Royal Navy WW2 Camouflage Designs

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 9th April 1942, the Admiralty published Confidential Admiralty Fleet Order 679 entitled "Sea-Going Camouflage Designs for Destroyers and Small Ships" which described the principles of camouflage, the appropriate use of standardised camouflage paints and how they were to be used. Furthermore, details are given on how to conceal shadow by use of counter shading. It was particularly noteworthy in that it contained no fewer than 50 colour illustrations of approved, standardised camouflage designs for many classes of small ships in categories of Western Approaches, Light Admiralty type and Dark Admiralty type designs. Following the renotation and rationalisation of standardised paints, which were officially promulgated in Admiralty Fleet Order 2105/43 in April of 1943, the Admiralty produced as a Confidential Book a revised camouflage manual, recycling much of the material in CAFO 679/42 but for use with the new B&G series paints. This new publication, CB3098/43 was issued in May 1943 one month after the new paint colour palette was issued. Like its predecessor, CB3098/43 contained a multitude of standardised camouflage designs for application to small ships using the new paints. Sovereign Hobbies Ltd is about to make both documents available with digitally reproduced illustrations using the very latest information available on the Royal Navy's WW2 paint colours.

 

 

 

A practical example of the Light Admiralty type Hunt class destroyer design shown on CAFO679/42 plate 54 is HMS Chiddingfold, of which the Imperial War Museum holds good quality photographs of both port and starboard side demonstrating the symmetrical application of the pattern as described in the fleet order text.

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205120663

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205145391

[Stew Dapple]

You've been busy  

 

I'll look forward to seeing them, that first illustration is quite artistic, although I appreciate that wasn't the intention...

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

All Gill's work there

 

Not to dimish her efforts at all, but our intention here is merely to trace and replicate the hand-drawn illustrations which were printed and contained in the originals. These are very readable, but the paper of CB3098 is yellowed quite a lot whereas CAFO679/42 is only available in The National Archives and whilst in good condition, it's in a bound book of fleet orders and thus it's not possible to scan the pages flat without damaging the original. Our reproductions get around all of that.

 

So far, Gill has completed all of the line drawings and we've just started colouring them in together. It made sense to do it that way as the same classes feature around 3 times in each document, and Gill isn't comfortable trying to identify which listed colour is which - as that's been my project.

 

The National Archives also hold a heap of correspondence back and forth discussing the creation of the first of the two fleet orders; who should draft the text, the requirements of the drawings etc. On the latter point, it's recorded that the illustrations need only contain appropriate detail to relate the class of ship, and that small details such as boat davits etc were superfluous. There was a war on afterall, the team working on designing all camouflage schemes for the RN was surprisingly small in number and they had to not only write the text for the publication but produce all the drawings in a short space of time - it would benefit nobody drawing portholes on the ships! We did consider this back and forth and decided not to try to draw more detail, but just stick to replicating the original publications.

[Troy Smith]

Hi Jamie

I know nearly nothing about ships, and probably more about the colours now from reading posts like this, but I really appreciate and enjoy that your research and your sharing of it, and that's why I read them. 

 

Oh, and I laughed a lot at the April Fool alternative paint line...

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Cheers

T

 

 

[Grey Beema]

I'm with @Troy Smith here.  These kind of posts and the ones on Costal Forces have been making me consider building a model ship.  TBH I know very little (nothing) about ships, I know very little about my chosen subject, aviation but your posts have really made me want to build a ship.  For good or bad I think I'm going to have a go at the Airfix Ark Royal once it's released and might try some after market to dress it up a bit.

 

Thanks again @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies..

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Thank you both Troy and Gary, it's nice to hear that other aviation modellers (about 90% of my output is aircraft) are following, and if it helps inspire someone to dabble in a subject outwith their usual area of interest then so much the better!

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Here's another taster: