The Ship Model Forum

For years and years, I'd been trusting the seemingly self-evident testimony of my eyes that the US Navy had been painting the surfacing parts of its submarines black all over since at least the 1970's. And I took the existence of the World War II-era Measure 9 scheme-- which did indeed call for overall black-- to establish longstanding precedent for the practice. But I recently had occasion to read the 1953 Navy manual on painting ships, and it turns out that at least in that era, overall black was not one of the authorized paintjobs-- this despite any number of photos from back then which seem, at first glance, to show all-black submarines!

That led me to realize that what I'd been taking for overall black, at least with regard to 50's-vintage subs, must actually be Measure SS7, which calls for black on all horizontal or sloping surfaces visible from above, and Navy Gray on all the strictly vertical surfaces. With just 7% light reflectance, Navy Gray would be almost indistinguishable from black except when the paint was absolutely fresh and the lighting conditions were absolutely perfect. Also, subs with Albacore or Thresher hull forms have barely any vertical surfaces, anyway, and would be black just about everywhere but the sides of the sail under the rules for Measure SS7.

So the question is, to what extent are the schemes called for in that 1953 manual still in effect? It's my understanding that an updated painting manual was issued in 1962, and I'd be amazed if there hadn't been at least two more revisions since then. So does anyone know for sure? Are modern US subs really black above the surfaced waterline (the underhulls, I realize, are a whole separate issue), or just mostly black?

S9086-VD-STM-010
NAVAL SHIPS’ TECHNICAL MANUAL
CHAPTER 631
PRESERVATION OF SHIPS IN SERVICE - GENERAL
1 NOV 2008

631-8.20.2 EXTERIOR SURFACES. Coat the exterior surfaces of submarines in accordance with Table 631-8-13.
The final coat of all exterior coating systems above the waterline shall be black.

631-8.20.2.2.1 The preferred Antifouling (AF) topcoat color on exterior hull surfaces below maximum beam is black; however, red may
be specified by the local activity because visual inspections of the underwater hull while pierside are easier with red antifouling
paint. Topcoat color is a local decision. Red anti-fouling paint is applied in free flood recesses below the waterline
to provide improved visibility for inspection.

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

Documentation aside (I've never seen any on it), there was a gray/black paint scheme used by modern nuclear submarines in the 60's/70's. It was, as you described, a black hull with the vertical sides of the sail in a medium gray color. The fairwater planes are black top and bottom. It was colliquially called the "Pacific" or "West Coast" paint scheme. The basic idea was if you see it from the top, it would be all black. On the surface, the vertical services would be gray and theoretically less visible. A twofer!

It can be difficult to tell, especially in black and white pictures. Heavily weathered black can look gray.

I've seen pictures of 585, 594, and 637 class boats with it. Navsource has a mess of them. Queenfish, Haddo and Scorpion are a few that have pictures. As a matter of fact, in 1973 the Navy published my favorite poster ever - Queenfish at high speed in the Pacific Scheme with the caption "Pride Runs Deep". You can see the black on the top of the sail and the top of the fairwater planes.



Apparently it wasn't unique to SSNs. Here's a picture of an SSBN in a close relative of that color scheme (SSBN 630 from Navsource)
https://navsource.org/archives/08/616/0863012.jpg

However, in my time in the Navy (1976-1992) in San Diego, Charleston, Norfolk, and New London, I've only seen all black paint schemes on any class of submarine excepting NR-1. I still haven't found a picture dated later than 1973.

Underhulls are typically red from the max beam to the keel down the full length of the ship. Ships with towed array fairings will typically have the red go to the sonar dome which is totally black. I believe that ships with SHT, and newer classes of submarines, are all black. Of course, a bit of research on the boat you're building is in order.

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Jim Edwards
Bowie, MD

This earlier document provides several black and grey schemes for Subs.

NAVSHIPS 250-374 Ship Concealment Camouflage Instructions 1953

https://maritime.org/doc/pdf/camo1953.pdf

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Darren (Admiral Hawk)
In the not so tropical climate of the Great White North.

I would have thought that document would have been updated for the newer hulls. A lot changed from 1953 to the mid-60s.

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Jim Edwards
Bowie, MD

This is somewhat tangential to my original question, but check out this neat thing I found. It's a photo showing all four of the 1953 submarine schemes side by side:

https://navsource.org/archives/08/489/0849019.jpg

The three GUPPYs close to the tender are in Measure SS7, the Navy Gray scheme. I'm pretty sure Carbonero, with "337" plainly legible on her sail, is in that scheme, too. Tilefish and Spinax, the two subs in the middle with the very bright-looking sails, show Measure SS27, the Haze Gray scheme, as does the cruise missile sub in the background. Tunny, the cruise missile sub all the way to the left, has Measure SS17, the Ocean Gray scheme. And finally Rock and Cusk, which are darker than Tunny but noticeably less dark than the Navy Gray GUPPYs, must be painted up in Measure SS11, using 11% reflectance Outside Gray-- a color that I never knew existed until I read the manual I was talking about before (the same one that Admhawk linked to above).

There was a 1962 release at least that I found at NARA.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman