Yet another Essex question

Hull is 5-N Navy Blue...

The 'gray' that most people think all warships were painted in was pre-war Gray, and then again after WW2, post war Haze Gray.

5-N was introduced because the Navy felt it would make ships more difficult to see. Of course, throwing a 1/4 mile wake while doing 30+ knots kinda defeats that altogether.

The 5-N you're adding is the pure color, meaning, that's how it looks right out of the can. Obviously, some dry brushing and weathering will lighten it up a bit, they do tend to fade.

Here's a picture of Lexington II (CV-16) in the same Ms 21 scheme you're doing.

Regards,

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

You might want to add some white paint to the mix you are using to paint with. This will ligthen up the color, which tended to fade very badly and pretty quickly to a blue tinted gray. Full strength paint is ok on models, (my view) but real ships would have looked that good and dark for only a short time after being painted / repainted by the shipyard.