Colour of the hull of the Lionfish

[wahoo]

Hi,
My name is Philippe and I'm french.
I've just bought the Lionfish kit from revell.
I'd like to do a great job.
My problem is to know the colour of the hull during the pacific war...
On the Revell box, the hull is red, but on most of the photos i've found on the net, the hull is black. But the photos seems to be taken many years after the end on the war.
So during the war, can you tell what was the colour of the hull of the Lionfish?
Black or red?
Thanks a lot

[JWLaRue]

Hi Philippe,

Early in the war

Hi Philippe,

Early in the war U.S. fleetboats were all black. Around the middle of 1944, the Navy changed to a paint scheme that was a light gray overall with black on the upper, horizontal surfaces...and there were two variations of that scheme.

Here's what the USS Ling looked like back in July 1945 (click on the thumbnails for larger views)][/url]

The paint scheme diagram for this would be][/url]

-hope this helps,

Jeff

[wahoo]

Thanks it helps me a

Thanks it helps me a lot...
Is the red hull a legend? I've never understood the goal to paint a hull with the red.
Except maybe for operations in the red sea
I know that the red colour on a hull means there's a rust preventive like minium...

[PaulC]

Hi Phillipe,

Actually there is color

Hi Phillipe,

Actually there is color film of the launching of Silverside at Mare Island and her hull was painted anti-foul red below the waterline. However, everything I've seen indicates that on war patrol the boats had a black anti-foul coating below the waterline.

This changing of the color from launch to patrol has been observed frequently, even through the 688 class. Many times they had a red anti-foul from the waterline to the midline at launch which was painted black once the boat was commissioned.