Ships , Colors and why they are like they are .

Thats a nice essay. My hat is off to anyone who could tell Kure from Sasebo.

I wonder if camouflage patterns went away when radar range finding came into more general use.

GMorrison

Thats a nice essay. My hat is off to anyone who could tell Kure from Sasebo.

I wonder if camouflage patterns went away when radar range finding came into more general use.

 

Part of the reason was that. The various camo measures were based upon the most likely threat. The “disruptive” & “dazzle” schemes were more effective against optical rangefinders and other such devices such as submarine periscopes. The overall dark schemes were more effective against aircraft. There is one of the new LCS ships in a camo pattern. And many USN small craft that work inshore have green camo patterns similar to what was worn on PT boats in WWII.

Tanker - Builder

commence blowing tubes

You could judge the relationship between the XO and the Head Snipe on how/when tubes were blown.

If the relationship was poor/bad, the Boss Snipe would call up to the Bridge to announce "Blowing tubes!" about 90 seconds before that happened.  And would be invariably with the wind over the bow.  Which covers the ship from funnel to stern in sticky soot on nearly every surface.  Which meant the deck paes got an extra special work out cleaning all those surfaces (the sparkies got extra work in for all the antennae and the like aft of the stack(s), too).

In a good relationship, the Snipe ould have a Department conference, and everyone would figure out the best course/wind profile and thus, time, for this exercise.  Soot goes over the side off downwind, not so much stuff on decks & gear, all things run smoothly.

Mind, I remember a day when a sub-ideal relationship finally bubbled over--the ship blew tubes.  At Dockside.  With a seabreeze coming in.  Ship, shore, everyone nearby, TypeCon (and offcie), everywhere.

Recall ships doing it in the South Anchorage a lot.

stikpusher

Part of the reason was that. The various camo measures were based upon the most likely threat. The “disruptive” & “dazzle” schemes were more effective against optical rangefinders and other such devices such as submarine periscopes. The overall dark schemes were more effective against aircraft. There is one of the new LCS ships in a camo pattern. And many USN small craft that work inshore have green camo patterns similar to what was worn on PT boats in WWII.

Hi,

I don't know if this is fully true or not but, I've heard it said that a big part of the reason for the camoflage schemes on the new LCSs is really just to help hide the exhaust stains on the sides of the ship.

Pat

Non camoflaged with exhasut stains

Camoflaged with dark paint in way of ship service diesel exhausts

Similar concept on LCS 3

The former FDNY Fireboat JOHN J. HARVEY was recently repainted in a modern intrepretation of a WWI dazzle scheme.   The paint scheme continued from the hull and superstructure onto the decks.

My understanding is that the reason the British Navy rushed to oil-fired boilers was to eliminate the smoke.  That made oil-fired ships the stealth ships of the era.  Britain, of course, has very little oil, and even their colonies were not a big source, so the supply problem was there, but they felt the steath advantages of oil were worth having to seek petroleum sources.  They knew where it was, and were confident they could deal with the politics to obtain it.  There was a great book on the rise of petroleum, The Prize, the Quest for Oil, that discussed this quite well.

"G"

 On that question , it took time , but , yes !

Don ;

 Very astute comment and recommendation there !  The coming of oil fired ships  did for a while enable , and with a good engineering crew mean stealth of the day .

 But the Royal Navy Never has had a good Rep between Ranks and Departments even today . Some of my English Immigrant friends , refuse even to talk about their service in British Ships . What does that tell you ?

You Know :

 You could have a point there .The new paints of today probably don't scrub up with diesel oil and rags . Thus rendering the stain gone .Oh that's right , you can't spill a compound like diesel fuel in the water . Even though it will evaporate in a few hours !

PFJN

I don't know if this is fully true or not but, I've heard it said that a big part of the reason for the camoflage schemes on the new LCSs is really just to help hide the exhaust stains on the sides of the ship.

Sadly, there's almost nothing about the LCS ships that does not boil over into controversy.

Back to the point of this thread, one of the problems of photos of ships is that such photos are taken precciselt when they cantrast most with their backgrounds.  Which may not reflect the conditiona in which they actually operate.  Which means that there are almost no photos of ships where their camoflage is "working."  Which can leave an impression that the effort was somewhat "wasted."

Don Stauffer

My understanding is that the reason the British Navy rushed to oil-fired boilers was to eliminate the smoke.

There's a bit more to it.

Coaling takes a couple days; oiling only a few hours.  So, time off station is pretty significant.

Also, you needed coal stations ate the end of steaming legs.  Which were not always places where coal naturally occured.  So, you had the additional problem of hauling coal from where it was to where it needed to be.

There's a similar issue with oil, but oilers can be filled (and emptied) more efficiently for stockpiling.  Also, the volumetrics are way better--coal has all sorks of nooks and crannies which are not fuel, but take up bunker space.  So, you get more BTU per volume with oil than coal physically (also chemically, too).

