Merchant Navy greys,

[Graham Boak]

My understanding is that during WW2 British merchant ships were painted  in two particular shades of grey, a lighter one for the superstructure and a darker one for the hull, with presumably another for the decks.  Can anyone point me to the correct or at least approximate paints to use?  The obvious initial choice might be Colourcoats 507A and 507C. or perhaps the "false 707B" for the hull with 507A for the deck?  Or were these colours neutral in hue?

 

Given weathering of course a range of lighter tones may be appropriate.

[Dave Swindell]

Good question @Graham Boak. Colourcoats did a range of paints for WWI Allied ships (GW codes), at  least some of these were used for the Dazzle schemes on merchant ships. I think these may have originated from the WEM range and most aren't currently available. It would make sense to rationalise paint production and paint merchant ships with paints from the RN palette, but there's quite a lot of variables here, eg ships built in the US would most likely have used US paints as per RN ships refitting in the states. Merchant ships in the convoys weren't all British, quite a lot were foreign flag under allied control so would the same rules apply to them? Some pre-war ships would be owned & operated by private companies, would they be subject to the same rules as war built government owned ships? Was there more than one scheme recommended, did this vary throughout the war? There appears to have been a more uniform approach during WWII than during WWI where the Dazzle schemes seemed much more widespread (IWM has a large collection of Dazzle scheme merchant ship models) but there was at least one CAM ship with a disruptive deck camouflage pattern. @Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies and @dickrd both have a good knowledge of RN practice, but there's not much been said about merchant ship camouflage that I've come across.

[Graham Boak]

I'd rather assumed that all UK shipping companies would be subject to Admiralty orders in this respect, though this must be expected to have taken some time to be applied to all shipping.  After all, we know that Mountbatten got the idea of his Pink from a lavender-coloured liner that he noticed seemed to be the first to disappear from view in convoy.  Obviously this would not apply to neutral shipping, which would be travelling with lights on anyway if independent - and perhaps they did have to conform to be included in convoys.  For obvious reasons, although the semi-universal black hull might be spared but bright colours or white upperworks are likely to have been anathema.  I would expect the US to have introduced much the same instructions on entering the war, although with colours in their own range (and hence blue-greys) if not something aligned or inspired by British practice.  Hence more neutral shades?

 

AFAIK the IWM collection is for WW1 ships.  Which I agree is a fascinating modelling theme were the ships more generally available.  But nowadays I do try to limit my modelling to the period 1935-50 (ish).

 

The immediate background is the idea of converting a Liberty ship model to one of the Sunderland-designed ships, of which they are a very near copy.   For example Ocean Vanguard or Empire Liberty.  The changes are restricted to exchanging the bridge and the mid-mast, with a thinner funnel and some superstructure alterations.   This would be comparatively easy, but I discovered that my Trumpeter Liberty already had the deck glued into the hull, making the deck alterations rather less straightforward.  So it hangs fire a little, but the matter of the wartime colours remains something that perhaps could be clarified?

 

In the meantime, if anyone has an unstarted Trumpeter Liberty willing to be swapped with an only-just-started one, be in touch!

[Dave Swindell]

 

 

28 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

we know that Mountbatten got the idea of his Pink from a lavender-coloured liner that he noticed seemed to be the first to disappear from view in convo

I have some correspondence from Mountbatten on the origin of his Pink, he describes it as Mauve and the liner in question was one of the Union Castle fleet. 

I'm away for the weekend, I'll see what I can dig up next week Graham, presume you've got the Mitchell & Sawyer books on the Empires & Liberties?

[Graham Boak]

I've some books on the LIbertys, but don't need them for this job.  I'm using Henshaw's Liberty's Provenance for a guide to the earlier (and later) vessels.  Unfortunately his plans are 1/600 and my scanner/computer/printer can't seem to get their act together rescaling them.  (I blame the humanware linking them, but there's only so far that can go!  Yes, I have tried ticking the little box that says "print to page size.)  However the actual differences are so slight that some simple ruler/calculator work will do well enough, at least within the limits of my skillset.

