Back in the day, the SM did tend to have a lot more pink. Maybe not that much. Maybe in the grimdark of the future there is only puce …
So … back in the day we would have other ships borrow paint from us and we would do the same. It was a very cordial, informal thing, and really screwed up the paperwork (until an administration came along and said don't spend more money accounting for common consumables than it is worth).
But one time we had someone want to borrow haze grey. This was odd. Its oddity was confirmed by several NCOs. If you are a US Naval vessel, you should have haze grey. There is no such thing as we have too much haze grey. There is never a time when you don't need it. You should run out of ocean before you run out of haze grey paint (and I would be more ships did run out of ocean than haze grey). So whatever, we let them have it.
Then they came back in two weeks. Then again in a couple of weeks (maybe one, maybe three). So this is where it went from cordial to abusive of the unwritten agreement. I was going to say no, but my NCO knew better. Instead, he had us put one cup of red striping (a crayon red) in a couple five gallon cans of hg, and one cup of blue in a couple others.
When you look at it, you can't tell. The colour is so dilute. When you put it up, you can't tell the difference. The differences in the seven other shades of hg you have are more pronounced than this. But, from a couple hundred yards away – like across on another pier, or your commanding officer walking up the pier from the parking lot – you get baby blue and baby pink stripes on your ship.
They didn't come back…
takes inspiration from Doctor Who.
