oh Darkfish...if only i knew that when i was making the TMT.... i would have save a lot of time ! ( where are these infos when you need them...).VERY GOOD METHOD you pointed !
@Nisgeis: you can get the length in game .i measured Bismarck's length and found it 'close' to 270m .i am saying 'close' becuase the clock in sh4 is showing only seconds (without demicals) .the time that Bismarck needed to cross the vertical line of peri was something between 87-88 sec .i took it as 87.5 and then length=(6x87.5x1.852)/3.6= 270.08333
i measured it again with the method suggested by Darkfish and the s3d showed length=270.9
the difference is not big deal (the cause of the difference is the exact time that Bismarck needed to pass the vertical line.the exact time was 87.75 and not 87.5 that i guessed it was).BUT if i knew the method that Darkfish suggested i would for sure used that method...you save a lot of time . so, both methods work and that proves that there is not only one way to get the real length (real for the game ...not for real life)
about the mast value:
the mast value that you will set at .cfgs is the value that also the player will see ingame. and this value is exactly the value ( and the only one ) that the game is using to calculate the range (and the player via stadimeter).so,if the mast value is wrong at .cfgs then the calculated ranges will be also wrong . and it doesn't matter if it is a value for mast , you can choose any spot of the ship as a 'hot' spot to aim with stadimeter ( angle....mast...range)
and yes, you can find the accurate mast value (especially at sh4 which has better resolutions) .the only thing that you need is..patience (and as i said,it doesn't have to be the mast's height ...you can choose any part of the ship...the more vissible is..prefered like flags or funnels in some cases)
s3d (or 3d programmes) doesn't seem very helpfull at getting the real mast becuase you don't know where the waterline is for each ship. their .sims files are controling the part of the ship that will be above ( or under) the water and each ship has its own settings at .sims .BUT it will be very nice if someone find a way to get them from s3d . if this happens then it will be a piece of cake the fixes to ships's dimensions
but as i was writting this post .... i remembered something (but i am not sure about this)...someone has allready made some fixes for ships's dimensions for sh4 or no ?