Now this is no

Well, many years ago in a port far far away a ship was completing its overhaul in drydock.
Since the war had been going on a couple years, supplies were getting hard to come by and the ship had to be put back in service quickly.
As the ship got closer to the day the job was supposed to be done, the yard birds still had not come up with enough paint of any one color to do the job. In this very early Navy there had been no standard color scheme other than the black and white colors of the tall ships like the Constitution.
Since there had not been any of these type ships in this port in many years they had a small supply of black and white paint on hand, but not enough of either one to do the job.
Since the yard had been told that a financial penalty would be assessed against them if the ship was not delivered on time the yard bird supervisor decided at the last minute to round up all the black and white paint in storage. Unfortunately, due to the cans being stored in leaky warehouses, the labels had long sense either came off or were unreadable. They had no idea how much of each color they had. The supervisior finally ordered all the paint to be poured in a large tank and mixed up. The ship was then quickly painted for the upcomming inspection in a few short days.
The night before the ship was to be inspected by the Navy the weather was cold dark and rainy.
As the Admiral arrived at the shipyard to inspect the ship the sun was just coming up. A foggy haze had settled over the shipyard reducing visibility. As the Admiral's car approached the piers he thought he had forgotten which pier he was to report to. He thought that he was either at the wrong pier or the ship had already sailed. The pier it was supposed to be moured to seemed empty. As the car finally arrived at the pier the ship seemed to appear suddenly out of the foggy haze like a ghost ship. The Admiral was amazed that he had almost driven by the ship without seeing it. Before the yard supervisor could explain why the ship was painted such an unusual color, the rest of the inspection party arrived. They remarked that they also had trouble finding the ship in the morning haze.
The Admiral, siezing on the opportunity, announced that he had come up with this new color to make Navy ships harder to see and called it Haze Gray. The yard supervisor was just glad he was not going to be fired. Later the Admiral ordered all Navy surface ships to be painted this gray color that blended in so well with the ocean haze. For lack of a better name to call it, it was just dubbed Haze Gray.
Since the yard birds did not write down how much of each color was used, every time they tried to make a new batch it seemed to come out a different shade of gray. Once you mix the paint, it is too expensive to throw away so they just found something different to paint with it other than the hull. That is why you see so many different shades of gray paint on different parts of the ship.
Since the Admiral had ordered all subsequent ships to be painted the same way and change is slow to come to the fleet, they remain that way today.
Now this is no ....