GHQ Models Forums

Can anyone point me in the direction of information about why turret tops were often painted black. I would assume it has something to do with cutting down glare, but I cannot find confirmation of this guess. Any websites out there that address this subject?

Thanks.

Thats a very good question. I didn.t realize that they were black.

I'll step out on a limb here and assume you're talking about WWI warships. If that's correct then I would theorize (no proof just semi-educated guess) that they were painted black because most ships burned coal and the soot would settle on the surface requiring constant cleaning/repainting. Saves manpower to just paint it black which hides the worst of it until you can spare the time/manpower to clean it. That was a small part of the reason behind the Great White Fleet, Teddy was trying to show that not only could we deploy around the world but we had the manpower to keep ships pristine white.
Modern warships (oil fired boilers) do the same thing with masts and stacks. Nucs and gas turbines often times don't do this, Nucs for obvious reasons and gas turbines because there is less soot in exhaust gases.

If you're not talking about WWI warships and you're instead talking about the limited number of WWI tanks - then I have no idea why turret tops would be painted black.

Paul

Speaking of World War I ships... I believe the German High Seas Fleet painted the turret tops on their battleships black, with a white "O" on them, as an aerial recognition marking.

Here's a picture of a 1/1250 scale model made by the manufacturer Navis; this is the BADEN:



This picture is courtesy of Morning Sunshine Models, one of my favorite retailers in this genre.

I know this could be considered to be a "competing product" -- but since GHQ doesn't offer ships in this scale (other than their Micronauts - Napoleonic era ships in 1/1200 scale), I hope this doesn't offend anyone...

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Tom Stockton

I did a little digging on the internet when my reference books came up "snake eyes" on this one. Based on what I read the primary purpose of the black turret tops was aerial recognition, although the anti glare and soot hiding properties may have factored into the choice of black as the color. here is the link where I found the information, I hope this helps.

http://german-navy.tripod.com/sms_paint-overview.htm

Carry on,
Matt