French shells colors RAL

[MINENAZ16]

Hello,
There are often questions on this forum about colors (RAL) for french shells (ww1).
I found informations today.
French experts seem to use :
-Yellow RAL 1021 for HE ("explosif nitré")
-Yellow + red RAL 3001 for HE ("explosif nitraté").
-Red RAL 3001 for shrapnel
Regards

 

[BMG50]

I thought RAL was a Post war German paint system like our BS381C colour system in the UK, although it does go back to the 1920-30. Do the French have such a paint code system or has RAL been adopted by the rest of Europe.

 

[sgdbdr]

Hi,

This website allows conversions of the references between many color systems : http://www.perbang.dk/rgb/

Cheers,

S.

 

[Dreamk]

The French had no standard for shades, what they used was reference to the catalog of the company producing the paint - the most well known being Ripolin and Pyrolac - with samples of the shades.
The problem is that most of this catalogues have been destroyed or kept in bad conditions so the shades are in fact uncertain.

In addition some official technical services issued sometimes their own reference notice with samples of the "authorized shades" (for instance the STAe issued such a reference leaflet for shades to be used in the French Air Force in 1939) but the Industrial producers used these as "general reference" and looked for the closest shade in the catalog or their paints supplier (Ripalin, Pyrolac and others) and this is what they used in practice.

A lot of research work has been done through the years by various experts to try and reach an agreement on the equivalent of the shades used by the French Army nd Air forces for shells/bombs - What Minenaz has posted is the most agreed opinion - the RAL standard being an European standard has been used in the thinking that it better reflected shades historically used by European Countries such as Germany, France or Italy.

Having said that, what must be kept in mind is that most of this shades were the shades commonly used in the industry of these countries, and remained virtually unchanged till the 1960s, and this is an important element of assessment for hypothesis concerning these shades.