foxbat's stuff. last update 08/19/25 Cruiser Bolzano

[redleg]

Beautiful ships Foxbat! Those are spectacular!

[pmskaar]

Excellent work on both of those French Heavy Cruisers, Foxbat! I also appreciate the ships histories as you have described and the reason you did not add the aircraft for one of them. I always love seeing your lovely ships here and on TMP as well.

[foxbat]

Thanks for the kind words, gentlemen.

Adding a new ship to the collection, the Italian heavy cruiser Bolzano. A veteran of many battles in the Med.

[redleg]

Beautiful ship, Foxbat!

I need some naval education though - is the red and white striping that I see on a lot of their ships for aerial recognition? Seems weird to have the colorful stripes on a ship with a camouflage paint job.

[Donald M Scheef]

Yes. Red and white stripes on the bow/deck of WWII Italian warships is for ariel recognition. Apparently, they thought that Italy would have air superiority in the Mediterranean.
Don S.

[pmskaar]

Great work on the Bolzano, Foxbat! I have a large number of GHQ WWII Italian ships myself but currently all of them are unpainted. I did paint the Pola and the Russian destroyer, Tashkent, for the GHQ catalog. The Tashkent was an Italian design.

Aerial Recognition Stripes. One story I heard is that early in the war, there was a friendly fire incident involving Italian aircraft mistakenly attacking their own ships. The "Barber Pole" marking were supposedly to prevent future incidents or so I have heard.

[Paul B]

Superb work!!! Well executed from the basing to the details as always.

[redleg]

Thanks for the info on the stripes, fellas! I was that guy wearing a full color American flag patch on my camouflage BDU uniform so I can't criticize the Italians! The stripes are beautifully executed, Foxbat!

[chrisswim]

Beautiful work Foxbat. including the setting Sun.

[foxbat]

Thanks gentlemen.
Actually, the recognition stripes were put in place after the battle of Punta Stilo in July 1940. The Italian Air Force had - ineffectively - bombed Regia Marina ships during the engagement, and the "barber stripes " were to prevent a repeat of the occurrence. Which still happened afterwards, the mistake being mostly due to the lack of cooperation between the Italian Air Force & Navy... Now, I won't complain, this is by no means a boring paint scheme to do.