dickrd

That is exactly the faceting I am talking about in my previous post. I don't see it as shielding. If you mount 3 squarish ready-use ammo bins in one assembly on the edge of the circle the outer faces/their backs would present the 3 facets you see in that photo.

The photos I have show the twin Oerlikons on B and X turrets being on small circular platforms rather than in tubs. I 'think' that these were the original circular platforms that the quad 0.5" were mounted on. Around the circular platform (A) were then mounted variously shaped lockers (B & C). These are flat faced (inwards) and flat backed (outwards) giving a faceted appearance that I can see would give the impression of an octagonal 'tub'. But they did not encircle each twin gun mounting and the tops of them are about level with the bottom of the twin Oerlikons' engine/cab (D), so 80% or so of the lockers' height is below the level of the platform. My current impression is that there were 3 lockers attached to each platform. Looking at the left hand mounting in the photo above, one facing forwards, one at the 2 o'clock position and one at the four o'clock position (out of sight). The other positions had lockers in the equivalent positions. I think you can see the support to the platform on B turret above my yellow line in this photo with the gap that separates the 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock lockers either side of it: And the same on X turret:

Both sides the same is correct:

Assuming we are looking at Sovereign Hobbies NARN 631 Bronze Grey on the flight deck, maybe it's the camera, maybe it's the lighting, maybe its the modeller's weathering/rusting effects, maybe it's our monitor settings, or maybe it's our aging eyeballs but fresh Bronze Grey would have been a dark olive green sort of colour not 'earth brown' or 'brown'.

Those painting instuctions sound wrong. Where they say G45 should be B30. Other than the two white panels in the G20 hull area this looks like it was a textbook application of the special Home Fleet destroyer scheme per CB3098R/43. This is where I would place the colours: The photo has been censored to remove the hull pendant number so the upper camouflage panels in that area have been messed up a bit. Do the instructions call for the dark hull colour to come up onto part of the aft deckhouse? I see no evidence of this in photos of Tartar.

I suspect that the origin of this will have been a Facebook post of @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies that was doing the rounds over the weekend. It shows the power of the visual image over any wording as rather than saying "...to have been shown as having a grey anti fouling colour..." Jamie's actual text reads "may not have been red below the waterline." A demonstration of Chinese whispers at work.

Given that you have given her a red bottom you are modeling her as she emerged from her April 1943 refit (and until her December 1943 docking), so the 507A, B6, 507C palette would be appropriate.

Jon, You certainly keep your research department busy! Roberts is a rare case where we have some decent contemporary evidence. The first is three sample paint chips, 507A, B6 and 507C in the archive at Portsmouth that are labelled HMS Roberts: The second is an illustration in Peter Hodges's book "RN Warship Camouflage" (1973) stated to be from a design dated March 29, 1943. It shows the port and starboard patterns (they were different) and specifies 507A, B6, 507C, White (for countershading) and deck 507A: Given various photos, I have slight suspicion that by/during 1944, ie once the subsequent B&G series paints were in use, G5 (rather than G10) may have replaced the 507A (and B30 would have replaced B6). This is war artist and ex-Leamington camouflage team member Stephen Bone's painting of Roberts in June 1944: Best wishes.

Definitions from CB3098R of May 1943: (15) Disruption - Breaking up of a ship's outline by means of pattern, where the pattern causes parts of the ship to match the background and parts to contrast with it. (20) Dazzle painting - A method of hindering visual comprehension of a ship's identity and inclination by painting onto it a pattern of very strongly contrasting shapes and tones, the lines of the pattern conflicting with and confusing the characteristic lines of the ship. The tones used need not be related to the background. They knew the difference. Long and short of it is that the 'Admiralty' designs produced by Leamington (The Central Directorate of Camouflage) during WW2 such as that on Rodney were primarily of a disruptive type. @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies has taken the theoretical approach to answer your question and mentioned the the slight overlap. But, simplistically, had they been dazzle types then the contemporary official documentation (CAFOs etc) would have referred to them as such ie as "Admiralty Dazzle designs". But they do not. Contemporary official documentation eg CAFO 302/41, CAFO 1983/41, the various aerial observations files, and the surviving Leamington background working files (including notes by one of the designers) refer to them as Admiralty Disruptive designs, not dazzle. From the horses mouth, CAFO 1983 of 9th October 1941, at exactly the time Rodney's scheme was being designed at Leamington: There were a few dazzle schemes worn by RN ships in WW2 but they were not designed by the Leamington team. And these were referred to as dazzle schemes in official paperwork. So for example both dazzle and disruptive schemes are specifically and separately identified in CAFO 1983/41 (column B = Type of camouflage, column C = object of camouflage, column D = locality for which primarily designed): Rodney had a disruptive not a dazzle scheme.

