I thought this mod was intended for the late 1960s. Although I could very well be wrong.
Whether the mod is going to take place in the 1950s or 60s, I think the Passenger Liner (NPPL) from SHIII is one you should keep in mind - her bridge always looked too modern for a typical WWII liner.
Although there
were a couple of newer liners that looked like that in the 40s.
Also the SHIII German merchant raider (which was included in SHIV and which was cloned as a freighter by Sergbuto back in the early days of SHIII) could fit in either a 50s or 60s time period, mostly because of her blocky and solid bridge and larger size (she reminds me of a French freighter named the Daoula (spelled wrong?) that sank in the Western Atlantic in the 1960s in bad weather). Whether the mod will take place in the 50s or 60s though, one should try to avoid the smallest and oldest looking merchants of both SHIII and SHIV - especially Japanese ones that have distinctive Japanese profiles.
I would like to see some newer post-war freighters with aft-superstructures, and maybe some slightly larger tankers as well (not like today's supertankers, but some Torrey Conyon-sized units would work well). I think it was about 1976 before tankers (and lakers) were generally built without the forward superstructure (i.e. aft-superstructure only) so the current split-superstructure scheme should still work. Just some observations - I'll post more thoughts later.:hmm: