Nagara, OTOH...

Interestingly, there are MANY ships listed under 23a in ONI-208J, and quite a few are very close in size. There are varied mast arrangements, too. Quite a few have platforms built around the base of a goalpost mast. This looks distinctive, and should be easy to make (even for me).

They will be "kitbash" ships, but I can certainly make several variants of Nagara, though highly unlikely for the first release.

Still, it is heartening that at least one ship has room for decent numbers of variants.

Partially as a note to myself: later in the war, as we have some Standard Type ships to use, I will have to either decommission some ships, or make many variant types of Wartime Standards. Look at the Type E for example. While technically a coaster, they were pressed into service over longer trips, and there were hundreds of them. They should be incredibly common, but as you guys are aware by now, ships appear randomly 1/n where n is the count of same-classed ships in that nation's roster. If you have 20 merchants to pick from, but 2 types represented 80% of ships afloat, you'd need to have loads of clones of the 2 "popular" types to have anything like a realistic set of ships at sea.

It;s amazing that this wasn't fixed even for SH3. The only way around it is to eliminate variability, and explicitly name ship classes in the missions. They added "rare" types, but of course unless you use this in the mission files... that's a big change for RSRDC, for example. You'd need to move all the rare merchies to that type, then only change a % of groups to have a chance at some (or replace a few 102s in each group with a chance for rare tyoes, instead).

Whoa - that reworked ZINBU looks sweet!

Still, that makes maybe 3 ships that look anything even remotely like Zinbu (and these 2 require new superstructures).

Three ships.

Ugh. Better to spend my time perhaps making all those similar to Nagara (over a dozen hulls)

very very nice work Tater ! andI know how tedious it is at times :zzz:

keltos

Boy, Nagara stinks, too. Unless I get skilled faster than expected this will have to wait, but the superstructure is, well, awful. Looks like little to no research on what the merchants in question actually looked like.

Sigh.

Y'all know what Nagara looks like. This is her sister, Noto:
http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/%7Eiwashige/notomarumod.jpg

Obviously the Akitsu shapes need to go away, but here is a more Nagara looking start...
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...nagara_wip.jpg
(yeah, the entire bridge needs to be curved more across the front)

Nagara right now:
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o...anesondeck.jpg

I've found a list of Hog Islanders on the net and according to this list yard No. 1533, "Casagrande", became the Japanese "Nanei Maru" in 1942 and was sunk in 1944. No further specifics unfortunately- was she captured on the high seas, or scuttled and salvaged, and where/when? And, how/where was she sunk- any ideas on this one?
Oh well, it's another addition to the Japanese merchant lineup, even if she IS a one-off

I came across a reference to the Nanei Maru on Wikipedia. It seems she and four other ships were sunk by the USS Jack on February 19, 1944. Not sure if it's the same ship, just thought I'd post it.

Another reason it sucks that the unit names and dates don't work. You could have the ship go on and out of service to adjust how often it is seen

Updated all the skin start and end dates to tweak the appearance of the green skins (in June, 1944, all ships over 500 grt were ordered to be painted in that measure). What I did was to have all the grey and dazzle phase out over the next ~6 months after that.

Curiouser and curiouser........... just found another list of Hog Islanders, which lists yard No. 1533 as "Manatawny", sunk by aircraft bombs off Manila in December 1941. Several Hog Islanders were converted to tankers in the early 1920s, including this one probably (also yard No. 1540, "Vaba", which became the British "Empire Dolphin" in 1941). Although there is no entry re salvage, it is entirely plausible that she was raised and repaired by the Japanese.
The Wikipedia entry for USS "Jack" lists "Nanei Maru" as one of four TANKERS sunk by "Jack" on 19/2/1944, which would tie in neatly with her probable conversion in the 1920s.
Of course, this would probably mean 3D work- new superstructures on the Hog Island hull (depending on how the conversion was done) so probably not worth the effort. Time to obtain a copy of "The Hog Islanders"..........

Just returned from my vacation time, and found this!!!!:yeah::yeah:

Tater and Sergei, you are making my nº 2 wish for SH4 -more merchants- come true (Nº 1 was Nisgeis' radar mod:D), I LOVE YOU GUYS

Have you taken a look at IABL's fabulous merchant fleet mod to see if there is something of use for you there? He has done so many different hulls and superstructures that maybe some parts could be combined to produce japanese ships. Just out of curiosity -and in case I can help a bit- Tater, could you make a brief list of the 5 more common ships in the japanese merchant Navy during WW2 so I can have a look and see if I find somewhere a reasonable candidate for modelling them? :up:

The 5 most common would all be Wartime Standard Types I imagine.

Lesse:

#1 873grt Type 2E 457 built. (someone volunteered to do this, but unless he chimes in I won't put him on the spot :) )

#2 873 grt Type 2ET 131 built (tanker version of the above 2E)

#3 6,600grt Type 2A: 131 built (includes 34 type 2AT tankers)

#4 2,300 grt Type 2D 103 built (we have a kitbash of this already in JMM from BftB, and I actually also have a good hull I did myself, but I need to make the bulwarks 3d, and do the superstructure still)

#5 could be a few standard types with ~30 hulls—or perhaps there is a prewar ship with nearly that number. Lesse for prewar types:

Ada Maru (24 hulls—Biyo would be a good start) leaps to mind, as does Ansyu Maru (a 23 MFM with 30 hulls built), Aden M. (30 MFM with 42 hulls), Or Amakasu M. (46 MKMF with 40+ hulls).

BTW, regarding IABL's MFM. Yeah, I have it, and have looked at the ships. There are a few that would certainly work as Japanese ships, and he gave permission to use a couple trawlers when I asked (they sort of look like small, steel Sea Trucks). I started messing with them, and I might throw them in as stand-ins til I have something closer.

My other problem is when I start looking at the SH4 merchants closely I realize how little serious research they did before making them. Some are OK, others are really quite bad (aside from the choices made as to which ship, but that's another rant :) )

OK :up:

Any links to websites or pictures of those ships?