Jon, I have no hard evidence on this one but would support @beefy66's suggestion of 507C, 507A & Black on the sides pending any colour film. However please let me firmly steer you away from sand or green or blue for the Semtex. If you will permit me to sound off on this one (!), so much un-researched nonsense is written about Semtex (including its spelling). Much of what is written muddles post WW2 practices back into the WW2 era. Ough is an example of this. In the absence of any ship specific info (it was possible to tint the Semtex mix itself and I know the actual colours on a number of destroyers) stick with grey. The grey would have been BS381C No 32 Dark Battleship grey and, if he has his colours right (!), the closest one in @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies's Colourcoats range to this should be his MS2.

Sorry Rob, I missed this. Tricky one but for what it is worth my best guess is B6. The photos of Loyal on the Clyde (eg IWM FL1375) are 30 October 1942. So it is an MS&B range paint (ie pre B15 or B30 for example which were introduced in May 1943). Have a look at IWM photo FL1656 of HMS Belfast in her late 1942 scheme. The second darkest paint in her four colour scheme, the panel right at the starboard bow, is generally agreed (based on a contemporary painting guide) to have been B5. The darkest paint in her scheme was 507A and is right next door to it, The contrast is not that great, as you would expect given their respective RFs. Now look at the B6 on Belfast eg her bridge. When I compare the B6 areas on Belfast with the darker colour on Loyal in 1942 I feel that what you see on Loyal is much closer to the B6 than the B5 on Belfast.

I'm working from the official records which I have in full for 2nd and 23rd July 1943. On both these dates Loyal is recorded as being allocated to the 19th DF. It is of course perfectly possible that she was "attached" to another flotilla for a few days in between for the Sicily landings themselves as part of mixed units put together for the event. Whether she would have repainted her funnel bands for just a few days is debatable. In July 1943 the 17th Flotilla was a Home Fleet flotilla consisting of the O class destroyers. Looking at the information on their movements at naval-history.net only some of them were in the Med at anytime in July 1943 and of them only Offa received the Battle Honour 'Sicily' (and only Offa received the Battle Honour 'Salerno'). Their allocated funnel markings were indeed one red over two white bands and that is not what you see on Loyal in NA 6808. But in any case during 1943 the 17th appears not to have worn any flotilla bands. 14th's markings were just one red over one black - no white band above those two. Pity we cannot see Loyal's funnel in my photo of her with Orion!

Loyal was allocated to the 19th DF at the time you are interested in (1942-1943): one white band over two black bands. The photos taken on the Clyde on 30th October 1942 and the later one in November show Loyal as first painted, in a lightish overall scheme. But by the time of Salerno she had been repainted (same design) to a darker affair (as per NA 6808). I believe that this photo shows how the later, darker paint has worn away at the bow to reveal the original lighter paint underneath: An indication of the tones of the paint on Loyal at the time of the Sicily landings can be gained from this photo which also shows Orion in frame. The darker paint on her would probably have been in 507A and the darker paint on Loyal looks broadly similar:

