Hi;

Pre war no. 20 standard deck gray was, to the eye, a very dark off black. In 1941 no. 5D dark gray was even darker, but not quite black. If you have access to Snyder and short color chips, you can see the very slight difference. Their color chips are a very good match to actual Navy samples. You can easily find a photo of their product on line and see for yourself. The durability of paints in pre war and early war days was not very good. The sea and sun tended to quickly weather the decks to lighter hues. that's about six weeks for an active ship. If you were into color mixing, simply adding a few drops of white to ivory black would get you there. Unless you happened to be heavily involved in the study of color, the difference is not noticeable on a model. The 5D would serve you just fine.

Modern modelers simply accept the labels of current commercial paints, which may or may not be a precise match. The question is like asking, "What is the most accurate Olive Drab?" the real answer is "There ain't no such animal." If you happen to have an occasion to see a line of freshly painted tanks in the field, you could easily see the variations. During the late 1980s I actually collected a sample of paint peeled off the USS Forrest Sherman after decommissioning. Under magnification you can easily see six different paint jobs, no two of which are precisely alike. Hope you find this informative.

Regards, rjccjr