Painting all my WWI Micronauts : Where to start?

[Carthaginian]

Hello everyone,
Please bear with me on this post, I hope the questions haven't been done to death, but I just couldn't find the answers I was looking for in the search engine.
I recently received my latest order batch of WWI ships (U.S. Dreadnoughts), which means I now have all the Great War Micronauts available at this time from GHQ(about 145 ships purchased) and at last I am ready to start the painting. I intend, for various reasons of time, space and sanity, to paint large fleet sections of a particular navy all in one go. For example I will paint all the U.S, capital ships at the same time in a production line method, eg trimming flash, constructing, priming etc. I have bases ready, name labels prepared, even smoke and flags set aside, but I cannot proceed until I know how to paint the little buggers. Having checked the internet, I have found pages that list, for example, the colours used for the British and German navies. I have also found many articles talking about scale effect, highlighting, drybrushing etc etc. Nothing 'though specific to 1/2400 scale. So, as a new DNC (Director of Naval Construction) I would like to ask for help on the following questions.
Taking into account scale effect, which would change the colours as recommended for larger model, what colours(paint manufacturer please) would you use for any or all of the following:
RN Capital Ships - vertical, horizontal, deck
RN Smaller Vessels - as above
German - As above
U.S.- As above
Russian - As above
Also, if anyone has any tips on how to best apply the colours, for example I have used drybrush and washes on 25mm figures, but I am not sure how to proceed with this scale.(I saw someone's picture post where they had managed to drybrush the raised wood edges on a ship's deck) As an experiment I tried to do a wash to make decking stand out on a trial model and all I got was a monotone look.
Any and all suggestions from the community will be most appreciated. Even if you can only provide tips on one of the above questions it would be a great help. I am looking forward to embarking on this new hobby and really would like to do a good paint job and not waste all the money I have poured into collecting the ships. I promise that when I have some ships to show off I will post them here and give credit to those who helped out.
Many thanks, in advance, Stephen

[battlewagon]

Here is some information that may help. It is based on a number of different books, websites and photographs and my best guesses I use the Model Master paints
US WW1 Battleships
Hull & superstructure "standard navy gray": Light Ghost Gray
Wood decking: Wood
Metal decking: Gunship Gray
For the "Fleet system" (light sawtooth design on the deck edge of the hull) Gunship Gray for the lower hull and Light Ghost Gray for the sawtooth pattern.

British Battleships/Battlecruisers 1914
Hull and superstructure: European 1 Gray
Wood decks: Wood
Upper decks with cortecine: Military Brown
Post 1914
Hull and superstructure: Neutral Gray
Turret tops: Floquil Brunswick Green
Other details as 1914

German Battleships/Battlecruisers
Hull: Medium Gray
Superstructure: Light Ghost Gray
Turret tops:and top of conning tower European 1 gray (black looks too dark in this scale)
Wood decks: Wood
Upper decks with cortecine: Military Brown
Metal decks:Light Ghost Gray (but some areas are painted a dark gray)

I recommend the Osprey New Vanguard books German Battlecruisers 1914-18 and British Battlecruisers 1914-18 and Naval Institute press Naval Camouflage 1914-1945 and try this link for an excellent reference on the German paint scheme:
http://german-navy.tripod.com/sms_paint-overview.htm

If you have questions about a specific class of capital ship, post it here and I will see what I can come up with.

I hope you find this helpful and if anybody else has better information please pass it along, good source material for WW1 can be hard to find.

Matt

[Jmrino]

A nice guide has been put on TMP recently...........

http://theminiaturespage.com/profiles/261926/

[battlewagon]

I just posted some pictures of my WW1 Scharnhorst kit on the "show us yer stuff" thread.

Matt

[Carthaginian]

Hello everyone,
Thanks gentlemen for the help and taking the time to write down all that info for me. I think I have a pretty good handle on the paint schemes used by the different nations but I still have some unresolved questions.
1. The paint schemes reflect the close-to-actual colours used by the different fleets, but when taking into account 1/2400 scale, how would that change the colours?
2. Hoping someone could tell me how they use washes and drybrushing to good effect on such small models. I understand the methodology of both, but using it on 25mm figures is one thing,(that i can do) using it on ships is another,(can't seem to get it right).
Once again, thanks for all the help, Stephen