I have now heard back from Peter Hall. When he drew up the kit's painting guide he had no new source I'm afraid. He "used the old Man O War #4 Hunt Class Escort destroyers as a reference, plus depth of shading when converting the colour photos of the model to B&W, and comparing them to the photos in the book." For those without access to the Man O' War #4 (RSV Publishing, 1980, Alan Raven & John Roberts) there is a centre page colour spread depiction of Badsworth in this scheme painted by Roberts. The accompanying text relating to camouflage, presumably by Raven, does not mention the colours used. But the green used in the illustration of Badsworth, whilst not absolutely identical, most closely matches the printed colour key swatches on the previous page labelled WA Green! It is quite unlike the key swatch of MS3. So as far as I can see it is only in WP Vol1 page 55 (published in 2000) that Raven suggests MS3. For those with WP Vol 1 but not Man O'War #4 the colour key swatches of MS3 and WA Green on the back cover of WP Vol 1 are pretty similar to the colour key swatches in the Man O' War #4. Hence the green in the colour illustration of Badsworth in Man O'War #4, whilst not absolutely identical, most closely matches the WP Vol 1 WA Green key swatch and is quite unlike the WP Vol 1 MS3 swatch.

@michaele Hard to know where to begin on this one! "Semi-official". Quite how any correspondence "between the Camouflage Directorate in the Admiralty and the dockyards" could have been anything but official beats me! Note also that the Camouflage Directorate was not in the Admiralty but at Leamington; and Badsworth was built in a (civilian) shipyard not a (naval) dockyard. Instructions on how to paint a ship were not issued by the Camouflage Directorate to the shipyards or dockyards. (And having been through the files that survive at Kew, I don't recall a single example 1941-1945 of correspondence between the Camouflage Directorate and a shipyard or dockyard.) We have been round this buoy before. If Alan has any contribution to make on the question of the colours in this scheme by way of such documentation then he needs to produce it. At the moment I have yet to ask Peter Hall why he chose WAG for the painting guide and the best evidence we have is this wartime painting where it sure does not look like MS3:

Yes, it was a stub mast with a yard and a little gaff and positioned at the forward end of the searchlight platform. It is not very clear in any of the publically available photos of Hotspur but I have a private one where it is clearer. I think the yard acted as an aerial spreader and the gaff was for the ensign. The design was very similar (identical?) to that on Defender and Fury: The clearest photos I have of this design are from a set taken of Ilex, but the position on her was at the aft end of the searchlight platform:

@Faraway Yes, a neutral dark grey non slip paint for the painted areas I would have thought. None of the copies of Hunt As Fitted's in the books I have shed any light on the Semtex. But in quite a number of on-board photos of Hunts the usual destroyer-type narrow Semtex walkways are visible on the upper deck running from the forecastle break back aftwards either side. These photos include early Hunts early in their life. But it is fair to say that I also have a couple of photos that seem to show Hunts with bare decks in this area. So I suppose it is possible that some Hunts built during the time of the great rubber shortage after the Japanese overran Malaya, and until the substitutes came on-line, may have had to do without for a while. But Badsworth was built before the Japanese entered the war. On the forecastle deck I suspect it was just the deck inside the twin 4" zareba that was Semtex (and likewise presumably around the aft twin 4" as well). There is a photo of Badsworth at Scapa (IWM A5505) that clearly shows that the rest of the forecastle was not Semtex. (Jamie, I think all RN destroyer construction from the pre war I class onwards was specified Semtex (or equivalent). Highlander's brown deck seen in Ravilious's painting could have been brown Semtex but it could be that the Brazilians did not want to pay extra for Semtex and specified Corticene.)

There were very few RN ships that wore dazzle patterns during WW2 so it would be a very thin book! Going back to the aerial observation report's "black-brown disruptions" on Badsworth and Lamerton I realize that I should add that I strongly suspect that the the "brown" was a tying error that went undetected. The officers doing the observations made handwritten notes whilst bouncing around in the aircraft and these were then typed up later by a typist once back at Leamington. I know that I have come across another example where the typist (who would have known very little about things) made an obvious howler but it was not picked up. So I discount brown which was not a naval camouflage colour then. What I am looking for though is confirmation of green as can be seen in the painting of Lamerton. If so, my suspicion is that the typist was faced with a bit of almost indecipherable scrawl consisting of five letters. She could tell that the second letter was an r and that the last letter was an n. But she then mistakenly interpreted the first letter as a b rather than an g, and then filled in the third and fourth letters as an o and a w instead of an e and an e!

