"IJN Carriers" Topic

What is the common wisdom on how these were painted? I often hear of them being 'green,' particularly Shokaku and Zuikaku. However, there seems to be little documentation backing this up, and I'm wondering if it's an urban legend? I've looked at the model ship page, but the colors there are all over the map, even when representing the same ship.

If they were green, does anyone have a clue as to what shade they'd be? Are we talking *really* green, or a greenish-grey? Any suggestions as to a paint reference?

Or, if they weren't green, what color were they?

I only know of them from Coral Sea. They were painted grey all over during that battle.

I know for sure that the Zuikaku and a number of others were indeed painted green. If you send me your email addressvia PM I can send you some scans with some illustrations from a number of Japanese language sources I have.

My understanding is that IJN ships were painted one of four shades of gray depending on the shipyard where the ship was built. The four shipyards are Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru and Yokosuka. Testor's Modelmaster paints have all four of these shades of gray. As for the green, I have seen paintings of Shinano, Taiho, and Junyo in a grayish green paint scheme, but I have no details on a modeling paint for that shade.

You might find something here:

combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm

You might want to try this as well:

link

Testors also has the various greens used by the IJN as well.

link

These are supposedly matched to the White Ensign brand of paints which are supposedly matched to the original war time colors.

This link may be useful
link

The Painters Guide mentioned above shows the Zuikaku painted overall dark green (Type 2 camo found in the above link) with elevators and the horizontal surface of the bow painted dark grey. The deck is weathered wood.

The same book mentions a late war scheme where some carriers were painted light green (type 21 camo) with a dark grey silhouette of a merchant ship painted on the side.

Weathered wood = gray.

Gents;

Prior to 1943 (the only period I am interested in), all of the IJN carriers were light grey with tan wooden decks and various individual red/white markings on the stern areas of the flight decks and bow to distinguish each to its pilots.

If you go to the <j-aircraft.com> site, go to the message boards, and choose the Japanese ships board, you are likely to get a colored line drawing for any of the IJN fleet or light carriers if you ask of search the archives. Some, like Ryujo are less sure fire due to the lack of actual photographs of her, but a very recent long discussion provided several USN aerial photos of her as she was sinking that gave her deck markings quite clearly.

Mark E. Horan

I am at work, but I have colored line drawings for all the Midway carriers at home.

Blind Old Hag (nice tag, by the way),

Does Model Master still make these? I went to my FLGS to get the Japanese color set, but they were all out. I asked when they were getting more in and they said they are no longer made. Lucky me.

Does anyone know if this rumor is true? I prefer using acrylics to the White Ensign oils.

Thanks Mserafin! OOP!, maybe but I doubt it. I was at my local hobby shop about a month ago and they had all the US, Commonwealth, and IJN colors (greens included) in stock except for Maizuru and Saesbo grey. I asked about restocking those colors and within a week they had restocked them. The clerk had even re-stocked the greens too eventhough he had enough on hand and he gave no indication they were OOP. And Testors still lists them in their catalog.

My shop doesn't mail order, but I can pick up what you need and send it off to you or I'm sure you can order direct through Testors at the first link I posted above.

Where do you live? If you are close to Milwaukee maybe you can get them yourself.

Thanks for the offer, BOH, but I'm near Seattle. I guess I'll try ordering them directly from Testors.

You don't know if any of their colors correspond to British Royal Navy colors, do you? There are a bunch of colors listed with names I'm not familiar with (e.g., bulkhead grey), but might correspond to RN colors.

About a year ago, I ordered IJN paint colors direct from Testors. The link posted by BOH looks like the same site. I also ordered USN paint colors from Testors -- same link. Seem to recall it took about 3 or 4 weeks before the order arrived from Testors.

At the Snyder and Short site (the other link posted by BOH), there is a detailed table of camouflage schemes used by specific USN ships at different times from 1941-45. I used that as a reference to paint various USN ships for the early-war period in the Pacific.