Federal Standard for USN Colors

Assuming these are pre WW2 ships;

Haze Gray:- FS36270

Navy Blue:-?

Deck Blue:- ?

Deck Grey:- FS36008.

You may also find this link useful;

/forums/t/7614.aspx

There are NO Fed-Std numbers for the US Navy's WWII colors prior to the inception of the standard in the 1950s.

The color standard used by the Navy through WWII was the 1929 Munsell Color Reference System.   You will want to read Alan Raven's excellent monograph on the development of Naval camouflage, reprinted in the shipcamouflage website

http://shipcamouflage.com/development_of_naval_camouflage.htm

it will give you an understanding of the nomenclature used by the Munsell system.  

The US Navy's colors during WWII were based on a purple-blue system -- the PB you see in the Munsell reference numbers.  

So what happened -- why didn't the Navy's colors survive the transition to the Fed-Std system like Army colors did.    In February 1945 the Navy discontinued the use of the purple-blue colors in favor of neutral colors.   They were having problems obtaining sufficient pigments  (there was a war going on).  When the Fed-Std was created in the mid-50s the Navy's colors were obsolete.  They were not included in the standard. 

The Fed-Std is not extendable -- you cannot look at a color and say that it should be 2 units bluer and 3 units darker than a given standard.   Someone who gives you there opinion as to a Fed-Std color match is just giving you their opinion - and it should be handled as such

Milairjunkie

Assuming these are pre WW2 ships;

Haze Gray:- FS36270

Navy Blue:-?

Deck Blue:- ?

Deck Grey:- FS36008.

You may also find this link useful;

/forums/t/7614.aspx

Those color specs are correct for modern US Navy,  not prior to WWII.  Although the Deck Gray spec color is close to the Pre-War Standard Navy Deck Gray #20 used from 1919 to 1942

The colors we used in the 1960s were Haze Gray for vertical surfaces and Dark Deck Gray for the horizontal surfaces. Add to that white for handrails, gypsy heads on winches, cleats, and bollards, and all overheads. Black was used for the boot topping and the tops of masts and booms aft of the smokestack that were going to pick up soot. All surfaces were primed first with red primer prior to painting. Strictly non-regulation but we painted the quarter deck deck area green as a joke since the Captain like to play golf when he got the chance.

This brings us to a couple of other points. The entire ship was not painted all at once. Painting was a constant operation with some surfaces fresh painted along side areas that had weathered to some point. However running rust and grime would not have been tolerated. Oh if you had been to sea for a while there might be some rust streaks coming from various waterways on the hull that couldn't be reached from the deck but these would have been repainted as soon as the ship was at anchor somewhere.

amphib

The colors we used in the 1960s were Haze Gray for vertical surfaces and Dark Deck Gray for the horizontal surfaces. Add to that white for handrails, gypsy heads on winches, cleats, and bollards, and all overheads. Black was used for the boot topping and the tops of masts and booms aft of the smokestack that were going to pick up soot. All surfaces were primed first with red primer prior to painting. Strictly non-regulation but we painted the quarter deck deck area green as a joke since the Captain like to play golf when he got the chance.

This brings us to a couple of other points. The entire ship was not painted all at once. Painting was a constant operation with some surfaces fresh painted along side areas that had weathered to some point. However running rust and grime would not have been tolerated. Oh if you had been to sea for a while there might be some rust streaks coming from various waterways on the hull that couldn't be reached from the deck but these would have been repainted as soon as the ship was at anchor somewhere.

This also means that because of the weathering mentioned above, as soon as the paint has been dry a few days, the colors will start departing from any standard.  The standard means only what the paint looks like when new.  If you mean to depict it in service, it will look different. 

And then, of course, there is the whole thing about "scale distance effect" and lightening colors for atmospheric perspective.  Personally I don't do that for any genre of models EXCEPT model ships.  The scale viewing distance for ships, especially 1:700 ones, is great enough that lightening colors for atmospheric perspective is a valid concept.

I just buy the paint from White Ensign models (Colourcoat enamel) and cruise along happy.

I don't have either the knowledge or the inclination to get into an erudite discussion of this subject (which seems to excite quite a bit of emotion in some quarters).  I will, however, venture to suggest that anybody who's interested in warship colors take a look at this Forum thread from a couple of years ago:  /forums/p/99738/987616.aspx#987616 .

I'll stand by the comments I made in that thread (which nobody actually contradicted).  So many factors go into the colors of paint on a model - and the human eye's perception of those colors - that, if one tries to analyze them, one quickly realizes that pronouncing a color "right" or "wrong" is an utterly empty exercise. 

