Name This...(877)

[brady]

???

[Scherf]

The starboard wing of a pre-war training aircraft.

Cheers,

Scherf

[Charon]

USS Drayton, Mahan Class

Trying out "Blue Beetle" camoflage.

Charon

[storch]

Yup USS Drayton DD366 during the "Pearl Harbor Experiments" trying out the Sapphire Blue horizontal surface paint 13 Feb 1942.

[Nilsen]

its a type 88 UFO over the second turret on the USS Destroyer

[brady]

USS Drayton, it is:)

[Halo]

Only problem with all that pretty ship blue on blue is the stark white wake.  Might not matter so much nowadays with all the fancy detection equipment, but first person to invent wakeless warship still might do well patentwise.  

Then again, surely contemporary stealth ship development includes some sort of wake suppression?

[Charon]

Good point Halo. A lot of camo on warships was desighend to make it harder to estimate size, distance and speed (not reduce detection) but the blue would seem to be a detection approach. It does blend in from the air, but the wake gives it away (at least from the air). Maybe it worked somewhat better from another ship at a greater distance, or maybe not. Ships stayed gray.

Charon