Matrix Games Forums

A great website for modellers, and ship aficionados. http://www.steelnavy.com/ make sure to check out the ship models, they are extraordinary.

Yeah, it is a great site for information on ships histories, modelling techniques, technical questions, etc. Just don't ask what color the USS Arizona was on 7 Dec 1941

Measure 14 Ocean Gray System
Ocean gray on hull and all superstructure masses. Haze gray on masts, yards, and towers above level of superstructure masses. Deck blue on all decks.

AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! They got a thread like this started over there and it went on for days. The issue was whether one of the greys was actually more blue. It got absolutely crazy over there. People were trying to quote color studies on black & white photos, whether some color footage from a film was accurate and I don't know what else. It was positively acrimonious before it was over![8|]

That's right, no-one ever gets into an over the top debate about a little detail here, do they?[:D][:D][:D]

as i am building a 3d model of arizona (see banner below) i have to deal with colors plus i have to deal with colors that are slightly different on different monitors and printers. i am also building a plastic model.
i bought the actual colors from poly s., painted them on a card and scanned them into photoshop. the ocean gray is quite blue. so why are all the paintings and artwork of arizona gray and not blue? BECAUSE the blue doesn't "look" right. i rendered gun turrets in the "real" bluish color and it's just off. that's why they call it battleship gray, not battleship blue.

What you are saying is technically right. The problem stems from, IIRC, the fact that when the ships on Battleship Row received their paint job, Pearl Harbor had yet to receive their shipment of Ocean Grey. As a result, the color was mixed locally, and some on the Steel Navy Board allege that the paint had too much blue pigment (similar, I think to the so-called Cavite Blue of the USS Houston). The different factions have tried to prove they are right by color interpretations of photos of the ships taken in black and white, and also by trying to analyze some color film taken around the time of the attack. These people are positively, umm, picky (another word starting with an a actually comes to mind) and no one will back down. Me, I am satisfied with the Colourcoats paints by White Ensign Models. John Snyder and his cohorts have spent years researching such stuff, and that is good enough for me. [8D][:)][8D]

same argument occurs in the ww2 armour model community. of course none of us in this forum are like that. we are just playing a game that, if we could play a month's worth of turns a week would take a year to complete <g>.
my 3d arizona has compromises between the plans from floating drydock, the photos from various books, tom freeman's and others' art work, movies, and models. so i just make an educated guess. and i am sticking to the gray.

there are actually artists who only do spaceships and fantasy art because no one can argue they are wrong.

Yeah. That is one of those things that sometimes drives me crazy when I ask what I think is a simple question. There are some very good guys on that board that will help you out, sometimes going well above and beyond to answer questions. I have a 1938 USS Chicago in 1/350, that is about 85% complete, that I backdeted from a BWN 1942 USS Houston. Dave Becker, for one, gave me a lot of technical advice and encouragement. Unfortunately, I'm now in Afghanistan, and the model in New Zealand. It'll be a while before it is completed.[:(]