Question..custom ship names
 

I know you can change the name of a ship to the USS fred if you want..question is, if I were to create a mission with the objective of targeting a specific ship in a convoy or task force, would that name come up anywhere ingame, or would the "USS fred" be indistinguishable from other ships of the same type in the convoy from the players point of view?

You can't set an objective of a 'specific' ship. You can set objective for a specific Class of ship such as an Iowa BB, or a specific type of ship such as Merchant, Warship etc. But not Fred. Those names are used basically to distinguish different ships in the Mission Editor not the game. If you click on a ship on the map in game, it tells you the type not the name.

Peabody