Ed, I have a problem researching a couple of the cruisers I want to do. How do you tell if ships painted in early 1945 in Ms 21 or 22 used the older Navy Blue system or the 1945 revised Ms 21/22 with the neutral gray colors? I am interested in the USS St Louis, CL-49, and the USS St Paul, CA-73, both repainted in early 1945 and both in Ms 21. The B&W photos are inconclusive as to the shades used. Are there any records that would help separate the two schemes? I've looked all through the S&S US Ships Camouflage site and have found nothing other than the listing of ship color schemes during the war, but that doesn't indicate whether the ships in 1945 carried the Navy Blue or Navy Gray schemes.

Hi Bruce

Tracy runs a website called Researcher at Large. On it he has scans of documents from NARA Seattle and other locations. Included are the directives for the Neutral gray colors.

I can get to Tracy's blog in which he has a end-of-June link to painting instructions for Ms 21 & 22 post-February 1945. Unfortuately when I click the link I wander off into a "BING" space. Don't know if the trouble is on Tracy's end or mine here at work. I'll try again this evening from home.

Long story short -- February, 1945 the colors were directed to go neutral. However we're talking military here. There were manufacturing and logistic delays. Ships didn't get repainted on the order. They had to wait until they had a yard availability (post-February) at a yard with the right paints. Forward bases, such as Ulithi may not have gotten the paint for many months after February. If the ship had a yard period, Stateside, in mid-summer it may be likely that it was repainted into neutrals. Other than that all bets are off. Paint it like you wish.

Tracy may have more info.

It looks as though it's gone. That may not be the case, but all I get is GoDaddy.com and a bunch of completely unrelated sites, typical of what happens when a website is abandoned or canceled. Hope you have better luck....

It looks like the rent on his domain name may have expired

I noticed the problem last night and took care of it, but it's one of those that needs 24-48 hours to reflect on the internet :P

I don't have a hard fast list of ships, but once the site's back up go tohttp://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/index.html and check out the 1945 year... there's a bit about the shift. The color change was ordered in Late February (a document referenced indicates that production might have started in November of 1944 but I don't have a copy of that document yet so I'm not entirely sure. Documents posted there dated January '45 indicate they were still ordering Navy Blue) and my guess is that the closer to the states a ship was the more likely it was to happen earlier.

So if the cruisers in question went into overhaul at Mare Island on March 1 it's pretty likely they were neutral, but if they repainted out at Ulithi it's more likely they were in Navy Blue. I don't have anything more firm than that at this time.

Nothing like splitting the difference: St Louis departed California on 1 Mar 45 after major repairs from Kamikaze hits off Leyte in Nov 44, and St Paul was commissioned in Boston on 17 Feb 45 and sailed from there 15 May 45 after completing her seaworthiness trials. Anybody's guess.....

Tracy is a moderator at the ModelWarships.com forum. You can contact him there too.

My guess is that St. Louis had the revised colors since it was so late when she was repainted.

The design work you did with Dragon on the Gearing is very well done. Congrats.

Can you share anything more that you and they might have in the queue.

I'd really like to see what could be done with a 4-piper.

Thank you, but the real credit goes to Darius Lipinski who prepared the CAD of the ship. We used most of my existing weapons and fittings designed for the Buchanan, but the ship hull and superstructure were all Darius. My only contribution to that was to open up the doorways and prepare the parts for molding breakdown. Darius is working on other Gearing variants as we speak. Sorry all I can say is that there will be at least 3 other Gearing's.

I have also enlisted the help of a former design assistant of mine, to do work on another totally different project for Dragon. Can't say what it is, but it will be well received. I think the Gearing came out better than the Buchanan in many ways thanks to lessons learned, but the next one will be even better. I am myself working on CAD for something new and Dragon is doing a few other projects mostly on their own. I would like to do more, but have a real job and too many irons in the fire to take on any more. I'd love to tell everyone what is in the pipeline, but I am not allowed to.

You want Serial 631: Camouflage Instructions - Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers, Destroyer Escorts, Assigned to the Pacific Fleet.

St. Louis is a crap shoot; the orders to use the new paints were ISSUED on February 26, so if we go on that alone I would say that she was in the purple blues, but reference (E) suggests the Navy was working on new formulas in November of 1944, and since Mare Island was the main shipyard for manufacturing paint on the west coast, they most likely already had some stock piles by the end of February. I would still use the purple blues though.

My guess for St. Paul is neutrals.