Navwar Battle of the River Plate

[Oly]

Hi,

OK I've finished painting up the other three ships for the Battle of the River Plate. There's a definite improvement over the first one, HMS Ajax, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

The use of Fortress Grey was a good idea, the ships look a lot lighter, but washing the decks in a deeper brown really didn't make much difference so I dropped it after trying it on HMS Achilles.

There's some photos below including a close up of Graf Spee to give some idea of the sort of detailing that the Navwar minis have.

I just need to get some people together and give the game a try, everything's ready to go now.

 

[anton970]

shit hot sunshine!!!

they look really nice, I'm sold! Ringing Navwar today to put my order in!!

 

[BuShips]

They look fine Oly, as wet decks might look darker than dry teak decks that are bleached a more tan in color. Sometimes decks are painted over grey as well, so someone might decide to do that too. The Japanese even used linoleum rather than wood for some sections of deck, so there certainly are variances to just one color for decks.

 

[DM]

Most Allied ships had their decks overpainted in dark grey or blue. having said that many of mine still have wooden decks, even for late war ships purely because I think it looks nicer

 

[Soulmage]

My wife did all of mine with wooden decks, just because that's what you did! LOL!!

I agree though, it does look a lot nicer!

 

[BuShips]

Most Allied ships had their decks overpainted in dark grey or blue. having said that many of mine still have wooden decks, even for late war ships purely because I think it looks nicer

Yep, the U.S. even had a paint that was named "deck blue". I'm afraid that I went with the "historical" colors on my 1/1200 U.S. collection years ago and I'll admit that teak decks would have looked nicer. :wink:

 

[Oly]

Thanks for the comments, I'll stick with the wood then.

I'm painting Hood, Prince of Wales, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen next. I'm fairly sure that they all had camouflage schemes on them so that's my next challenge.

With that cracked I might try my hand at those water effects, I'm really impressed with what other people are managing.

 

[BuShips]

Thanks for the comments, I'll stick with the wood then.

I'm painting Hood, Prince of Wales, Bismarck and Prinz Eugen next. I'm fairly sure that they all had camouflage schemes on them so that's my next challenge.

With that cracked I might try my hand at those water effects, I'm really impressed with what other people are managing.

A piece of trivia regarding the Bismarck that I learned from watching the "Expedition Bismarck" presentation was that the deck swastikas were painted over before it sank. Because the paint was fresh it came off at the bottom of the sea and the swastikas were once again visible even though they had been painted on as well when the ship was filmed by James Cameron. If you do decide to paint the swastikas, the ones on Bismarck were "squared off" with the decking and not in a diamond arrangement such as in most other german warships of the period. The reason for painting them over was after leaving the range of the luftwaffe (friendly fire certainly happened to the germans before) and not making it a gift for enemies to identify the nationality too easily. Also, I think some of the hull camo that was existing on the Bismarck when in the Baltic was painted over grey. I think it was the diagonal black and white stripes that were sort of 8) on it. Here are some references if they help any:

Baltic-
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/bismarck/paint_schemes/paintbism1941.html

Probably representing the ship at the time of it's sinking-
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels/german_models/bismarckbeisheim.html

 

[Soulmage]

What a gorgeous model! Wouldn't that be a fun scale to play at?!!

 

[BuShips]

Oly, you might know that german practice was to identify Kreigsmarine ships to friendly forces by painting turret tops either red or yellow. I think it mattered where they were operating, with red when in Baltic waters.

Here are some color codes (at the bottom) that might help to identify german naval colors (or colours if you like :wink: )-

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/paint_schemes/introduction.html
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/kreigsmarine.htm


Here is a great resource for the U.S.N. stuff-
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/warship_camouflage.htm

 

[Oly]

A piece of trivia regarding the Bismarck that I learned from watching the "Expedition Bismarck" presentation was that the deck swastikas were painted over before it sank. Because the paint was fresh it came off at the bottom of the sea and the swastikas were once again visible even though they had been painted on as well when the ship was filmed by James Cameron.

That's kind of a shame, I was quite looking forward to doing something a bit different with the big German ships to make them stand out. Ho and indeed hum.

Oly, you might know that german practice was to identify Kreigsmarine ships to friendly forces by painting turret tops either red or yellow. I think it mattered where they were operating, with red when in Baltic waters.

No I didn't know that....

The model you gave the link to above doesn't have the turret tops in a different colour, I'm guessing that they painted those over too?

I might decide to paint up the Bismarck as she looked prior to her final voyage....

Thanks for all the advice and links, will go through them and take it all in.

And yes it is "colours"

 

[DM]

Turret colours changed a lot, generally on an operational basis. For example, Bismarck's were yellow when she was sunk, whilst S&G and PE had theirs painted blue for Operation Cerberus. I used to have a list of ships, colours and dates but I can't find it just now. I'm sure its on the internet somewhere