And, that latter is really key--you get more steaming time from oil than coal.

For a commercial enterprise, fuel cost would be a concern.

The Southern Pacific Railroad went straight from wood to oil because that’s whats there in Texas and California.

For the military, I suppose that’s less of a concern.

CapnMac82

 

 

PFJN

I don't know if this is fully true or not but, I've heard it said that a big part of the reason for the camoflage schemes on the new LCSs is really just to help hide the exhaust stains on the sides of the ship.

 

 

Sadly, there's almost nothing about the LCS ships that does not boil over into controversy.

 

Back to the point of this thread, one of the problems of photos of ships is that such photos are taken precciselt when they cantrast most with their backgrounds.  Which may not reflect the conditiona in which they actually operate.  Which means that there are almost no photos of ships where their camoflage is "working."  Which can leave an impression that the effort was somewhat "wasted."

 

I was looking at photos of current USN Special Warfare Craft, to get an idea of the green camos worn today by some for their riverine ops. Interestingly, some also wear gray camo schemes of a similar type as seen on that particular LCS. I do not think that it is a ”one off” for covering exhaust stains. If so, why also apply a lighter color that is more likely to show any stains?

I watched an interesting program last night on PBS about the building and operating of the Queen Mary (the Cunard liner, not the battleship).  It reminded me of something strange- how everyone always finished their liners in the same color scheme- black hull, white superstructure, buff funnels and maybe some hardware.  Tradition, I guess.

Capnmac82 ;

 You have to remember too , The various Navies could refuel on the go by sharing it out from the larger ships , then the larger ships would deal directly with the oiler . We call it " Unrep now  ". It was called a bad day at sea for the Tin Cans !

 Don ;

 Many years further back than you and I go there was a consensus .Black ships weather better and look better coming to port .Plus .The last issue of the " Ships in Scale " show the reason , real good . The Ships ferrying passengers to the great ships , say at Cherbourg look as big close up as others .

 The idea , More stacks ( real or not )and Darker colored hulls , All in all makes the ship look larger and more impressive . White upperworks fade away as you look up on a sun lit day , thus adding to the massiveness of the  ship you're looking at .

 Even then , marketing was almost God like in their application of colors and angles in brochures , even for Tankers and Freighters . remember in the 20s , 30s , and 40s Freighters sometimes carried about fifty passengers to ports not reachable by land at the time . And remember there were not much in the line of aircraft yet !

 The idea , A large angular photo of a very large ( possibly ) ship at the dock . Looking massive and strong . Able to get you to the Horn of the Bosporus and meet the wiles of mother Nature while doing it .

 Last but not least . A Black ship can be seen further away than any other color  , so spotters for the lines , with Binoculars on headlands and rivermouths  , could report the approach to the line office , Even Before , the pilot was onboard , there-by confirming the schedule had been kept !

There is an old coaling station in the North Bay a couple of miles from where we used to live. Quite a facility. Because of the deep water anchorage, Iowa moored there when she visited San Francisco.

The site was a codfish processing plant in the 19th Century. In the early 20th, it was a USN coaling station.

From 1934-1939 the Roebling Co., spun the cables for the Golden Gate Bridge at the site.

During the war, the station was the depot for maintenance and deployment of the anti-submarine nets across the Golden Gate.

Vacant in the latter half of the Century, the facility is in remarkable condition and is part of San Francisco State University's Romberg Research Center.

Tanker - Builder

The various Navies could refuel on the go by sharing it out from the larger ships

To be fair, UnRep was a wartime exegency, and was about twenty years after the military navies all went to oil.

UnRep started as a straight-from-oiler proposition until some unsung bright spot realized that large capital ships could refuel tin cans as readily as an oiler.  Which also meant not limiting the TF to the speed of the attached oiler.  particularly since true Fleet Oilers would not enter service until about 1945.

(No mean feat, getting an oiler up to TF cruise speeds of 15-18kts.)

"Bad day for the Tin Cans" :)]

I was universally taught that any CPA (closest Point of Approach) under 2000 yards was a "dangerous near miss."  So, the 150-200' separation required for UnRep was a white-knuckle nail-biting exercise.

Only thing tougher was a tandem, where the oiler was in the middle with a bird farm or the like on one side, and smaller carft on the other.

During an UnRep, the water moing betweens the hulls acted a bit like a venturi.  So, it was always pulling the smaller hull in.  So, it was a constant struggle to keep the span wires goldilocks.  Snapping span wire(s) bad; fuel hose(s) equally so.  Either could net you a MOB out of the UnRep party, too.

One of my very favorite box art pieces, by John Steel.

I liked it so much, I built it.

Thats a nice looking oiler.