@Faraway Jon, This is a very tricky question as the sources I have do not agree with each other. Hence my seeking an additional source, and I do mean a source not a mere reference, that might tip the balance one way or the other. The starting point is obviously that the design of this dazzle scheme is essentially a slight simplification of the scheme worn by the ex-Brazilian H class destroyers when they entered RN service in 1940. We have an authentic contemporary colour photograph of Hesperus and contemporary observation reports that all tally. The colours were black, "Mediterranean grey" (ie 507C) and a "non-blue medium grey" doubtless BS381C No. 32 dark battleship grey: There is also a painting of Highlander in 1940 by Eric Ravilious but only showing part of the scheme, those parts black and light grey (1940 is of course pre MS1 in any case): However another artist, Charles Pears, painted one of these destroyers (I suspect Hurricane if any of them was actually there at the time) in a the background of his painting of the (locally) famous air raid at Falmouth on 10 July 1940. He depicts black and light grey but the medium colour as a blue. I am not sure if this painting is truly contemporary or painted a few years later by which time numerous RN ships used blue in their schemes. Hence given two contemporary observation reports and the colour photo I discount the blue: There are numerous photos of Badsworth in this scheme and to my mind they all show black as the darkest colour and quite plausibly white as the lightest colour. (You are not going to get MS1 in something that was not an Admiralty disruptive scheme. It would not have been issued to you and the paints would not have been compatible with each other.) The question is the middle colour: We have an aerial observation report by the Leamington team in the Pentland Firth September 1941 where they describe seeing Badsworth and Lamerton in white with black-brown disruptions. So white and black tally but brown....? But then there is this 1942 painting of Lamerton arriving at Falmouth in the NMM collection showing a green: So whilst I am as sure as I can be that the darkest colour was black, and the lightest was white, I'd love to have some additional contemporary confirmation that the middle colour was WAG hence my question. I will ask Peter but would suggest that you carry on with black, white and WAG (as per the Lamerton picture). Best wishes, Richard

It's a very odd colour combination that is suggested. You would not get MS1 with WAG in the same scheme like this. Black is much more likely to have been the darkest colour. But I'd love to know what the source is for the suggestion of WAG.

I'll do some digging in the various records I have to see if they throw anything up. But in the meantime can I just mention that landing craft in the white and B30 scheme were not in a "WA" scheme if by "WA" you mean a 'Western Approaches' scheme. They were in a light toned disruptive scheme specifically designed with the invasion in mind.

Thanks both @GrzeM and @ArnoldAmbrose. I was drawing attention to this issue because I feel that I often read that the aft funnel on A-I's had to be cut down when the AA gun was fitted to improve it's arc of fire. In practice the searchlight and its platform immediately forward of the gun would have been even more restrictive and that was not removed. Also there are many examples in 1940 of A-I's with the AA gun and with the full height funnel (photos of some of them attached below). What I suspect is that the A&A to fit the AA gun was issued many months before the A&A to cut down the aft funnel but, determined by the dates of their refits, destroyers late to receive the AA gun received both modifications at the same time - hence the association in people's minds. Cutting down the aft funnel was a general weight saving measure. (I even have an early 1941 photo of an H Class destroyer with the aft funnel cut down but still with the aft set of torpedo tubes fitted/no AA gun.)

Ah, not quite what I was getting at. I meant why the funnel was cut because the "aa cannon" was fitted/ "that's why the funnel was cut". Do your books say that the funnel had to be cut when the AA gun was fitted and if so what reason do they give?

Just want to check why you think this was the reason the funnel was cut down?

IF Hotspur had any radar at Matapan, and it's a very big if, it was Type 286: She did not receive Type 291 until her major refit March-May 1943