Navy takes different approach to painting vessels | HamptonRoads.com | PilotOnline.com: They call it "haze gray," the war paint of the Navy's fleet, designed to make its vessels tougher to see.
It's hard to fathom how many millions of gallons of it have been slathered on the sides of Navy ships over the years.
"If it moves, salute it; if it doesn't, paint it," was a motto of sailors in previous generations, said Rob Hogan, director of steel manufacturing at Newport News Shipbuilding and the son of one such sailor.
But what may have been viewed as a simple, if detested, chore years ago has morphed into a highly sophisticated enterprise driven by engineering.
Within the past decade or so, an increasing share of what used to be called "painting" has been pushed into the earliest stages of shipbuilding, when vessels aren't even vessels yet, just pieces in the building-block stage.
"We've moved beyond the days of bustin' rust, with a needle gun and a wire brush," Hogan said during a recent tour of the two dozen shops and open areas he manages in the sprawling Newport News yard, where between 120 and 170 people work in the "surface prep and treatment group."
