Old Levs paint schemes

[foxbat]

I gather that the Levs we'll get in the strater set are the later, 20th century models. But IIRC, Levs are somewhat older than that, and have been around for at least 15 years in 1910, after the Lev Battle of Tsushima 1895. In the real world, as has been already told here, sea going navies underwent a major painting scheme change at the turn of the century. At the start of the 1st World War, most navies used to paint their ships a plain grey, but before that this was not the case.

For instance, you'll find a 1898 colorized pic of the Fench battleship Massena on that page.
As you can see, even though one has to be cautious with such "colorised pics" regarding accuracy, one can make out that the man-of-war is sporting a black hull and light grey upperworks and turrets.
Now, if you take a look at the co,ntemporary British Battleship Hood in 1893, you can see a very similar scheme, albeit with buff funnels.

I'm wondering whether we have the same thing with our Levs, and whether Queen Victoria's passing has, like in real history, been the occasion for a change of decoration, all the world navies emulating the British eventually?

[Worktroll]

Foxbat,

Check this thread for some more examples: http://forums.monstersinthesky.com/index.php/topic,124.0.html

In the mundane timeline we live in, ships moved from the colourful "review" schemes to drabber "battle" schemes in the period 1904-1908. This was a direct response to the increasing range guns were becoming capable of reaching effectively. When you have to be within 1,000 yards of your target to have a chance of hitting, it really doesn't matter what colour your ship is, and when you belch huge clouds of black coal smoke, you can't really hide.

When you're firing at 10,000 yards, though, it does help to blend into the background a bit more. Unlike the flat-trajectory short ranges, you're firing ballistically, and range was estimated using either binocular rangefinders using parallax, or by recognising the ship profile, checking a handy copy of Janes for the length of the ship, then calculating from the apparant length in arc-seconds and approximate heading to work out the distance. In these cases, any advantage - including fake bow waves, or darkening the fore & aft hull to make the ship seem shorter - could be critical.

In the Levs timeline, ranges are not yet at the 10,000-20,000 yards possible in mundane 1910, and flat trajectories are still favourite (calculating ballistic arcs against 3D targets is non-trivial). So the change in paintschemes is intended to achieve the same sort of aim - making it harder to calculate the range - but in a different context, mainly trying to spoil the "windage" the gunners need to allow for.

That said ... there's no reason not to paint up Levs in "review colours", and we do have an official list of them (queued for a subsequent product). Thevarious schemes have been worked out in terms of historical precedents, and intended uses - for example, the British and French are expecting to battle over the North Sea, so grey "battle" schemes work well there. It's entirely possible British Levs in the Meditteranean will use the all-white scheme there too, and so on.

THat help?

Cheers,

W.

[foxbat]

That said ... there's no reason not to paint up Levs in "review colours", and we do have an official list of them (queued for a subsequent product).
THat help?

Cheers,

W.

Yes indeed, a lot of thanks! That's precisely what I wanted to know. 
Thanks too for the link, going top contribute a bit to that thread too.

[jimdigris]

Why did the British and the US return to the dazzle scheme during the second world war?

[foxbat]

Actually, they had also been using it during WW1. The utility of a dazzle paint scheme is, as Worktroll said, to confuse the ennemy rangefinders and so decrease the risks of being hit. I guess however there was neither time nor manpower to apply to all but the most critical units, so a lot of merchants had to sail in crab fat grey livery.

[Worktroll]

Plus a dash of innate military conservatism. "It might be alright for a merchant ship to look like it was engaged in carnal knowledge of a zebra, but not my battleship, b'God!" Darkening/lightening the ends, or adding fake bow waves, was more acceptable.

We have a similar situation at the moment with Australian troops in Afghanistan. Our temperate woodlands stock camo looks quite out of place in the dry hills, so the boffins came up with a special camo pattern in muted pinks & mauves. It blended in far better,  but the leadership refused to accept it. Except for the SAS - who, it would appear, are confident enough in their masculinity to use what I've heard referred to as "Priscilla pattern" (queens of the desert) 

W.

[Deathrider6]

Photographic evidence of this camo pattern must be produced WT.

[jimdigris]

The American Pacific WW2 warfleet had dazzle schemes, including the carriers.  There had to be a reason.

[litsnsirn]

One thing that we probably need to consider, is that after the parade schemes, and drab schemes, as they go to war I would imagine that camo schemes will be developed specifically for levs and wouldn't strictly carry over naval patterns.  Depending on where the unit was serving, a primarily costal unit might have camo similar to naval vessels, but I would think that they would want to blend better into the sky and be harder to range.  I am beginning to thing that they might need to look more like WWI airplanes, how about a German destroyer done up in the lozenges...