I have the deepest possible respect for those who've done such interesting and thorough research into the subject; any serious scale modeling project ought to start with a study of what the prototype looked like.  But when it comes to the actual painting of a model - well, there's plenty of room for personal interpretation, personal opinion, and even personal taste.

It's occurred to me to wonder, for instance, just how much fuss it's worth making over the oft-discussed difference between "Sea Blue" and "Navy Blue."  I suspect the various factors we mentioned in that earlier thread (variations between paint batches, effects of age and weather, effects of light [sunlight vs. flourescent], the "scale effect," etc.) could, in combination, make more of a difference than we'd see between a sample of "Navy Blue" and a sample of "Sea Blue" sitting on a table in front of us.

My suggestion continues to be:  Find out, to the extent that you can, what the color scheme of the actual ship was.  Read up on the various sources that are available in print and online; it's a fascinating topic.  Then make up your own mind about how to paint your model - and if some self-proclaimed expert doesn't like it, tell him/her to .

While I would agree with some of your comments concerning color I find that your overall commentary would be more appropriate to ships that preceded the great steel navies of the 20th century.  Simply taking USN colors as an example the  use of the word gray is so deceptive. The USN had variations on "standard" navy gray even before WWII.  The camouflage patterns of 1918 would be tremendously distorted if the right colors were not researched and used.

As Ed Grune wrote the colors of WWII for the most part had a totally different base than postwar colors going from a purple base to a neutral base.  A great place to start for accuracy is the White Ensign line of Colour Coats paint.  I try not to use solvent based paints in my restricted work area and in fact prefer to use water based paints anyway but I still use the WEM paints as a basis for mixing water based paints to look more appropriate on the model.  While it is true that lighting, humidity, time of day and angle of perception all have their effect on the color perceived by the human eye you really must start with the right color tones and  scale for the proper effect.

Your comment seems to minimize the concerns of those in the hobby that seek accuracy.  Why shouldn't ship modelers maintain a standard of accuracy found among armor and aircraft modelers?  It is not an "utterly empty exercise" to get the colors right.  There is room for interpretation with regard to saturation and weathering but there is also a right and wrong color to be used.  WS

Please read my earlier post (the one from 2008, the link to which I provided above) again.  I wasn't arguing that studying the actual colors of the prototypes wasn't worth doing.  My point was that converting knowledge of the prototype colors into the "right" (maybe "appropriate" would be a better word) colors for a scale model is not an exact science, but allows plenty of room for analysis, interpretation, judgment, and even taste.

That's just as true for armor and aircraft modelers as it is for ship modelers.  Anybody who thinks that painting a 1/72-scale airplane with paints that precisely match those on the prototype aircraft will produce a model that really looks like the prototype is kidding himself.  The subject just isn't that simple.  And I most emphatically do not accept that a modeler "really must" start with any particular color for the "proper" effect. 

In more than one other post I've been called on the carpet by people (sailing ship enthusiasts, generally) who complain that I'm too interested in scale accuracy.  (Take a look at the long-running, bloody skirmishes regarding the Heller Soleil Royal.  I was the one who argued that, if Trumpeter's 1/350 Fletcher-class destroyer was...well, something less than a state-of-the-art kit, the Heller Soleil Royal ought to be regarded as a piece of junk.  For some reason or other that assertion was not exactly met with universal approval.) 

I think I can claim to be just as interested in, and have just as high regard for, scale fidelity as any other modeler.  My contention is simply that the way to achieve scale fidelity is not by mechanically duplicating the paint colors of the prototype.  And that's true regardless of the subject matter.

I'm reminded of the time I asked my father-in-law what color his fighter was in WW2. It was a bit of a question, since it was a British built aircraft in USAAF service.

"I dunno, I was too busy climbing in and out of the damn thing to pay much attention".

I've been scale modeling since those little bottles said 10 cents on the cap, too. And I definitely have long been in the "blue is blue" mode, until I started model railroading in the steam era, (both me and the subject), and this www thing came along.

Luckily for us the Munsell system and all the other color systems used are definitive, or it would be a total loss.

I can't quantify scale effect, but I do know that color perception involves a fair degree of psychology, as well as biophysics.

So I'd say, yes we know the answer, but is it always the right one? I would submit; no.

Every modeler must make decisions on the extent of the work to be included in his or her model and that includes paint and color research.  Whether you wish to call the color right or appropriate is immaterial.  What is material to an accurate representation is being in the at the very least the right basic shades.  While you may feel that an airplane painted in precisely matched paints will not look like the prototype many people will differ with you.  