I'm doing an oiler for a friend that served on the Mattaponi AO41. The kit I'm using is a Lindberg repop, 1/525. It's a fairly crude kit. The kit is actually a Kennebec class oiler, a T-2 type and the Mattaponi was the first of her class, a T-2A. She was 20 feet longer, but basically the same otherwise, but it's taking a bit of work to make it the Mattaponi.

What kit was yours built up from?

EJ

I kind of like it...

yes-no.

The Burke looks best in gray, IMO.

The oiler model is the Revell San Juan Capistrano. I made a lot of revisions. 

stikpusher

The “disruptive” & “dazzle” schemes were more effective against optical rangefinders and other such devices such as submarine periscopes. The overall dark schemes were more effective against aircraft. There is one of the new LCS ships in a camo pattern.

A couple of points of clarification/correction. Disruptive schemes were used in the US Navy until 1945 as German and Japanese submarines were considered more of a threat (it was harder to guard against them than aircraft that could be picked up on radar) until the Kamikaze was used starting in late 1944.

"The overall dark scheme" were more effective against aircraft" while technically true in many cases is missing a bunch of information. The most effective scheme for hiding a ship is one that matches the background. If the plane is high and looking down on the ship and the ocean, a dark tone is going to best hide the ship.

If, however, the attacker is low and searching against a light sky, a dark paint is going to stand out. The US Navy stopped using black paint on the masts of ships and as shadows in the hull numbers in the late 1980s/early 1990s because optically-guided surface skimming cruise missiles were able to use the high contrast of that paint to target the ship.

stikpusher

I was looking at photos of current USN Special Warfare Craft, to get an idea of the green camos worn today by some for their riverine ops. Interestingly, some also wear gray camo schemes of a similar type as seen on that particular LCS. I do not think that it is a ”one off” for covering exhaust stains. If so, why also apply a lighter color that is more likely to show any stains?

It's technically a "two-off" scheme as two of the LCSs are painted in a dazzle scheme. And yes, it is primarily to hide the soot stains from the diesel generators aboard - while both ships have different patterns, you can see that the black sections are in nearly the same location on both and extend aft from the exhaust ports. LCS-1 Freedom's captain sold it as a maintenance and crew moral effort and during an interview stated that he and the ship's XO looked at some old photos of ships or design sheets for inspiration when they laid it out. If you look at them, they do a bad job at breaking up the ships' outlines or obfuscating direction and speed.

As far as the colors being green and/or gray, the Navy learned in WWII that it wasn't the color that mattered in camouflage as much as *tone*. If you think about how many modelers discuss "Scale effect" and how the colors mute out with distance, this is essentially the same thing. Close up, color can matter, but as you put more air and moisture between a subject and the viewer, the vibrancy fades and you merely need to match against a light sky or a dark ocean. Gray can also be good at taking on hues from surrounding sources and can adapt somewhat.

Mr. White, extremely good to hear from you here.

"Tone" is also referred to as "value". It's the way we see the apparency of an object, as a quality that bridges colors. The most common way to evaluate value is to squint at the object. Which is of course the method most used before radar.

Remember Mountbatten Pink? The value of that color was about the same as Haze Gray. Or Ocean Gray. Generally hard to make out at a distance.

Last thought- a lot of color on ships with hull overhang, like aircraft carriers; reflected light off of the surface of the sea.

GMorrison

Mr. White, extremely good to hear from you here.

"Tone" is also referred to as "value". It's the way we see the apparency of an object, as a quality that bridges colors. The most common way to evaluate value is to squint at the object. Which is of course the method most used before radar.

 

Is tone or value the same as hue?  I seem to remember color measurement as hue-saturation-brightness.

Don Stauffer

 Is tone or value the same as hue?  I seem to remember color measurement as hue-saturation-brightness.

  

http://www.workwithcolor.com/color-properties-definitions-0101.htm

Hue is the pure color, whether one of the primary (Red, Yellow, Blue) or secondary colors which are mixtures of various proportions of the primary (Orange, Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, etc.)

Tone is the percentage mixture of the pure color with neutral gray.   This results in a 'muddying' of the pure color.  You could also take the brick-red above and tone it out toward gray

Saturation defines a range from pure color (100%) to gray (0%) at a constant lightness level. A pure color is fully saturated. 

value is likened to brightness (or lightness)

GM, thanks for the explanation about color. I had wondered about the Mountbatten Pink in the past, and your explanation makes perfect sense. 

To Mr.White, yes I did leave out a lot of detail on my post regarding the switch from the dazzle schemes to the overall dark schemes due to the kamikaze threat in 1945. I try to keep my posts brief and to the point. I do more than enough writing on a daily basis that I do not particularly wish to do for my day job. But thank you for the explanation on the LCS scheme. I’m sure that you can understand how a non Navy type like myself can easily get led astray by seeing photos of other contemporary USN inshore craft in a similar scheme, and reach my own conclusions, however off target they may be.