About merchant ship wartime colours

[Mister_M]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

...the destroyers escorting the tankers were painted an inappropriate shade of grey, which the U-Boats used to locate the convoy in the moonlight.

Apparently, certain shades of grey paint made a ship highly visible on a clear night when the moon was out....thus the highly specific regulations about what shade of grey you were supposed to use.

I think that's why dark/black hulls were not repainted : it was very good to camouflage the ship at night. Only ships with white/bright/saturated colors were repainted with medium/dark grey paint.

To confirm this, it would be useful to find original (peace time) paint sheme of these ships :

Originally Posted by Mister_M

3. Ships with superstructures (probably) repainted in grey : the hull remains very dark (black). HEINA superstructures are perhaps actually white...

 

4. Ships in plain grey (probably a war repaint) : note that there are different shades of grey from ship to ship...