Mea culpa, after reading through the links from a
previous post I found out that my hunch (of brown flight decks) was completely wrong (maybe I was thinking 18th and 19th century navies, rather than 20th century navies) and for the USN the Blue and Green Gray are beautiful. Out of the fifty shades of grey out the one I was looking for was :
Deck Blue Grey Vallejo Model Colour 867
Extremely useful was this Vallejo Colour Chart link:
https://www.megahobby.com/products/17ml-acrylic-paint-bottles-model-colors-vallejo.html
Well guess what, despite what I thought was an extensive selection of Vallejo paints - this was one I was missing, but I had the next door cousin 868 Dark Sea Grey- so in these Corona Virus times of make do I used that instead. I was going to mix in a lighter shade anyhow so what the heck! (see below, my revised carrier flight decks, no more "wooden walls"):
I decided to take one example through to the end. I opted for CV2, the USS Lexington "The Lady Lex" and tried my hand at a little bit of shading to the deck and give her some "flight landing lines" (see below, my hand drawn lines will do for now, although there are some excellent decals from:
https://www.flightdeckdecals2400.com/product-page/usn2a-cv-2-lexington-grey - another casualty of the lock-down, just now as no air-mail)
A hypothetical shot of "Lady Lex" being escorted to the ball (see below, two previous 1/3000 scale warships are used to eyeball my sea base painting for wargaming compatibility between them all - in fact I think that is it is unlikely an historical reconstruction as I think "Lady Lex" was "down and out" [sunk 8/5/42 at the Battle of the Coral Sea] before these two [USS Washington - although 15/5/41 commissioned she started her Pacific duties much later from 23/8/42, and the USS South Dakota - entered the war much later, it was 26/7/42 before she was ready for active service] got into the fight in 1942):
Close up of "Lady Lex" (aka "The Grey Lady). She was a big ship an would have been a heck of a battle-cruiser if finished to her original design (see below, she still carried 8x8" guns so potentially packed a hell of a surface punch too):
The painted "Lady Lex" alongside the other early war USN CVs (see below, the sea base was an additional wet-brush layer of Anita's Acrylics Navy Blue mixed 50:50 with Ocean Blue, followed by a highlight of Ocean Blue, Green Vallejo "wash" was added, then with wave-tops and churn being achieved by mixing in Antique White and White for a feather-lite highlight - in an artistic fashion):
A final Humbrol "satin varnish" was applied (see below, not "an in your face" gloss but a subtle reflective shimmer is achieved [as per the battleships]):
OK, end-to-end test was a success, production mode is on ;)