"Colors for early war Vorpostenboots" Topic

Does anyone have any paint schemes for the early war Vorpostenboots? Were they painted as civilian trawlers or did they utilize military schemes?

Thanks,

I did an image search and got some photos of ships done by German modelers. Might be a fallacy, but I figured they'd have the resources to get the right look. There were a couple of basic schemes. Unfortunately, I don't remeber off the top of my head and I'm not at home to check my models. I want to say light or medium gray, with either painted gray or wood grey decks.

Some of the black and white pics I've seen of them look quite dark, so I would guess black, or a very dark gray for those.

Try Google images for pics of the vessels.

I did a Google search for images and found lots of images of them done up in a simple light grey. That makes things simple.

I was also wondering if the KM had a system of designations for VP boats? Were they referred to by their civilian names or were they numbered as in VP 1 etc?

Don't know for sure, but based upon anecdotal info, most of the references I've seen of them in battle reports, and in the pics seem to indicate VP numbers.

Many of those have a four-digit designation, with the first two being the VP unit they are assigned to, and the second two being the vessel number.

I imagine if the unit only has a single digit designation for it, there might only be three numbers for the vessel, e.g. 601, as oppose to 1603, for vessel number 1 in unit 6, and vessel number 3 in unit 16, respectively.

xenophon – have you seen "Night Action" by Peter Dickens which is an account of the author's wartime experiences as the leader of an MTB flotilla operating in the North Sea and Channel? Dickens describes an action against two VP boats off the Dutch coast near the island of Texel. The VP boats were former trawlers (Dickens gives the original name in one instance)but their KM designations were VP 1234 and VP 1239. Pretty much what Mako11 said!