The Ship Model Forum

I am currently working on a 1:192 model of USS Bainbridge (TBD/DD-1). I have determined that the hull color should be a very dark green (sometimes referred to in my references as "bottle" green). However, I am not clear on whether there would be black boot stripe between the anti-fouling paint below the water line and the green topside. As I understand it, the black boot strip was introduced around the time oil burning ships came into use to hide the stains left by oil floating in the water. Since the Bainbridge was built just at the transition between coal and oil (she was a coal burner, but other destroyers built at the same time used oil), I am not clear whether a boot stripe would have been used WHEN SHE WAS LAUNCHED. My guess is not, but I have been looking for some confirmation, so far without success.

Anybody know of any references that would answer this question?

Vince McCullough

Only a tangential contribution from me, sadly -
a pair of photos on Navsource:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/0500103.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/0500105.jpg

A white above-waterline stripe?

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Earliest I can go in general is 1907 for BB Ohio. As far as TBDs I've got an undated one of TB-2.. no help. I have one of TB-12 Davis in 1905.. the hull is generally too fouled to be completely sure, but it looks like she doesn't have a boot top.

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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

I have a photo of USS Bainbridge taken in 1902, on page 151 of the book The American Steel Navy, it looks like she has a white line between the anti-fouling and the hull colour. Pages 154-155 show similar lines on two of the destroyers, although USS Hopkins appears to have a black line. Like most questions of camouflage/colour, this raises more questions than answers. Sorry I can't be of more help, but I don't have much info on destroyers.
John

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. I will probably go with a white boot stripe.

The model is for the Naval Academy Museum (it's 1:96 scale, so it's relatively large). The upper half of the ship is bottle green (I am going to use Tamiya
Black Green" for that), while the underside is anti-fouling red. The combination will be quite festive, though I probably won't get around to painting it until after the first of the year. Hopefully will have it completed by summer.


Vince

A comment on my own thread -- Ron Smith pointed out that the navy's General Instructions for Paint and Cement from around 1906 indicated that the hull should be anti-fouling red below the water line, and the hull color (in my case, bottle green) above the waterline. There is no separate boot stripe. I looked at the 1918 edition of the same document, which is posted on the Subchasers website, and it explicitly states that the boot topping is to be the same light grey as the hull for all surface combatants. So it looks like the black boot stripe was introduced (or at least required) by the Navy sometime after 1918.

If I get the chance, I will go over to the national archives and look at later editions of the Instruction to see if I can find out just when the black boot stripe became required (or at least permitted) by the regs.

Vince McCullough

Hi!

I have 1:350 DD-1 USS Bainbridge, too.

I don't want painting overall grey. I suspect that pair of NavSource's photos looks black of hull and perhaps something ochre smoke pipes.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/0500513.jpg smoke pipes looks light grey?
but
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/0500607.jpg

What sounds like black hull and superstructures and ochre smoke pipes?

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Planning for next:

1:200 RMS Titanic in project
1:72 Type XXI, U-2540 in project
1:350 HMS Ark Royal take a break
1:350 HMS Legion take a break

I've got pretty definitive information (the Navy Painting and Cementing Instructions for 1910, which I looked up at the National Archives) that USN Torpedo Boats and Destroyers (including Bainbridge) were painted what was referred to as "torpedo boat" green. This appears to have been a very, very dark green, sometimes referred to as "bottle green". The painting instructions refer to it as a dark olive green. They were painted with red anti-fouling paint from to the water line, then green to the top of the funnels, which had a black band around them.

There was some discussion on one of the other modelling forums that the decks may have been red. Turns out that this may have been true of internal decks, however the painting instructions are clear that the exposed weather deck was to be painted green as well.

Destroyers remained green until 1912, when the revised painting instructions called for them to be repainted "slate grey" along with the rest of the fleet.

Vince McCullough

Vince, thank for the fast response.

Did I understood right that its colour are the same color than USS Katahdin, when I saw its photo from Ironshipwrights.

http://ironshipwrights.com/pages/kath01.jpg

Perhaps darker green?

Decks are perhaps red?!?!

Is fun to get this colorful model!

Jonne

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Planning for next:

1:200 RMS Titanic in project
1:72 Type XXI, U-2540 in project
1:350 HMS Ark Royal take a break
1:350 HMS Legion take a break

Jonne,

Yeah, I think it's the same color -- a very dark green. I'm using Tamiya "Black Green" for my model. I seem to remember coming across an article in the archives of the New York Times that specifically mentioned Katahdin, and said she was painted bottle green. What I don't know for sure is if her funnels were green or not. It is possible that her funnels were buff color, like capital ships of the time. This was not the case with TBDs or torpedo boats, but I seem to remember reading that it may have been the case for Katahdin. I will try to find the reference and get back to you.

As for red decks -- nope. All of my reading says that torpedo boats and destroyers both had decks the same color as their hulls -- green until 1912, then grey.

BTW, a couple of other notes. The deck on the top of the bridge is wood, and would have been left unpainted. The deck on the top of the conn, where the after gun mount is located, was actually what appears to be a steel mesh, and should be green as well. And a close look at the plans for the USS Barry, drawn at the same the Bainbridge was built, show rubber matting running down the port and starboard sides just inboard of the railings. It's about 2 feet wide, and goes across the stern and up both sides of the ship. I'm planning on leaving that painted flat black on my model, unless I find something to contradict that.

Vince

Vince,

I agree with you that the available evidence indicates that the weather decks of these vessels were generally painted to match the hulls, but I wonder if there may have been exceptions?

Marcus Goodrich, who served as an enlisted man aboard USS Chauncey (DD-3) in the Philippines prior to World War One, wrote a novel about a fictional Bainbridge class DD. His descriptions of the destroyer’s paint colors may provide some interesting insights. In his novel, “Delilah”, he remarks that the bulkheads and overhead of the wardroom interior, “... were painted in a very light, creamy green” and the deck was “shellacked a deep red” (page 74). He describes the quarterdeck between the after conning tower and the stern as, “...shaded, ordinarily, by a smart, well-cut awning; and its steel deck area was hansomely covered with red shellac” (page 7).

While the descriptions are of a fictional DD in a novel, the author was an eyewitness to the real version of what he describes...

Tim

I've been perusing Navsource, studying up on several early USN dreads and pre-dreads, and I'm finding it to be very ship-specific. A notable early case I've found is the Alabama:

Here's a shot of the Alabama sporting a boot topping in drydock in a 1900 newspaper:
http://navsource.org/archives/01/pdf/010863d.pdf

This color tinted picture (from the same time period) has her colored black at the waterline:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/010837.jpg

Color tinted shots of other ships usually show red there. Coupled with the drydock photo, I'm pretty sure she had a black boot and it's not just the colorist's mistake. (Granted, there's another tinted Alabama pictures on Navsource that is red)

- Sean F.

Is it my eyes, or can I see a barely perceptable white strip between the hull color and black bootline?

Yeah, I see that too. Seeing as how the black boot paint looks very fresh, my best guess is that they finished the scraping at the top of the antifouling first and got the black boot on right away, and are still working on the lower portion of the hull. Seems like the hull paint takes its worst beating just below the water surface, so it makes sense to focus there first.

Compare to this shot of sister Illinois, which might have a boot, or it may just be cleaner red paint above the fouling level:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/010712.jpg

Then there's sister Wisconsin, where most photos show no sign of antifouling paint extending above the waterline (but she does have an extra black line that runs impressively straight along the hull at main deck level):
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/010931.jpg

Fascinating stuff, how this seems to vary so much from ship to ship at the same time and within the same navy.

- Sean F.