Why are the decks of Soviet/Russian ships red?

I have never had any difficulty seeing ships painted grey.

No need to apply surface coat?! So that all recon and other air-based assets of the enemy should have no difficulty to spot the Russian warships from virtually their naked eyes?

And what makes you think a ship painted grey would be invisible from the same position?

The difference is zero and if one saves time, effort and money the real question is why does the rest of the world waste money painting their decks grey when anything that can see the red would see the grey anyway. Now if tehy were painted a blue colour that always matched the sea that the ship happened to be traversing at the time then you might have a point, but I have never seen the sea Navy ship grey and I doubt it happens very often.

Not often I say this but – dead right Edison.

On radar the colour of the decking makes little odds, on IIR the colour of the decking makes little odds, from a slant angle at 40nm with an EO system youre going to see a lot more of the vertical surfaces than the horizontal ones, from a periscope viewer youre not going to see a horizontal surface etc, etc.

The only time really that a non low-viz surface is going to be an identification feature, as Lawndart says, is from a relatively high overhead angle. If your recon platform needs to see a red deck to get a positive ID while its flying over the top of the ship then you probably need to invest in some new recon platforms and recruit a slightly higher calibre of crew!.

Leaving the red lead colouration is small potatoes in tactical terms and probably saves them some time, effort and money in maintainance terms. Cant think of many others who do it and, as noted earlier, its not standard practise across the fleet. Each to their own though!.

No need to apply surface coat?! So that all recon and other air-based assets of the enemy should have no difficulty to spot the Russian warships from virtually their naked eyes?

Going by that theory, maybe all the countries should start painting their warships in rainbow colors!! Sailors’ life is dull and drab as it is, atleast the bright multicolored ships will cheer them up!

If the Russian ships are red by design and its not rust, then thats even worse!

well considering modern naval warfare are faught way beyond visual range there is just no point to plant the thing. Air recon are better off not getting too close to the ships if they know that’s best for tham and at that range there is almost no way you can distinguish the colour of the deck of a ship except a grey dot on the surface of the water.

Modern aircraft,equipped as they are with radar,FLIR and night vision devices wouldn’t have any problem spotting a ship at sea no matter what colour you painted it.

However,I think it’s a clever ploy by the Commies to make the Capitalists with too much time on their hands fight about the issue on an aviation forum :rolleyes:

Theres no absolute need to apply the surface coat. Certainly at the many dozens of miles that modern naval engagements are anticipated to take place over the visual advantage of having greyed out horizontal surfaces is insignificant.

No need to apply surface coat?! So that all recon and other air-based assets of the enemy should have no difficulty to spot the Russian warships from virtually their naked eyes?

Going by that theory, maybe all the countries should start painting their warships in rainbow colors!! Sailors’ life is dull and drab as it is, atleast the bright multicolored ships will cheer them up!

If the Russian ships are red by design and its not rust, then thats even worse!

Off topic, gentlemen. Pls don’t the forum for your little jousting tournaments.

you my friend are also quite sensible and a good call. Unfortunately there are some in this forum who suffer from extreme inferiority complexes.

Off topic, gentlemen. Pls don’t the forum for your little jousting tournaments.

The slipery slope…

what is wrong with people who believe in Christianity?

Hmmm? What is wrong with people who harbour one variety of supernatural beliefs rather than the other?
Nothing more than with the people who believe in Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer.
Nothing less, unfortunately.

Ah, yes, maybe. The religious believers of the various persuasions have been responsible for the vast majority of organised murders throughout human history.

But that’s hardly a “wrong”, is it?
😀 😀 😀

As long as it’s OK with God, it CAN’T be wrong.
:diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

I did say I thought they looked scruffy!!! 😀

Surely you can’t be satisfied with Jonesy’s answer burger boy, it is no where near negative enough… perhaps if he had said they still use wooden decks because there are still so few peasants in Russia that know how to work metal you’d be much happier…

🙂

Many thanks again for yet another sensible answer, which some people are unable to provide

Surely you can’t be satisfied with Jonesy’s answer burger boy, it is no where near negative enough… perhaps if he had said they still use wooden decks because there are still so few peasants in Russia that know how to work metal you’d be much happier…

Boring answer lads I’m afraid but the red colour is just the ‘red lead’ antirust coating. Our ships use it too but we uniformly put a surface coat of grey over the top of it. In some cases the Russians do and in some cases they dont.