 

As a subsidiary question, while we are on the general subject, Henshaw described some of the later Canadian ships as Victorys.  I understood the Victorys to be the later larger and faster US standard vessel used for so many of the amphibious warfare transports. I find it a little surprising that the same "class name" should be used.  Any comment here?

[bootneck]

I believe those Victory ships were the name used for the Liberty design that were built in Canada.  They were built at the Burrard Shipyard in Vancouver, along with the similar Forts and Parks types.  The later and larger Victory ships mentioned above were of the U.S. design and naming convention.

 

Mike

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

I've got some info to dig out on "MSS" (Merchant Ship Side) and "MSD" (Merchant Ship Deck) to a reasonable degree of confidence and then there's a lighter version written about but which I have less data on later. I'll be back...

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Right - I think these are dated to 1941 ...

 

Taken by camera phone under artificial light in the TNA building.

 

And again but measured by my Nix Pro Color Sensor.

 The MSD sample and these colour coordinates have age-darkened to 8.4% RF versus a recorded 11% RF nominal.

 

  The MSS sample is still at 13% RF dead on.

 

 

There's a paragraph in the 1943 document C.B.3098(R) which alludes to these:

"139. The purpose of these changes is to make the names explanatory of the tone and colour of each shade, to avoid confusion with the shades used in the painting of merchant ships and to facilitate calculation of the mean reflection factor of a camouflage pattern."

 

 

 

I still need to find the document which names the lighter grey for Merchants which post-dates the Admiralty direction to use MSS and MSD as shown above. In CAFO729/40 dated 9th May 1940 merchants taken into commissioned service were still to retain their normal merchant colours on the basis that Germans would be either tempted in closer or would be reluctant to attack an ordinary merchant...

[Graham Boak]

3 hours ago, bootneck said:

I believe those Victory ships were the name used for the Liberty design that were built in Canada.  They were built at the Burrard Shipyard in Vancouver, along with the similar Forts and Parks types.  The later and larger Victory ships mentioned above were of the U.S. design and naming convention.

 

Mike

Not to the Liberty design per se but that of the original British source.  These Victorys were a follow-on to the Forts and Parks which were  "North Sands" designs (ie Thompson's of Sunderland) but they adopted the LIberty's oil-burning water-tube boilers.  So effectively the same operationally,  as all these ships were bar fuel.  However they retained the British standard of separate superstructures for "sailors" and "engineers"(my naming distinction) involving the mid-hold hatch positioned aft of the bridge.  They were also mainly riveted although with some welding.

 

The use of the same hull is what gives the potential of modelling something visibly different with so little effort.

[Graham Boak]

Dave: Thanks for the tip, The Mitchell & Sawyer book on the Empires came yesterday and I'm working through it.  More catalogue than very much help in this particular case, especially given the lack of photos of any of Thompson's ships.  However Henshaw has quite a lot, so that should be OK.  I must admit being a bit puzzled by the way each company could build whatever they liked as long as they were the right size and approximately looked like the plans.  I can see now this would be very convenient for 1939/40 but not such a good idea for a long war.  Of course there was no space to lay down massive new factories and slipways.    

[bootneck]

Each shipyard had its own steel production, shaping and cutting machinery/methods; likewise, prewar, their draughtsman were fiercely competitive and secretive as to how they designed their ships.  As such, when the concept  plans came down from the ministry, each shipyards designers interpreted them slightly differently, in order for the designs to fit in with their own cutting. laying out and construction methods.  

 

Mike

[Chewbacca]

On 11/03/2022 at 12:48, Graham Boak said:

Unfortunately his plans are 1/600 and my scanner/computer/printer can't seem to get their act together rescaling them.  (I blame the humanware linking them, but there's only so far that can go!  Yes, I have tried ticking the little box that says "print to page size.)  However the actual differences are so slight that some simple ruler/calculator work will do well enough, at least within the limits of my skillset.

I find the best way to resize is to open the plan/image in Powerpoint, crop the image tightly to stem and stern and then use the format image tool to resize the horizontal component of the image to what size you in need in whatever scale you are using (though make sure that you tick the lock aspect ration box first).