King George V question

I am stalled on a build of Tamiya's 1/350th Prince of Wales from the Denmark Strait action & she carried the same colour scheme as the KGV. This was AP507B medium grey on the vertical surfaces & AP507C Dark Grey on the horizontal decks & turret tops. For my POW, I have used White Ensign Models Colourcoats enamels, who do the exact shades. Teak is a sticky subject, as its colour can vary dependant upon whether it has been holystoned of left for a while. White Ensign do a teak & it is quite light, so I am guessing that it is as just sanded, however, as it ages, it can go to an almost grey in colour...or so I have been told.

What might be a problem is the period that Tamiya have based their 1/700th KGV on. I know that their 1/350th KGV is late war & judging by the only photo that I can find online of a built 1/700th one, this is too.

At the time of the Bismarck action, the KGV would have carried a Walrus seaplane amidships. Later in the war, it was landed. The catapult area was used for boat stowage & the hangers were used for accomodation for the increased crew needed for the greater AA battery carried. The Tamiya 1/700th kit looks to have boats stowed amidships. Also, at the time of the Bismark action, both the POW & KGV had what is probably the most useless AA weapon ever fitted, the UP. It fired rockets that dispensed an aerial mine, that was suspended by a parachute & was supposed to float down in the path of the enemy aircraft, be snagged & explode.

One was fitted on top of the B Turret, two on the rear Turret & one or two at the stern. Shortly after the Bismarck action, these were replaced with 40mm Pom Pom mounts. (Interestingly, Tamiya's 1/350th Prince of Wales box shows a picture of her as she was in May 1941 with them fitted, but they aren't included in the kit. White Ensign Models do them in resin in the scale & I have used them for my POW build) The later war KGV also carried 20mm Oerlikon mounts, which were pretty much absent in May 1941 as well as increased radar.

A great source of reference on the class is V E Tarrants book on Kinge George V Class Battleships. Sadly, my copy seems to have gone AWOL, otherwise I might be able to do a bit more than work from memory.

I can't help you with the boat colours etc though. Sorry.

Regards.

David.

 

ww2modeler wrote:

Hi all, I am currently working on, among other things, Tamiya's 1/700 King George V. I need help in finding a good wooden deck color and I need to know what colors the life boats were. I am guessing White for the Life boats on the outside and wood on the inside but I am not sure. Also, when the King George was chasing Bismark, did it have the camo pattern on it or was it just the metal on the hull and wood on the deck. Thanks in advance. David

As for your deck color on this ship WEM makes a nice teak. Lots of modelers us Testors or Humbrol Radome tan. As mentioned above this would be for a deck that was relatively clean. Testors flat tan looks more like a clean, wet, teak deck. At that time I would go with an aged look to the deck of KGV, use flat tan with gray weathering elements. They didn't have a lot of time or energy to be running around with holystones on those decks at that time.

Thank you for the help. I will post pics when done.

David

Its kinda hard to tell from photos what color the small boats were painted but usually (in more modern navies) the ships boats are painted the same shade of gray as the main hull color of the ship. The area under the hull from the waterline down is usually black. Can't say much about the boat interiors but would guess usually the same as the boat hull. Only really fancy colors I recall seeing on small boats would be on VIP craft such as admirals barge etc. They boatswains mates who man those craft usually take a lot of pride in their appearance with highly polished brightwork (brass, stainless steel etc), fancy ropework and stuff like that. I would go with mostly gray colors though if you're replicating a ship during the war rather than during peacetime.       Rick Martin

I'd stick with the basic rule of thumb, Paint everything gray.

Rick Martin wrote:

They boatswains mates who man those craft usually take a lot of pride in their appearance with highly polished brightwork (brass, stainless steel etc), fancy ropework and stuff like that. I would go with mostly gray colors though if you're replicating a ship during the war rather than during peacetime.       Rick Martin

Boat crews often, and quite rightly take pride in their charges.  Also, crews often have a lot of excess time in between the "exciting" bits.  So, the ship's officers have a "labor rich" (or "labour rich") sort of situation.  Painting can be very labor-intensive, which reduce the number of idle hands which might otherwise be tempted to mischief.

Now, with ships' boats, especially barges and gigs, there's a conflict between explicit ship preservation painting (camoflage) and "tradition."  Captain's gigs in peace time are often black; admiral's barges are often all blue.  These conditions are some times reduced to just the gunwale or a stripe under the rub. 

