Stripping paint prior to battle

Devil Dawg

There is ALWAYS time do get something done on the military, regardless of how long it takes!! And who said anything about liquid stripper? That would be too easy!! Usually, in the military, it's all about elbow grease and the most primitive of tools to get things like paint scraping, mopping, sweeping, etc. done. I can remember many, many times our whole platoon mopping/scrubbing the floors (decks in sea-going jargon) using nothing but very small rags (soaked in soapy water) in both hands, with us all down on those hands, butts in the air, racing from one end of the squadbay to the other, cleaning the deck. We called them "Scuz Rag Races". I can definitely tell you this - that is the best workout for your quads that you'll ever do. Works the arms and chest pretty well, too....

+1

I knew a gentleman who served aboard a cruiser in WWII.  He told me several stories about how they painted the sides of the ship, with many sailors working from "scaffolding" hung over the ship's side using brushes. This after the whole lot had also scrapped the loose paint with scrappers.  It seems the Navy was not shy about utilizing all that available labor!

Gary

There is ALWAYS time do get something done on the military, regardless of how long it takes!! And who said anything about liquid stripper? That would be too easy!! Usually, in the military, it's all about elbow grease and the most primitive of tools to get things like paint scraping, mopping, sweeping, etc. done. I can remember many, many times our whole platoon mopping/scrubbing the floors (decks in sea-going jargon) using nothing but very small rags (soaked in soapy water) in both hands, with us all down on those hands, butts in the air, racing from one end of the squadbay to the other, cleaning the deck. We called them "Scuz Rag Races". I can definitely tell you this - that is the best workout for your quads that you'll ever do. Works the arms and chest pretty well, too....

Bish

The idea of stripping a full ship seems a bit excessive.

You Know :

     That, even odd as it was , there has to be a basis in fact . Where it is ,who Knows? I just know that when I went aboard ANY ship there was paint everywhere . A lot came down when we went into battle . It was , as I said the result of guns ,torpedoes and ship movements that requires a " Sweep Down " after the engagement . While us Damage control guys saw to the ship's well being as a floating Gun Platform .

   You would be surprised what broke because of gunfire .The forward gun tracked a target once ,only to come to the starboard stops and fire .The concussive wave split a steam kettle in the Galley and shattered the porthole cover and the glass in the port !

     Boy ! Was our Commissary Chief ever P.O.'d

     Come to find out we had a cracked bulkhead right under the port too ! Oh,well , time to break out the welding gear and steel plates . The fact is a GEARING , like a FLETCHER could crack something just making a high speed emergency turn ! They were that flexible !

How would they know they were going into battle? Didn't many battles start without much of a prior notice?Would they even have time?  Doesn't seem logical.

Uh oh, here come the shells/planes, lets start stripping paint!!

the Chinese fisherman went nuts collecting stuff thrown overboard from the Russian ships before going into battle/slaughter at Tsushima. at the start of ww1 and 2 i have read the RN was offloading luxury fire hazards including pianos. look at some pics of adm fisher's quarters on board prior to ww1. looks like a bordello.

Tanks didn't get stripped. A tank could go a lifetime without having the interior repainted. Extra gear on the outside could potentially pre-detonate any explosive round before it hits the armor.

Wow !

   First time I ever heard of that ! I grew up around Navy veterans and Army vets and they never spoke of such a practice , two were on the Iowa . When My ship , A  Gearing class Destroyer , fired her 5" 38 double rifles at the bad guy all we did was pray they couldn't hit us ! Moveable gear stowed tight , and paint chips ,insulation etc , be darned !         T.B.

On a similar note, I was reading "Neptune's Inferno"  (about Naval surface action during the battle for Guadalcanal). Author James Hornfischer made a comment about casting the scout aircraft overboard before a battle since they were full of fuel and oil.

I just wonder how that worked. Did they have to get replacement aircraft for every cruiser and BB after every surface battle?

I don't remember Hornfischer ever mentioned removing paint or throwing mattresses overboard though.

That's what I understand. The command "strip ship" was dreaded by the sailors, it seems. Isn't it amazing that such a practice did not become part of WWII naval lore? You'd think any of us who have spent any time at all even thinking about building scale WWII battleships would be aware of this practice. It reinforces for me just how difficult it is to preserve the past. Just think about how much we don't know about the past. In a couple generations, so much is lost.

Anybody find any other references to this practice?

It' called stripping ship . It is still done today but not to the extent that they did in ww2 .

That book on the Enterprise  by Tillman sounds good. going to check out the book shops this weekend .

I admit that I was skeptical,,,,but, Tillman doesn't type BS into his books.  He must have thought he had credible accounts if he included it in his Enterprise book.

I doubt that... and I do recall reading about how the fire on HMS Sheffield during the Falklands/Malvinas War in 1982 spread by burning the various insulations for wiring and piping throughout the ship after she was hit by an Exocet.

Wonder if this is why "naval jelly" was invented.

And I do wonder if modern paint used on ships is a bit more fireproof than its predecessors.

BarrettDuke

Armyguy describes what the guide told me happened on these WWII battleships. I was baffled by it as well. But apparently, even the captain's stuffed mattress was thrown overboard prior to battle. I'd love to hear some other confirmation or knowledgeable refutation of this. Anybody?

Never heard of such a thing.  With all due respect, I have to call BS on that story.  If for no other reason than the amount of effort and resources that would be required.  The crew would have a lot of other things to better occupy their time before going into battle.

Stowing potentially hazardous gear and material away is one thing, stripping the interior of  ship is something else.

You just don't paint steel surfaces on ships to make them look pretty, you do it for corrosion control to keep it from rusting in the salt air environment

I'd love to see some references or documentation to back up the story.

Mark

Armyguy describes what the guide told me happened on these WWII battleships. I was baffled by it as well. But apparently, even the captain's stuffed mattress was thrown overboard prior to battle. I'd love to hear some other confirmation or knowledgeable refutation of this. Anybody?

It does sound like it going way over the top to strip the paint from the whole ship. I know modern armour has spall lining in, but in WW2 the Germans certainly had the inside of the tanks painted.

The idea of stripping a full ship seems a bit excessive.

I would have to say that stripping paint would take forever, especially on the interior of a ship. All the equipment that would have to be moved/removed to accomplish would take so much time that it wouldn't be feasible. Served on the USS Saipan in a combat zone during the 1st Gulf War, and we didn't scrape any paint - we just made sure that ALL equipment was secured so that it didn't turn into a flying projectile while underway.

I have never heard of any AFV crew stripping interior paint before battle. They were in action far more often than warships, especially battleships, once committed to action, and repeatedly.

If it could burn it went. Paint, cork insulation, linoleum from the deck..

I think in a shermen  the least of your worries was if the paint could catch fire.