One of the great things that the Internet has brought to us over the past ten years or so is sources for the correct information.  For some of us it is gratifying to have that information and use it.  I build both 700 and 350 scale ships as well as armor.  I have in the past been ignorant of the right colors to use on my models and diminished them in the use of what amounted to a totally inaccurate palette.  

I have had my training in history, government and the law and can appreciate the value of accurate information.  I also appreciate the satisfaction of using that information.  When people view my ship models one of the first things the average person will say is that they thought all warships were gray.  It helps to make their appreciation of the era and the people portrayed in the model more vibrant and more relevant to the observer to make it right.

This is not to say that there is no room for weathering and usage.  I have seen brilliant models portraying hard use and long times at sea away from the hands of the shipyard.  They do all start with the right color, and there is a right color, the color they were painted at the time.  Obviously, a modeler who wishes to weather a model will use analysis, interpretation and judgment to create the effect wanted.  Taste, however, can give us purple Arizonas.

While you may not accept that a modeler must start with a particular color for the proper effect it hardly makes a model accurate if the camouflage scheme should be done in purple blue based colors and is instead done in neutral based colors no matter how much analysis, interpretation and judgment is used.  Yes it may be a great paint job, a virtual tour de force of artistry, but it won't be accurate.  The work that I have seen of some of the truly great ship modelers starts with accurate colors.  They may weather them, fade them or in other ways manipulate them but they start with the right ones.

As much as I may like the work of some of the truly gifted artists out there who build ship models that are weathered and faded, put in seascapes with hand painted backgrounds and are so good as to be breathtaking (just take a look at the galleries in Modelwarships.com and take in Kostas Katseas and Jim Baumann's work), I prefer to use the colors in their original formats.  That is not to say that I have not built models that have experimented with scale and atmospheric effects, it just expresses a preference.  

Poor Eric, it was such a simple *cough* question. But damn if we didn't answer it into the ground!

But at least the forum members are staying in character!

I certainly appreciate the help here. I've sworn off enamels but decided to trust the good people at Dragon (makers of a 350 scale Laffey and 700 scale Livermore that I have) that list their paints according to Mr. Color (Gunze) - so I bought several of those in the naval range. (Deck blue sounds like a very interesting mix.) I'm actually glad that there's no final answer to this question - I'd hate to have an entire fleet painted the same colors.

I also have great sympathy for people trying to track down how things were done during wartime. I pay for models by writing about my father's war any decent military historian treats the subject with humility. It is startling how much information that you'd think would be at someone's finger-tips is not. (One subject that I never solved to my satisfaction was the make-up of a WWII warship's complement according to rank and division. A guru at the Navy Yard told me that I'd probably never figure that one out. It was also surprisingly difficult to get data on the actual impact made by artillery shells and bombs. Getting bombs or shells on target was a rather important part of the war - you'd think data like that would be simple to find. It wasn't.) Look at the wonderful articles put together by modeling buffs or the folks military historians call "rivet counters." It's a rare example that doesn't say something like "to the best of our knowledge" or "information is unclear" or something else meaning "you're guess is as good as mine." Nobody should feel bad. I was told by an officer that when the USN put Iowa back into action in the late 80s that they had to track down WWII era vets because some of the manuals covering the subsystems didn't exist.

Yet if modeling has some connection with real artifacts from the past one must put some thought into the subject. Personally, I think a submarine would look great in a green/brown camo pattern worn by either tanks or aircraft. Unfortunately no admiral agreed, so I guess that's out. But you can get into soup pretty fast even with the best of intentions. According to the Camo page MS12 is a combination of shades of blue and shades of gray (grey: people can't even decide how to spell the blinking color) - look at photos. Some appear to be gray ships with blue blotches and other blue ships with gray blotches. Flip a coin? And what do we know about field conditions. The USN in the South Pacific had a three tier base system. The forward bases were in the New Hebrides in 1942 (later places like Manus): behind this was Pearl Harbor and behind Pearl the big yards in the US. If a ship was transfered from the Atlantic to the SOPAC on the double (say the way Sterrett was) would she have been tidied up according to the latest directive? Until 1944 ships spent little time at sea, but would a vessel at Espiritu Santo get a repaint or would that wait until the next visit to Pearl? This is no idle question because when ships were at sea during the nasty engagements in the Solomons they operated at full battlestations once within air range of Rabaul. Everyone talked about the incredible fatigue involved. Hard to believe there was much spit and polish - not to mention the impact of the harsh sunlight and heat and frequent moments running at very high speed. Could be that if you wanted to model a ship just back from the slugfest of November 13-15 off Guadalcanal that a very heavy dose of weathering would be quite in order. The same ship leaving base a few weeks later might look different.

