Some of you may know me as the happy 40 mm autocannon who has been making historical ship camouflages (or attempting to at least) for a little over a year now, which can be seen here: WT Live // Admiral_Bofors
One thing I’ve been wanting to do for a long time is to engage in a historical discussion with other players concerning naval camouflage. You may have seen paragraphs of my rambling over specific details and observations about the paint on a ship. That is because I’m very interested in details that will be helpful towards figuring out how a camo should be implemented.
For many naval camouflages, finding the most accurate colour and pattern can be very challenging and subjective to interpretation. I had attempted to correct some details that other fellow players have pointed out. However, I found it quite awkward to discuss historical details with others back and forth in the comment section on WT Live, so I created this thread as a better place to talk about the implementation of naval camouflages in general.
Admittedly, I am not a very skilled artist to begin with, so I put a lot of effort into researching and cross-referencing pictures to determine the most historically accurate implementation of the camouflage. However, I am human and I do make mistakes. If a pattern or colour on a camo is inaccurate and you have a reference that demonstrates it, please discuss it with me in this thread so that I can implement the changes to ensure greater historical accuracy.
If, for some reason, we reach a point where we have to agree to disagree over a specific detail (after all, sometimes the evidence may be too subjective to interpretation), I am willing to make an alternate version of the camouflage with your suggestions implemented just for you if you can provide the necessary references.
This is the guarantee that I provide with constructive discussions about my camos.
While I initially started this as a better way to communicate with other players over the historical implementation of my naval camouflages, I would appreciate a discussion of naval camouflage in general, seeing that there isn’t an active thread that covers this topic.
Interestingly enough, there is already a version of this camo on the marketplace, which can be seen here:
This was actually one of the first camos I bought. I thought it would be really funny to sail around painted as this bright orange target and see how many people would start shooting at me back then XD
I really enjoy the skins you’ve made! Always thought skins and camouflage in naval are nicer than in air. Cant usually see details on anyone except your own plane in air. Tanks might get the most use out of camouflages though. Of course thats assuming its in the game not just one downloaded for personal use.
Anyways I cant say I know much about historical naval camouflage except the US measures. Even then I have a base level understanding courtesy of wikipedia.
Generally speaking Measure 12 modified and Measure 22 are amongst my favorites, even if not the “best.” Measure 1 is pretty unique and I wish some of the ships in game had that as a base skin.
Anyone know what the USN Atlantic / Pacific camo in game are meant to mimic? I know the earlier destroyers can get one mimicking measure 12 modified and the solid blue is either measure 11 or measure 21. I figure the US “dazzle” is meant to be measure 31 or 32.
First and foremost, thanks for your comment! I’m glad that you’ll find ship camouflages pretty fascinating, I myself do not know a lot about naval camouflage in detail, but I try to do as much research I can to get a better understanding of them : D
Concerning the USN Atlantic and Pacific camos in general, I believe they are not meant to mimic anything and more as a “generic” pattern that can be applied to multiple ships. The colours and patterns don’t seem to correspond with anything, and my attempts to correlate them to a specific measure was starting to become too much of a stretch.
Howdy Bofors, Im new to making actual camo schemes for ships and not just hull numbers on grey lol, do you use the ingame representations of USN Colors or do you have a reference website or something?
I usually try to source my colours from primary sources when it comes to USN camos. This might surprise you, but the Wikipedia page for USN camo measures is a good starting point to have a visual of what colours to expect for specific measures. You should be able to get the colours directly from the samples provided. Sometimes I source some of my colours from here if I’m not able to find it in a more credible source.
A lot of the information on the Wikipedia page is sourced from Shipcamouflage.com so be sure to check that out as well! It might be tricky to navigate but you might find some useful info there.
One primary document to look into would be the official USN manual labelled as Ship Camouflage Instructions, Ships 2, 1942. You can view a copy of it online here. While it may not cover all the measures, it might contain some samples of the colours that you’re looking for.
Another option could involve looking into some model paint brochures. I try to avoid relying on these kind of sources and only use them as a last resort, as the accuracy of the colours can vary by a wide margin. A fine example of this would be the MS 22 scheme on 4 Iowas depicted below, referencing the colours from different model kit brands. As you can tell, the differences are pretty noticeable XD
