"HMAS Australia, Canberra & Hobart @ Guadalcanal 1942?" Topic

HMAS Australia, Canberra & Hobart @ Guadalcanal 1942?

I'm going to be painting all three, but not certain how these should look – would they have used British paint schemes, copied the USN or done them in a unique way? If it matters, the first two are Kent/County class Cruisers, and the Hobart a Leander Light Cruiser.

The action is heating up as our campaign starts. We're using GQ3 to try it out in their The Solomon Islands campaign. So far it is a little technical, but we're getting faster at it. We do like the detail, as we've decided that naval gaming is alot more about the technical than land war. Funny, we're both fine with Flames of War, but we both wanted more details about everything from Weather to torpedoes, etc. Naval gaming is really a machine war, sort of like tank warfare with all the infantry removed. Then you add in the huge impace of weather, and suddenly it's a totally different game and things we didn't like in land rules we want in sea rules.

Go figure.

Canberra

Australia

Hobart

That last photo is of HMAS Hobart on neutrality patrol off Spain during the SCW. Check the red/white/blue stripes on B turret.

To the best of my knowledge, Canberra was painted in a single color at the time of her loss, not camouflged. It may have been one of the RN's grey colors, or even a sea blue similar to that used by the USN.
Here is a link to the Naval Historical Center's page on the ship.

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I like these

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dragon6 that is a great site! Thanks for sharing. Those County Class cruisers have beautiful lines.

Canberra was wearing "Chicago Blue" overall. The others probably were as well.

I also recommend dragon6's links above to the images of Australia and Canberra, depicted in "Chicago Blue". Keep in mind that this dark blue color would need to be lightened appropriately in order to achieve "scale color" for the scale being used, as well as to account for weathering. You don't want it to look too dark.
Mark H.