On the day she was attacked,which of the turrets of the Arizona had their tops painted red.?

We don't know. The most probable answer is 1,2 and 4.

The turrets were painted colors that corresponded to the Division they were in, followed by their place in the Division.

Not oxide red, a color like Insignia Red.

What colors did you paint your ship?

Look at the turret tops in this photo

It's hard to tell. BB 39 is inboard of the Vestal, a repair ship, third pair back.

Do the turrets look lighter than the deck, 1 and 2 do. The bright white fore and aft "decks" are canvas canopies.

Turret tops 1 & 2 on Arizona certainly appear different color than the deck or superstructure. Look at USS Tennessee directly ahead of Arizona at her 1 & 2 turrets, for a good comparison.  Number 4 on either one is hard to tell. Yes the canvas awnings rigged up for Sunday service are also a good contrast indicator.

Confusion dudes!Should i just paint them all red or what?I painted the standard hull red black bootstripe and the gray top side.

Paint 1,2 and 4 red.

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/PearlHarborBatDivMarkings.html

Explaining the link Stikpusher posted (I'm R@L), the Navy needed a way for spotter planes to identify which ship was theirs when operating in a group. If you had six ships operating together (essentially two Battleship divisions) and you were a few miles away, how can you tell which ship was yours, when it fired, and thus which shell splashes or hits were the ones you were supposed to call corrections on?

So, think of the old Red, White, & Blue and apply that as a repeating patter. Battleship Division 1 was Red, BatDiv 2 was white, and BatDiv 3 was blue. First ship in each Division was Red, second ship was white, third was blue. The last memo we have orders "all" forward turrets to be painted in the colors of their division. Therefore, Arizona, as the FIRST ship of the FIRST battleship division, had Turret tops 1, 2, and a 4 painted in Insignia red. the Top of turret #3 was most likely not red, but in 20-D Deck Gray, 5-D Dark Gray, or (very unlikely) 20-B Deck Blue. I think the Deck Gray is most likely; this was just done to keep a fairly tidy surface and we have shots just months before showing deck gray around the catapults.

The system used is not too different than that used to differentiate between divisions and sections in Navy & Marine aircraft squadrons from the Yellow Wings era. Just a few less colors involved.

Actually, the system was designed to integrate with the aircraft system. Carrier aircraft didn't adhere to the same pattern until the late 1930s and even then it wasn't a direct translation, but for the battleships and cruisers, the colors of the aircraft and ships matched. So, Observation Squadron One, attached to Battleship Division One, had its nine aircraft split between three ships (three to a ship, obviously).

The first three formed the first section and went to Arizona - their markings were red, since they were the first section. This matched Arizona. The second group of three were the second section, and their markings were white, matching the color assigned to Nevada (turret #4 was white). The third section's markings were blue, which matched... you guessed it, the third ship in BatDiv One,Oklahoma.

I've got a little bit about the aircraft markings up here, but it's far from finished.

Many thanks Sir for the enlightenment on this aspect of Naval Aircraft markings. Now out of curiosity, did the USN fire shells with designated color dye like the IJN did to mark the fall of shot for the spotter aircraft to observe and correct?

Thanks guys!makes sense when you figure if you had the same class of battleships the pilot might pull up to t he wrong ship after a training mission.

Since they were not yet on war footing, what would the color of the  hull and the rest of the ship be?

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Since they were not yet on war footing, what would the color of the  hull and the rest of the ship be?

That's where the debate really gets contentious for some folks. Some say Dark Gray and others say Sea Blue. The upper most areas were Light Gray.

This is the best answer we have at this point.

some of the BBs were a darker blue gray as Kimmel worked on colors. i believe the darker color didn't last well so they were switching back to the dark gray. If you look at the mural at the memorial museum you can see some BBs were different colors. check out the new model there., it was done by Don Pruett (sp?) who presented on the turret top colors at the nautical Research Guild convention in Annapolis a few years back.

:: sigh ::

No, the color transition for the Pacific Fleet for 1941 was Prewar gray until May, then Measure 1 (dark Gray / Light Gray) until starting in august (cruisers first) when Sea Blue was ordered as a replacement. Sea Blue was too light, so they ordered Navy Blue in December after the attack. Navy Blue is in between the Dark Gray and Sea Blue, but was made from the same materials as Sea Blue, just with more tint.

The model by Don (Pruel) was what got me into this whole color debate thing; I was asked to help research and prove she was in 5-S. We found no proof, no smoking gun. There is a *lot* of circumstantial evidence that supports it, but no proof. Anyone who tells you they absolutely know what color she was in literally does not know or understand what they are talking about. Model builders are just going to have to roll the dice for a while, no one can make money off of the research, so it's all happening at the pace of how quickly I can raise fun money to keep looking as a hobby.

Well I painted the hull blue gray with slightly lighter gray for the super structure .I painted the tops of the turrets a shade of red lighter than the lower hull.I painted the tops of the masts white.