Theres no absolute need to apply the surface coat. Certainly at the many dozens of miles that modern naval engagements are anticipated to take place over the visual advantage of having greyed out horizontal surfaces is insignificant. Plus there is a bonus that an area that takes lots of seaspray, thusly requiring regular maintenance, is easier to maintain if you can just slap on another coat of red lead rather than having to scrape off a patch then reapply the base and top coats.

To be flippant though those decks have always looked damn scruffy to me! :diablo:

Many thanks again for yet another sensible answer, which some people are unable to provide 😀

Boring answer lads I’m afraid but the red colour is just the ‘red lead’ antirust coating. Our ships use it too but we uniformly put a surface coat of grey over the top of it. In some cases the Russians do and in some cases they dont.

Theres no absolute need to apply the surface coat. Certainly at the many dozens of miles that modern naval engagements are anticipated to take place over the visual advantage of having greyed out horizontal surfaces is insignificant. Plus there is a bonus that an area that takes lots of seaspray, thusly requiring regular maintenance, is easier to maintain if you can just slap on another coat of red lead rather than having to scrape off a patch then reapply the base and top coats.

To be flippant though those decks have always looked damn scruffy to me! :diablo:

If you had practice your reading comprehension, it says Most Other countrie’s Navy have a grey colored deck.

“Most other” is never an excuse for anything. Most other people on this planet are not Christians… what is wrong with people who believe in Christianity?

As I said the Russians aren’t most other, and they are not obliged to do what most others do.

Amusing that you say:

“But alas, a simple question seeking a simple answer is much too difficult for your intellectual capacity or lack of “

To me, yet comments like:

So that it can be spotted by US satellites easily…

so you can’t see the blood spilled in the revolution………

so that you can’t see the bad maintenance …

slip by you. Doesn’t surprise me… anyone who puts F-18 in their username must either be unhinged or have a very bad sense of humour. 😛

Nice pictures Wanshan BTW… especially liked the one of the Sovremmeny with the 130mms elevated.

Ok, let’s bring some sense into this…
I think the reason was their ’50s sense of style. They tried to imitate the classic teak wood decks.
The last U.S. Navy ship with a teak deck was CLGN-160/CGN-160/CGN-9 USS “Long Beach”, commissioned in September 1961. The Russians propably had a hard time getting enough teak wood, so they used paint instead.

For the simpletons among us, rust is the wrong answer! The correct answer is: “well, they had to pick some color!”.

Actually, the Russian often paint decks of larger vessels in a two-tone scheme, one of which is the reddish color found on their small ships and the other is a darker color. The darker color is used primarily on the main deck, and the lighter color on the higher level decks and superstructure top.

The Russians use more than one paint scheme, probably depending on which fleet we’re looking at. They also use Grey-Green on their decks sometimes:

As for other navies, the Algerian and Vietnamese navies use a similar reddish color deck paint. And there probably are more navies (e.g. with Russian ships) that do so, if you care to look for it.

Algerian navy FAC Djebel Chenoua

http://www.steelnavy.com/CombrigBoyarin.htm

Not the answer.. but this is a good place to know about what navy and what colors..

http://www.whiteensignmodels.com/brochure/colourcoats_naval.htm

They are the Russian or Soviet Navy, not the Most Other Countries Navy. Same old anti Russian BS… because it is really rust you are seeing because they can’t afford paint at all, or perhaps because that was the cheapest paint that no one else wanted… blah blah blah.

I hope you are trying to be funny. I’d hate to think you are all that stupid.

Oh Garray, trying to make a non-issue an issue just to vent out your insignificant rants. If you had practice your reading comprehension, it says Most Other countrie’s Navy have a grey colored deck. But alas, a simple question seeking a simple answer is much too difficult for your intellectual capacity or lack of 😉

But lack of maintenance (lack of money) results in the ‘red color scheme’!

B0ll0cks

Why are the decks of their ship a reddish-brown color, most other countries seem to have a grey deck, even the PLAN.

They are the Russian or Soviet Navy, not the Most Other Countries Navy. Same old anti Russian BS… because it is really rust you are seeing because they can’t afford paint at all, or perhaps because that was the cheapest paint that no one else wanted… blah blah blah.

I hope you are trying to be funny. I’d hate to think you are all that stupid. 🙁