sunlight seems to be a bit of a truer representation then?
yup. the da green instead-of-proper-black thing has bugged me for nigh on three decades now too... So I know how you feel... 
and yeah the old fw th's indeed looked odd.
These gdb's voidhaks are the th's I've used throughout my fleets. I can vouch for those, they're good models. easily on par with gw's fighters and bombers in level of detail but crisper due to being print at that scale, not cast.
The desired color is in the carmine to crimson range, a darker red with a slight hint of purple. Have picked up quite a few hobby paint colors (Vallejo, GW, Reaper, P3), but have not found one I like yet. Looking at Wikipedia: Shades of Red, carmine has has an interesting characteristic: "The color carmine is a saturated red. In its pigment form it mostly contains the red light with wavelengths longer than 600 nm, i.e. it is close to the extreme spectral red.
This places it far beyond standard gamuts (both RGB and CMYK), and its given RGB value is a poor approximation only." So it looks like I will never get a good approximation when displayed on a computer monitor.
Color is always dependent on the combination of pigment color and light color. The fall afternoon sunlight is a bit warmer and redder, so the ships lose a bit on the purple side of the color. Still like the color in the group shot best.
Since I have two battlecruisers, I need some regular cruisers and perhaps some escorts to support them, so will keep playing with the colors until I get it "right". Won't paint the battleship until I get it right...
Actually have the Voidhawks somewhat painted, just had not taken any pics:
