Well, I'll list here what my weekend project will be for September 16-17,

1) Do a clone of a Liberator B24 from a vanilla copy of SH3 1.4b

2) Do a clone of the DE Evarts

3) Do a full clone of the BB Revenge so I may make it into the BB Sao Paulo!

I have computed that I can convert an ID string every thirty seconds, so that can give a rough estimate of the time it will take.

-Jeff

Bon chance! Good Luck! Viel Gluck!

stljeffbb1:

Your fishing boat with machine gun is not historically incorrect. From about 1940, Churchill (as navy head) began issuing all small British vessels with armament to protect against air attacks.

iambecomelife:

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine

for all your kriegsmarine related info, if you haven't been to that site already.

(Does make you realise how barren the ship selection in SH3 is compared to history!)

Hi oRGy....

Cool! I just added it for fun.....glad I can be historcal too! :|\

However, I still need to figure out the "flag problem".... :oops:

-Jeff

Thanks for the link. My current project seems to be going ok. It's a KGV clone for the battlecruisers "Renown" and "Repulse". I was looking at my copy of Conway's "All the World's Fighting Ships" and noticed that the profiles were almost identical. Plus, there's already a 15" twin turret, so making a fairly accurate clone will be easy. There are some problems - Repulse's bridge apparently never got the KGV-esque bridge structure of Renown, the lack of a flush deck, etc - but at least most of the other features are alike. I'm about halfway through the ID's for this thing - can't wait till I'm done.

That sounds like a good idea - very little would have to be changed in the silhouette of the KGV to resemble the Renown/Repulse (the funnels would have to be moved slightly, for example). Even if it were just a direct clone, that would be good too. The one major problem is that the KGV class is over 20 metres shorter than the Renown class.

As for moving around objects on the model and combining parts from other models, maybe Sergbuto can help with that. What merchant would you make first, besides the T3 whale factory? (BTW, if you did continue with that whale factory, I would recommend adding the bridge from the T2 to the T3 model instead of using the T3 bridge, just a suggestion).

I was also wondering - what parts can you take from each ship. For example, if you wanted to use parts of the transport's bridge with the T2's bridge, could you delete parts until you just had the section that you wanted? I don't know the specifics of this.

I'm not sure that thatlast example would work, because the T-2 bridge seems to be an integral part of the 3d hull model. I could be wrong, though. The basic concept is definitely sound - you'll notice that the "Southampton" cruiser Sergbuto made has the slanted funnels taken from the "Dido" class on a "Fiji" hull.

Other new merchants I am considering are a German merchant/flak ship and an allied rescue ship. A Great Lakes ore freighter would be nice too - several of these were sunk during the war while sailing to ore-rich Caribbean countries. I would really like to create a medium merchant of a size appropriate to 3500 - 5000 tons but I can't think of an appropriate hull to use.

BTW, I think that the best way to put Merchants in a sub sim would be to have a number of interchangable parts - hull segments, funnels, and bridges - that could be randomly placed together once the game engine needs to generate a merchant. This would allow for a huge variety of shipping appropriate to the time period, since many shipping companies had non-standardized merchants in their fleets, not mass produced c-2's and t-3's. There could be saved configurations for particular vessels (i.e., bridge 30 attached to hull 2) plus, there could be flags to prevent, say, a freighter bridge on a tanker. I'd love a system like that for SH4 but this is probably years away...

More good news - I just finished copying the ID's, loaded up my cloned "Renown" in museum, and it worked! Now it's just a matter of editing minor files once again and creating a skin - much more fun than scanning for ID's. It should be available in no time. :arrgh!:

We'll all be anxiously awaiting your Renown :D :up:

About the merchants - anything over 4000 tons would need a new hull, but could a 3500 ton freighter use the small merchant hull? Of course, I don't know what parts can be removed and/or deleted, so maybe this is more difficult than I imagine. A coastal merchant hull would suit a lake ship however, if you could arrange the superstructure in the correct manner.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/2116.html

If you really pushed it, a 5700-6000 ton freighter could probably use the C2 hull, assuming the superstructure can be removed.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/2981.html

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/387.html

A "Large Merchant" of about 7200-8000 tons could be another good idea, IMO. It could use either the C3, or preferably the Liberty or Victory hull, and different parts of other ships superstructures (I don't know what can be removed). A good example of the design I am thinking of is the SS Rose Castle.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/2356.html

An Ocean class freighter should be easy to make from a Liberty Ship - the main changes would be to move the superstructure forward and rearrange the masts.

I can't find a picture on uboat.net, but I have a picture of one in one of my WW2 books.

BTW - Doesn't this look like the Large Cargo? Too light in tonnage though...

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/2300.html[/url]

If anyone has yet to visit uboat.net, (which has been recommended before by others), I suggest you have a look as there are too many good ships here to list.

It looks a LOT like it. I may tone down the tonnage value after seeing that page. SH3 already has too many huge tonnage monsters as it is.

That's correct. Many skippers accumulated tonnage by sinking large numbers of 2000 - 5000 tonners, instead of a handful of huge (by WWII standards) ships.

I just added the armament to "Renown" and started work on the early war skin. I'm also going to produce a late war, splotched-camo version, since she changed her paint scheme radically after a wartime refit. Everything's going great :D .


BTW, does anyone else know how to move the objects that appear on the decks of ships? I think that the location data appears in the datconvert but I haven't been able to manipulate it. It would also be nice if someone could tell us how to add new ship parts onto existing models.

Some WIP shots of the early war skin, which still needs work. Note the false flush deck I had to create at the stern.

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/4...d21copy1oq.jpg


http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/3...d22copy9rr.jpg

A bow shot. I'm substituting 4.7" destroyer guns for the 4.5" secondary armament.

Hi iambecomelife......looks great! I especially like the flush deck...I'll need to learn how to do that if I want to model the BB Sao Paulo.

:up:

-Jeff

Check the "cloning objects in plain English" thread to see some more recent shots, including the splotch-camo version.

That aint HMS Renown. Looks like Repulse tho. Renown had a superstructure similiar to HMS Nelson as her superstructure was totally rebuilt between the wars.