Ships , Colors and why they are like they are .

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

Hmmmm;

Ships . Not very colorful now are they ? Navy ships especially since 1936 . Grey or Sea Blue or combinations thereof . The reason I made the comment about " the Great White Fleet is this .White hulls , Buff upper works ( or Mustard if you prefer , Spicy maybe ? ). They looked Formal and Formidable .

The Ships of the modern navies are grey for a reason . Visibility . They were and are harder to see at a distance . And the engineers and such got their " E " for not making smoke . The less smoke the more efficient they were .

Lotsa smoke either coal or the very early oil fired ships ( there is a learning curve there . Our captain would have ponies if we showed smoke at any time except when blowing tubes . ( to blow tubes ) Proceed to commence blowing tubes by injecting steam into same while turning the nozzles .This will free soot buildup in the unptakes .

It was usually done once a watch on request to , and approval of the bridge and officer of the deck .

That was near impossible to do with coal . So white became grey for two reasons . Now the Decks same thing , have you ever seen a wood deck after six or eight months at sea ? So to shield from spotter planes , Cadet Blue or Deck Grey , ( Blue Grey) was and is , used on all horizontal surfaces .

If you get a plethora of Navy ships in a harbor , now , all you see is grey . Wouldn’t it be nice if this was different ? Except Cruise ships , commercial vessels have gone from Black hull , White or Buff upperworks to Blue , Green or Buff hulls , still with White or Grey-White upperworks . Used to be if there were ships in port you could tell whose they were by colors . Now they have to spell it out in Giant letters on the Hull sides .

there also used to be another recognition factor , Stacks ! Yup , you could tell who was who by house colors on the stacks . Buff Stacks , Black tops , with a dark blue M , for instance , was Matson navigation colors . Marad is Grey Stacks with Red , White and Blue bands on the stack just under the black top band .

So you see the ways we identified ships is fading away . Even during W.W.2 you could tell a Kure or Sasebo ship of the I.J.N. by the color of grey . Ours was four different colors of Grey depending on northern or southern yards and which coast . The (" easters ") I call them were heavier in the Bluer grey .The Atlantic is a different hue than the Pacific in the fog .

Of Course there are exceptions to every situation and the cruise lines have proven that . Sunbursts and other patterns on the sides of their ships . . My gosh depending on the routes Murals even ! T.B.

2

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.

3

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.

4

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.

5

Recall ships doing it in the South Anchorage a lot.

6

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-camo

Non camoflaged with exhasut stains

Camoflaged

Camoflaged with dark paint in way of ship service diesel exhausts

LCS 3

Similar concept on LCS 3

[:O]

7

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.

8

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.

9

“G”

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

10

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 ?

11

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 !

12

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.”

13

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.

14

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.

15

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?

16

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.

17

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 !

18

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 !

19

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.

20

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.