Now, a 3-4" wide stripe is very evident to the people near the boat, and enough to alert the ship llokouts who need to render appropriate honors when the boats are used.  The trick of it is that a 4" stripe is only 0.011" wide in 1/350.  I suppose a person could use the edge of a business card to "ink" that paint strip on--but it would be tough sledding to notice afterwards, too.

I'm working in 1/700 so the stripe doesn't matter much, what about a deck color?

David

ww2modeler wrote:

what about a deck color?

What you'll need is an expert on RN practices (not a drip under pressure <g>).

USN practice was to direct that the decks be painted or stained Deck Blue, so that they would not stand out against the ocean surface.   Now, with nnn ship's lengths of wake trailing aft, whether or not a dark deck helps any is subject to some question.

I want to recall that the Admiralty was more than passing taken with dazzle patterns for the agressive "look" it gave the ships.  I'm guessing few of the proponents of such schems steamed into the north Atlantinc in Winter while having to maintain such a paint job.

Which, I have to admit, is not geting your deck painted.  But, it's what I "got."

Dazzle was also not a good choice if you were being attacked from the air - the ships were more visible. Hence the move back to grey and blue schemes at the end of the war, when the chance of attack by warship or submarine was essentially over.

I saw in the Royal Navy camo books that the Med scheme in 1942 had gone from dazzle to dark grey hulls and light grey superstructure.

The color advice you've gotten so far is OK. There IS some evidence that KGV may (emphasize MAY) have also had her wood decks painted AP 507A Admiralty Dark Grey at the time of the Bismarck chase. As for the boats, they were probably painted similarly to HOOD's:

Interior of open boats: Mahogany (if using our Colourcoats enamels, that would be US 15);

Exterior of open boats: AP 507B Admiralty Medium Grey (Colourcoats RN 02);

Hull of Admiral's Barge above waterline: Medium Green (Colourcoats ACUS 16);

Admiral's Barge cabin tops and underwater hull: White (Colourcoats C 03).

Cheers,

John Snyder, The Token Yank, White Ensign Models, http://WhiteEnsignModels.com 

Hi folks, came across this old thread looking to confirm the deck tan color i used many years ago on my model ships. In the end i found the instruction manual for the Revell 560 scale KGV purchased back in 1984. The color is great and have used it for all my ships any scale.

Mix is like this (Humbrol Matt paint enamel):

1 Part M26 Khaki with 1 Part M34 White

Let me know what you think :)

G

Pontos has just released a conversion set to convert the Tamiya 1/350 Prince of Wales into the King George V as she appeared during the chase. They advertise that this set will not work on the KGV kit. I have ordered the set and will post details on another thread when I get it.

Bill

CapnMac

I wouldn't want to contradict you but at least when I was in the gator navy our ship carried two boats for the use of the officers. One was the officer's motor boat the other the captain's gig. Both were wooden LCPLs with the same underwater hull as a Higgins LCVP only where the ramp might have been they had a "hog nose" and they had a partial enclosed cabin. Both boats had a haze gray hull with black underwater. Both had the cabin painted white. The officer;'s motor boat had a plywood deck painted dark deck gray. The captains gig had a varnished mahogany deck.

At that time squadron commanders (captains with the honorary title of commodore) had LCPL Mark4s an altogether different boat with an all steel hull and a supercharged diesel engine. I think the hull lines were borrowed from Maine lobster boats.If my memory is correct they were outfitted the same as a captain's gig although since the deck was steel it probably was painted dark deck gray.

We rarely if ever saw an Admiral's barge but I believe those that were around Norfolk had black hulls.

Amphib

I have heard of the de-ramped LCPRs, but never saw one myself; all the LCPL were the Mk 4 in one lash-up or another.  I went to school with a bunch of folk who wound up brownshoes, and the "large boys' they tootled about in often had entire regattas of small boats all specialized to one or another of the loft panjandrum such ships had an amble supply of.

That, and I was trying to address OP  as my memory of RN practice was captain's gig was black and admiral's barge was blue--or some such

But, there are too many days when I'm not sure what I actually know.  Was distracted by a photo the other day--it was a WWII AK unloading into LCVP with a Mike boat cutting across to come up in the next station aft of the 'VP.  One of the things that struck me was how many Carley floats were set along the gun''l of the AK.  The splinter camo ran right across and through the floats.  Which made the one missing stand out a bit.  The Mike boat and the 'VP were both from different parts of the pattern, too.