"Sink the Bismark" - Airfix 1/1200 set.... some colour info request

[Troy Smith]

Despite not needing any more kits,  I ran across this on a sale list at price I was happy with,  £15, which seems reasonable for 7 ships, even if they are titchy

 

from, as are any other pics

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/76379-waterline-sink-the-bismarck/

 

I did have the Ark Royal from this in, oooh, 1976?  Surprisingly I don't think I finished it, (I was 10 and happily slapped kits together in a way that I find hard to comprehend now...)  and I possibly even have the remains in a box somewhere....

 

My knowledge of ships is minimal...  about the level of being able to see on the box there is an aircraft carrier, battle ship, cruiser, destroyer....

 

No wish to get bogged down in these with detail, but my questions is about colours,  as, well, I know that I can get good answers on here, and I enjoy colour discussions.   The kits obviously just have a list of Humbrol 'matches' and having seen  threads on here about RN colours, and one on IIRC, Bismark,  and how what was thought for years has changed, and a lot of older stuff was assumptions and just plain wrong, often it seems from the efforts of @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies  I'd like to get some pointers.

 

I'm not an enamel user,  as if I was I'd just be looking at the Colourcoats site for the relevant paint,   just wondering if anyone would be kind enough to give me an idea of what colours were used, and what these might be close-ish to in either FS595b or RAL K7 fan deck as a visual match, especially considering scale factor..., and I can see what I have or can mix from there.   Jamie, I know your job is to sell paint, not give paint matches for your research, so not expecting you to give me a list. 

 

 I'll @iang as he's up on this. 

 

Right, must go to bed,  so I'll waffle no more, I can post up pics of the instructions later to see how good/bad they are as actual guides

 

Thanks in advance

T

 

 

 

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Hi Troy,

 

Let's start with the easy bit - Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.

 

Hull - Dunkelgrau 51 - RAL 7000

Upperworks - Hellgrau 50 -RAL 7001

Steel decks - Dunkelgrau 2 - RAL 7024

 

I'll ignore all the other colours on Bismarck for now as the camouflage was painted out and you may want either grey or yellow turret tops.

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Excepting HMS Suffolk, the RN ships generally are wearing 507A. The closest FS595 colour is 36099 but 507A is more bluish. The closest RAL is 7011 but same comment, 507A is more bluish.

 

Suffolk:

MS3, and there isn't a good FS or RAL analogue for it. The closest FS is 26250 but it's a bit too light at 26% RF (so closer in tone to MS4 than MS3) and slightly under-saturated. 34233 is also too light at 26%RF (vis 20% for MS3) and oversaturated.

507C is a bit tricky in FS595 or RAL as like 507A it has a distinct ultramarine tint which isn't popular in the standards. 15526 is a touch too light but is much too greenish. 26373 is too dark and completely lacks the blue. 26493 is close in tone but again completely lacking the blue.

MS1 was a near-black.

 

Ark Royal's flight deck was probably Bronze Grey, which was a dark olive made with white, black and ochre yellow. 

[davecov]

This set brings back memories as In 2010, prior to the release of the 1/1200 Sink The Bismarck Set, I was consulted by Airfix about the Humbrol paint colours to include in a Gift Set version. I gave them a list of paints but Airfix decided there were too many colours! To reduce numbers they wanted to leave out two pretty fundamental colours but I argued that it would not be right to exclude them (one of them was the wooden deck colour). The arguments went back and forth but I refused to back down. In the end they opted not to issue a gift set!

 

Dave