1:400 USN Destroyers!

[Don Boose]

Bob is the best person to answer Carl's question about the camouflage, but for what it's worth, the "splotch" or "dapple" version of U.S. Navy Camouflage Measure 12 that Bob's Sims is wearing was widespread during 1942, especially in the South Pacific. The basic Measure 12 consisted of Navy Blue vertical surfaces up to the deck line, Ocean Gray above that, and Haze Gray for the masts above the level of the superstructure. Just before the war, the Navy issued instructions for the use of large splotches or dapples of paint in irregular patterns visually to break up the hard outlines of the ship. If the surface was Sea Blue, then the splotches were to be haze gray and vice-versa. Sea Blue splotches were used on Ocean Gray surfaces. In 1942, Navy forces in the South Pacific began using shades of green, especially for amphibious forces (probably why LSTs were known as "Green Dragons"). By 1944, the disruptive camouflage patterns were introduced, but the Sims no doubt went to its grave during the Battle of the Coral Sea wearing the blue dappled Measure 12 as shown on Bob's beautiful ship.

There are a number of secondary sources that quote official Navy documents. I'm using the Floating Drydock publication, United States Navy Camouflage of the WW2 Era, Philadelphia, PA: Floating Drydock, 1976.

- Don B.

[jimkrauzlis]

Bob, spectacular work!

Excellent work on the little details, only one of many being those depth charge racks...truly masterful attention to detail, mate!

Cheers!
Jim

[Clashster]

Great work, Bob! How clean and crisp everything looks at that small scale is truely amazing! Thanks for the update!

[airbob]

Carl,
I just built it as it was done in the "Pro-Model" design of this ship...as to historic, hopefully so...the only pictures that I have found are like that at this website:
http://www.destroyerhistory.org/gold...09sims_02.html
just a standard light grey pattern...

[airbob]

however this is one of the Hughs with this apparent cammo pattern!!!
http://www.destroyerhistory.org/gold...hughes_02.html

[airbob]

and the 1st Hammond in a similar cammo patttern...
http://www.destroyerhistory.org/gold...ammann_02.html

[Don Boose]

Bob -- Although I can’t find any wartime photographs of the Sims, there is considerable circumstantial evidence that the ship was painted in the modified Measure 12 camouflage pattern of your superb model.

Photographs taken in 1942 of ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific show that the majority of fleet units had been painted in variations of that scheme. Robert C. Stern, in The US Navy in World War Two 1941-1942 (Warships Illustrated No. 10, Poole, Dorset, UK: Arms and Armour Press, 1987), notes that the beginning of the war, “initiated a period of fantastic invention as schemes were drawn up and applied when ships passed through East Coast dockyards.” [p. 31 - There are lots of supporting photographs throughout the book.] There is plenty of photo evidence that the same was true of West Coast dockyards, including a photograph of Sims’ sister ship, Walke (DD 416) photographed at Mare Island during a refit in August 1942 that appears in Norman Friedman, U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1982), p. 211.

There are several photographs of Sims class destroyers in the modified Measure 12 (all taken during the first 8 months of 1942) in Al Adcock, US Destroyers in Action, Part 3 (Carrollton, TX: Squadron-Signal, 2004), pp. 18-21.

Most significant, the Stern book contains a photograph of two Sims class DDs (Morris, DD-417, and either Anderson, DD-411, Hammann, DD-412, or Russell, DD-414) standing off astern of the sinking aircraft carrier Lexington on 8 May 1942 during the Battle of the Coral Sea, the same battle in which Sims and the oiler Neosho were sunk. Both ships are in an almost identical camouflage scheme to your Sims.

Don B. (Sorry to sound pedantic. I’m a historian, I can’t help it.)

[Don Boose]

There is a book about the sinking of the Sims -- Dan Verton, Grace Under Fire: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Sims and the Amazing Story of Its 13 Survivors Hardcover & Paperback. I don’t have a copy, but looked at the cover on Verton’s website (http://www.danverton.com/ ), which has a photograph of the Neosho in flames, the Sims standing by, as yet unharmed, and a Japanese Zero fighter diving. The Sims is in the pre-war haze gray, as shown in your photo, Bob, but since the photo is obviously a composite, this sheds no light on the issue of the Sims’s camouflage scheme at the time of the battle (the Sims and Neosho photographs were taken at very different camera angles and are of way different scales; the “diving” Zero is in color, while the ships are in black and white, and the aircraft has its wheels down – I presume a take-off shot tilted to make it look like the plane was diving). Anyway, I sent an email to Verton to ask if he has or has seen any photographs of the Sims in wartime paint. More later. Don B.

[airbob]

Don,
Your discourse was excellent!...nice to know that the way that they did the cammo on this little beastie, was probably the way she was when she gallently went down in 1942...I have the "lady Lex" and hopefully the cammo for her will be right! Again, thanks for the most superb treatise on these gallant little ships!:D

[dansls1]

Interesting information - thanks for sharing Don. It's nice to know that us 'modellers' can count on you historians to keep things correct for us