If nothing else I expect to have fun. I've found that I get a real kick out of color mixing: just like being a little kid. Just painted a Rodney with a gray based upon a chromatic black of my own making. (Also weathered it a little like the MIG guys do tank: worked okay I think.)  When you start messing around with that sort of stuff, you can see how close blue and gray can be. Throw in weathering and scale effect and I'd think a honest modeler would have a fairly large palette to chose from without mocking history. (Although I'd still like a green sub.)

Eric

As one of the researchers who has put a bunch of time into camouflage research (I'm actually down at San Francisco Archives this week in fact) I will go on record and say that the correct color is the one YOU enjoy. If you enjoy accuracy, start with an accurate color and go from there, but if not, paint it whatever makes you happy.

As others have said, paint is different between applications and weathers...who can say if a shade is correct or not?

That said, if you want to read some of the US source documents I've posted many of the ones I've found here.

Tracy White

As one of the researchers who has put a bunch of time into camouflage research (I'm actually down at San Francisco Archives this week in fact)

Eric

I know this is getting off the thread of colors but you brought up the question of wartime manning of the ships.

Case in point is the APA that I was on in the mid 1960s. At that time we had a complement of 26 officers and around 450 enlisted. Navsource gives the wartime complement of a Haskell class APA as 56 officers and 480 enlisted. Now the only real difference in the ships was the elimination of the 20mm guns. There still were the same number of boats. So the reduction in enlisted crew size seems reasonable if you eliminate the 20mm gun crews.

What I can't account for is the 30 additional officers in WWII. Maybe a half dozen or so but not 30. The second question would be quarters for 30 more officers. We weren't crowded and probably could have added an additional 10 maybe but certainly not 30.

Anyway just one of those questions that probably will never be answered. I would love to see a watch, quarter, and station bill for my ship during the war though.

Amphib

The technology and role of the USN changed so greatly between 1939-1953 (the Korean War was the real beginning of the US as a peacetime "superpower" because of NSC 68) that it's hard to compare with the prewar years. In general the wartime complement during WWII was usually far higher than the 1939 equivalent. There were several reasons for this. A vessel built before 1941 was, to put it mildly, super-analog. People were cheap remember, but ships were expensive. So in the pre-39 peacetime USN warships spent a lot of time in port or on training exercises. Proper maneuvers were not frequent because they were so expensive. Anyway, it wasn't considered necessary to keep enough men on board to keep the ship fully battle ready 24 X 7. And, because you weren't at sea as long, upkeep was less. Remember that in that world there were a lot of unrated seamen doing menial labor. (No wonder a lot of sailors said "smaller the ship, better the service." Less brass, less polish etc.) After war began to loom the situation changed and went into overdrive after Pearl Harbor. I hesitate to throw numbers around because I don't want to get into my own technical stuff right now, but the complement on every warship went up considerably. In wartime you had to be able to keep full watch 24 X 7 - naturally that meant battlestations. (And in dangerous water ships did it too. Even outside dangerous areas every ship in wartime had more men on watch than in peace because of submarines or anything else unexpected.) Ships were also at sea more often and that required more men fixing things. And the more people you have, the more people you need for the people: cooks etc. As warships began adding AA armament the situation grew more extreme. (Naturally CVs were in a class by themselves because they were dragging around airplanes which simply sucked people to keep them flying.) It didn't take the Navy long to figure out that saving labor on board ship was a very good idea and during the war itself a lot of thought was put into this. Anyway, after the war, (minus a few golden months around 1947 when peace seemed to have broken out) it was not back to 1939. The new peacetime Navy was expected to be battle ready in a very short period. Ships, compared to the interwar years, spent much more time at sea. Over the years ship designers figured out more and better ways to do more with fewer people. (I think a modern sailor would be amazed by the number of naval ditch diggers an old ship carried. Now machines do much of the dirty work and heavy lifting and sailors are expected to have skills.) The result was that the swing in complements was less after 1945 than between 1938-41. Indeed, it started to decline as newer ships came on line. In a sense this is a modern take on an old pattern. HMS Victory carried about 900 men - not much less than Texas in 1945. Lots of guys, but needed if you were going to man all of those guns. You can bet that before 1789 the Admiralty wasn't feeding that many men with no war to fight. A Navy is the ultimate rich boy's toy - unfortunately if you need one there is no real substitute and they are not easily made quickly.