The search for authentic paint shades for World War II ship camouflage is often a frustrating affair. Getting the right chips, matching Munsel numbers, identifying the right colors for the pattern, and other arcana makes painting one of the more challenging aspects of naval miniatures gaming. The following is a compendium of what I have found recently on the Internet. Paint Chips Be aware that most of the paint matches that are supplied for the paint chips are for 1/350 to 1/700 scale ships, so you will have to lighten them for smaller 1/2400, 1/3000 and 1/6000 scale miniatures. For those truly large fleet-painting exercises, go to http://warship.simplenet.com/index.htm and click on the Modeling Tips button. Jon Warneke and Jeff Herne have created chip sets for USN and Royal Navy systems and provide appropriate Federal Standard (FS) shade matches wherever possible. The corresponding color chips are from Dutch Boy, so your entire club can share a single can for many years to come! Snyder and Short Enterprises (http://www.shipcamouflage.com) provides chip sets for USN (2 sets), Royal Navy (parts 1 and 2 of 3) and the Imperial Japanese Navy. Work in progress includes Kriegsmarine, mid/late-war Royal Navy and specific ships (part 3), and Regia Marina. They are also working on Royal Navy and USN for World War I and the Soviet/Czarist navies. Randy Short has prepared his USN Color Mix Formulas that are covered below. Paint Patterns My painting style tends to be utilitarian for wargaming miniatures, and could not be compared to the works of art that Pat Hreachmack routinely creates. I highly recommend his The Painter's Guide to World War Two Naval Camouflage, 2nd edition, as a baseline document. I also use Floating Drydock's United States Navy Camouflage of the WW2 Era, Volumes 1 and 2, and the Squadron/Signal books for individual ship photos. Pat is working on Volume 2 of his guide which should be out later this year. John Sheridan's USN Warship Camouflage 1941-1945 page provides tabular information on known camouflage measures worn by specific USN ships during the war years. His site is co-located with Snyder & Short at (http://www.shipcamouflage.com). He will eventually include diagrams to support the tabular information. Commercially Available Paints Polly S/Floquil was acquired by Testor's, and has apparently merged the lines into Polly Scale. The paint chip sets can be found at http:// www.testors.com/Floquil/default.cfm as part of the Polly Scale Acrylic line. I have heard from other painters in the Dallas area that these have been optimized for use in airbrushes instead of brush painting. Price is $1.99 for a one-ounce bottle. Model Shipyard has recently started production of a new series of naval paints to match the Snyder and Short paint chip sets. At the time of this writing, they have Imperial Japanese Navy (8 colors), Royal Navy (22 colors) and US Navy (29 colors). There may be some catalog errors as Mountbatten Pink shows up in the USN section, but most of the colors you need are in these sets. These can be found at Model Expo, http:// www.modelexpoinc.com/dir/405.html. Price is $1.69 for a one-ounce bottle. Badger just released a new series of thirty marine paints, mostly geared towards USN World War II colors (13 colors), plus Coast Guard, weathering, two buffs and other marine colors. The colors include USN #5 Standard Navy Gray (1937), 5-L Light Gray (1941), 5- O Ocean Gray (1941), 5-D Dark Gray (1941), 5-H Haze Gray (1941), 5-O Ocean Gray (late 1941), 5-S Sea Blue, 5-N Navy Blue, 20B Deck Blue, #B2 Black, 5-P Pale Gray (1943) and 5-L Light Gray (1943). They can be purchased at Pacific Front Hobbies http://www.pacificfront.com. Price is $2.90 for a one-ounce bottle. Also at Pacific Front Hobbies is the Pit Road series of acrylic paints for both modern and World War II navies. These include two IJN grays (Sasebo and Kure), IJN Deck Linoleum, IJN Late War Carrier Green (2 for $6.50), USN 5-L Light Gray, 20B Deck Blue, 5-O Ocean Gray, and Royal Navy Grays 1 and 2. Pit Road Ships' Colors (Acrylic) are priced at $2.50 each for a 1/2 oz. bottle. You will need to use Gunze Sanyo "Mr. Color" thinner with these paints. Ship Camouflage: Randy Short's USN Color Mix Formulas BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #18 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com