The Ship Model Forum

After completing some German WWII models in 1;350 scale and working hard on them, I for one have no interest in taking apart and repainting them from scratch or changing them or puchrasing new models or parts to fix the colours. As far as I am concerned now they are staying as is and any further paints I buy of the German range will be from Sovereign for consistency and uniformity of the ships that I have.

I recall reading the WEM research on their paints years ago and they said they could not guarantee their 100% accuracy and were going off the best research materials they had at the time or words similar to that. Their explanation was good enough to me to purchase their paints.

I was aware of Lifecolour at the time and it would have been cheaper to get all lifecolour paints but I opted for the WEM variety.

Changing the paint range will not for me as a model builder be doing me any favours. It was stressful enough to find out the RN paints were almost all incorrect.

What next American paints?

Very sorry to hear about your fire Jamie but delighted you are all safe.

I had just popped in here to wish you good luck with sorting out the German colours next (this time something I could not help you with)!!!

Ouch James! I hope damage is minor and nothing irreplaceable was lost or damaged!

Since we're qualifying - let me qualify my statement. I have a modest amount of ship camouflage documentation on my site (see my signature for those not familiar) and I put it there, online, so that people could read it and judge credibility for themselves.

It's great that Olaf has documents, but I haven't read them, I know nothing about when they were generated, which commands they were sent to, what the availability of materials was like, etc.

Without the ability to look and judge for ourselves these documents aren't credible. I got burned once before trusting people with camouflage knowledge and I'm not doing it again. There is absolutely no problem with stating we don't have all of the answers and can't prove anything.

Sorry to hear about the fire, I should have just asked if you intended or had an interest in giving the German Naval paints the same treatment you did the Royal Navy. You have answered that, and I do appreciate your responding, especially under trying circumstances. Thanks again Dan

All understood, but again why do we believe Lifecolor knows something we don't? It's the "see Lifecolor" in particular part I'm confused about - why are their Baltic greys more credible?

I'm sure you understand that whilst copying other peoples' products is good for some, it doesn't seem like a strong case for asking people to re-purchase products to me so if we ever do change, there needs to be compelling evidence.

If I'm honest German stuff is of minimal interest to me personally so I've never thought twice about them other than to establish that they are S&S based.

Given level of sales, I'd be more inclined to drop the range entirely than revamp it if what was needed was a massive German-language research project.

The RN project has cost me revenue rather than increased in (insomuch as we haven't had any further orders from most of our dealers since) so I don't feel very enthusiastic about making a similar investment in time and money again on the Kriegsmarine.

I should qualify here that we have had a house fire this morning and I have some minor burns on my hands etc as a result of first attempts with extinguishers prior to the professional fire service arriving. I probably shouldn't be posting on the internet when feeling so out of sorts - and I reserve the right to change my mind later on the subject.

That’s funny, and how about the 34+ pages on the correct shades for Prince of Wales, or any of the other color questions that have come up. It’s only important if it matters to you, I guess

Tracy, come on. Don't you know what is important?

What exact color and shades is the hair of the angels sitting on the pin head in front of you?

Man, am I glad I stuck to archival research.

It is my understanding that the types of original documentation you used on RN colors is not available for KM because they were destroyed at the end of the war. The information that is available comes from Russian sources that were taken from Germany and released in the last 20 years. I don’t know where Snyder & Short got their information but just relying on the RAL numbers can be misleading as they came about in 1929, and the original German Navy paint specs for ships in home waters came from 1896. Just as your research on RN colors pointed out many differences with the original Snyder & Short RN color sets, I believe the same is true with the KM colors. Olaf Held has 2 sets of original KM specs from 1941 and 1943-44. I don’t know what Lifecolor based their sets on, but the idea of alternate shades for 7001 & 7000 has been written about by others. A gentalman named Doug Martendale did an article on colors of U-boats where he makes a case for this. Thanks again

We'll add it to the list to look at in the future.

May I ask why you believe Lifecolor is correct though? What references did they use?

Well, yes. Here is a quick list:
1. RAL7001 should have an alternate that is lighter.
2. RAL7000 should have an alternate that is lighter with no blue
3. RAL7024 should be lighter
The Baltic greys in your line are not quite right, see Lifecolor KM-1 set.
4. There is a whole section of colors labeled TL-F2, that your line doesn’t address
5. The Norwegian blue-greys are speculation based on Decends mix formulas that have never been documented.
I have the Snyder & Short sets, but don’t know where they came from.
Thanks for responding Dan

Hi Dan,

Is there doubt over the Snyder & Short Kriegsmarine colours?

Just wondering if James was planning on upgrading KM color range ala RN. Didn’t know if this was on your radar?