hms belfast and nelson ww2 colours

Try 'Royal Navy Warship Camouflage 1939-1945' by Peter Hodges and published by Almark Publishing, London, ISBN 0 85524 139.  Although published in 1973 it has a wealth of information and includes a number of profiles including Nelson.

You could also try 'Camouflage of Ships at Sea' published by White Ensign Models.  I haven't used this so cannot say what it is like, but judging by the rest of their line I would think it very useful.

cheers,

Bill

AGREED!!!    At the very least, the British should have preserved HMS Warspite. I cannot understand why they did not preserve at least one.

Bill Morrison

warshipguy wrote:

I had the opportunity to visit HMS Belfast several times over the past few years.  I was dismayed to find her painted in a WWII camouflage pattern while she herself is preserved in her 1960's configuration.  Bill Morrison

much more to the point imho is why the hell did we scrap all the battleships we had (qe class fought at jutland and in ww2 ffs!!) and preserve a light cruiser instead!

thanks to the post above too :)

I had the opportunity to visit HMS Belfast several times over the past few years.  I was dismayed to find her painted in a WWII camouflage pattern while she herself is preserved in her 1960's configuration. 

Bill Morrison

The painting of ships (of more or less any navy) during WW2 is a very complicated subject and I don't have enough knowledge of the subject, but I can certainly tell you that both these ships carried numerous different paint schemes during the war, including both overall grey and pattern camouflage

The paint scheme on the preserved HMS Belfast (and in the Airfix kit - which I assume is what you're building, it's the only plastic Belfast kit around!) is accurate for its appearance at the Battle of the North Cape (sinking of the Scharnhorst) in 1943. However, at the beginning and, I believe, the end of the war, it did have an overall grey paint scheme. I'm sure it carried numerous other schemes during the war.

Unfortunately, unlike US Navy ships (where there is an excellent website http://www.shipcamouflage.com as well as several good reference books) there is not a great deal of readily accessible detailed information on British Royal Navy WW2 camouflage and paint schemes. However, looking at the archive photos on sites like http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk and model galleries such as http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/index-gallery.html should give you some inspiration!