feel that the white of the boats’ cabins distracts the eye from the gradual change in tone on Rodney’s hull just above that is actually happening. I have been trying without much success to find an image where light conditions are similar (sun low down ahead of the ship) to see if it shows the same effect. The best I can do is this one (Nelson) where the sun is quite high. Nevertheless if you put your finger vertically over the (inner) rope ladder hanging down from the boat boom just forward of S1 6” turret then the hull forward of your finger looks distinctly lighter than the hull aft of it… Happy to be proved wrong, I just don’t think we have a smoking gun yet.

Some musings re Miles: Firstly he was writing over 40 years after the events. Memories are often inaccurate. So whilst I would agree that the dunghill anecdote being so memorable it is probably true and stuck in his mind, he may simply have forgotten any green or he may just have chosen not to mention it, focusing the modern text on the dunghill itself. Secondly note how Miles’s modern text describes Newcastle as being camouflaged in green and brown but at the time painted her (Plate 12) in a pattern of brown, green and light grey. This echoes contemporary official references to the Flotta scheme. CO RNAS Hatson wrote how cruisers of the 18th Squadron were camouflaged in brown and green even though we know from b&w photos that at least two others of them (Sheffield and Southampton) also had three colours in their schemes. CO Furious mentions green and brown in his comments on the scheme’s effectiveness, but again omits mention of grey. C-in-C Home Fleet also wrote of brown and green on capital ships and cruisers in a report to the Admiralty, again not mentioning the third colour. It would seem that the grey was not regarded as camouflage and so does not get mentioned. This mindset may well have permeated down to the most junior ranks and should I think be borne in mind when considering Peter Walker’s description of camouflaging Rodney with brown and green. (I too see the light-toned paint low down on Rodney’s hull in the bit of colour film as grey not green.) Thirdly Miles’s contemporary artwork should be approached with caution I think. He illustrated Newcastle in November 1939 (Plate 4). Her hull and upperworks are painted as near black whereas at that time she was in Home Fleet grey. Her bow is lifting out of the water to reveal her lower hull which Miles painted as red. Given the make of paint specified for her bottom it would not have been red, but maybe he never saw his ship out of the water. He painted Newcastle during her engagement with German destroyers October 1940 (Plate 16). He painted her in one overall relatively light grey whereas she was still in Home Fleet grey at the time. He also painted Emerald the same one overall relatively light tone but describes her in his modern text as having been in a dark hull/light upperworks scheme.

Agreed. (It is correct to say that Jamie and I assisted Conrad Waters with his Town Class book. Jamie provided colour co-ordinates so that the printers could print the coloured illustrations as true as possible to the WW2 camouflage shades. I was asked by Conrad to comment on the draft wording of his appendix on camouflage which Conrad had written as a condensed version of papers Jamie and I had written and which were at that time posted on the Sovereign Hobbies website. Additionally I was asked by Conrad to help with a couple of the disruptive camouflage schemes, Sheffield and Belfast if I remember correctly. After the book was published I saw the illustrations on page 290 (and others) for the first time. I suspect that Conrad’s artist essentially took the Sheffield 1940 scheme straight from Raven’s WP vol 1. You will also have spotted the error re the colour of the funnels on ‘Manchester 1938’. )

Mike, That is the only photograph of the ship that I have showing that paint scheme. It shows Legion leaving her builders in December 1940. A doctored version of it, lightened and with fake bow wave etc, giving the appearance that she is at sea at speed, appeared in both Edgar March’s ‘British Destroyers’ and Peter Smith’s ‘Fighting Flotilla’: As an aside, I am very doubtful that this is a simple dark grey/light grey scheme. To my mind the lightest paint is certainly not 507C given the contrast with the white draught marks. I have marked some demarcations (A & B ) which would make it at least a three colour scheme: I think that the panel right at the bow, the bridge front and its upper sides, and the bottom rear of the funnel are all very dark, near black. There is probably more very dark further aft both on the superstructure and the hull. There seem to be three tones right at the extremity of what we can see of the hull right aft (C). The design is too early to be a Leamington sea-going scheme and it is quite unlike any of the early war amateur ship’s staff schemes either. I suspect it might be one of the shipyard camouflage schemes of the time, designed to camouflage the ship whilst being built. If so it won’t have used RN paints. You would be looking at a palette of colours locally mixed by Hawthorn Leslie’s foreman of painters to match the industrial background of the shipyard. Typically these schemes used browns, greys and black or a very dark shade of grey-brown. They were normally painted out when the ship entered service.

Yes, Firedrake had TSDS on arrival at Boston in September 1941. I suspect that contrary to the impression given in the caption to the Boston photo at your link, that photo was actually taken on Firedrake's arrival at Boston. This is Firedrake after those repairs (photo dated 27th May 1942):

Yes

A further refinement. In order to fit around the DC davit the middle reload DC bracket/stand was staggered out a bit in each row of 3 reloads. So in plan view the arrangement would have looked like this:

OK, this photo of Fame is the best I can quickly find to explain the arrangement on Firedrake: The DCs on the throwers are higher than the reload DCs on the brackets/stands. On Fame the throwers were some distance apart at each end of the aft deckhouse; on Firedrake they were grouped together at the forward end of the aft deckhouse. This is a close up of the reload brackets/stands on yet another destroyer:

Reloads for the DC throwers on open brackets immediately forward of aft thrower and immediately aft of forward thrower ie between them and then extending in rows athwartships (I'll try to find a photo showing this arrangement): (No HF/DF mast)

Since the type of TTs on Ilex is of interest @ArnoldAmbrose I will share my private message of ten days ago to @Archelaos on this matter : "OK, the armament return shows that she had pentad TTs converted to quadruple by the removal of the middle tube: There is also a photo of her leaving the USNY South Carolina in September 1942 after repairs where the gap (particularly in the row of flasks on top) can be made out: " I also have an aerial view of Icarus which shows it rather well:

In IWM A5611 Eskimo is rolling slightly towards the camera which distorts the apparent bridge/funnel height relationship. When you look at the plans of a Tribal it is obvious that the Trumpeter model bridge is disproportionately too high. This is from Ashanti's As Fitteds:

@gamevender was asking after the colour on Tiger pre-conversion. Tiger was placed in reserve late 1966, began her conversion in 1968 and completed this in 1972. As mentioned by @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies above, the current RN light grey is called Light Weatherwork grey. If you have read the posts above you will have seen that there seems to be a curious degree of uncertainly over precisely when it was introduced. Whilst much of the currently available evidence can be said to point to c1980, some can be said to suggest a few years earlier than that during the 1970's. Following further discussions with @Paul Lucas off-line I currently discount the one second-hand suggestion I mentioned re Plymouth that it was in use as early as 1969. Nobody has ever suggested it was in use any earlier than that (and between us @Paul Lucas and I seem to have every relevant paint-related document up to 1969). So the current RN light grey would be incorrect for Tiger pre-conversion. If/when I get the time I will try to pin down a date for the introduction of Light Weatherwork grey in the archives.

I think that was just a bit later in the war. If you have the Shipcraft book then a drawing of the Hotchkiss MG is bottom right of page 79.

We are talking about the Hotchkiss .303" machine gun on Burdock in 1941. @Faraway See page 183 of Lambert's drawings book re British Naval Trawlers and Drifters equipment or Google it.