[WIP] Japanese Merchant Marine

[tater]

Yet another reserved bit.

[virtualpender]

First things first, a huge thank you to Sergei and Tater for investing the time in research and production to make this mod happen. The community thanks you.

Second, a suggestion. Tater - I love where you are going with the recognition manual but have a thought - rather than formatting the ship names as KASAGISAN MARU SPLIT what about entering them as SPLIT KASAGISAN MARU? This would have the advantage of allowing the recognition manual to be used the same way the actual ones were - gradually narrowing down to class after identifying the type and construction details.

Thank you again and we are all eagerly looking forward to the release!

[tater]

Interesting idea.

The rec manual is arranged in the following way:

All the merchants are together, then it looks at "unit type" as defined in Names.cfg.

Merchants are types 100-109.

So "replenishment" first (100), then tankers, then cargo, transports, coastals. Types 105 and 106 don't show, 107-109 are the "rare" types... which might not actually show, I need to check that.

Within each type, it is alphabetical by the class name.

So KMSSKinposan.cfg would come after AKMSSKinposan.cfg

We can rename them so they change order, but renaming classes will FUBAR the campaign (I think).

Still, an interesting idea we can very easily try since that name is merely the descriptor in Names.cfg.

Another thing I might try is to replicate the ONI photograph IN GAME. So if we have a quartering bow show at sea of a ship, we take the same image as a SS, then scale it, make it B&W, etc.---with a similar civilian scheme applied.

[virtualpender]

Yeah exactly - I was just thinking changing the entries in Names.cfg. I know altering the class names would present an endless number of problems.

Great idea of using B&W screenshots in place of the ONI photos.

Your comments about recognition being too simple are spot on - these improvements will add a new level of realism and authenticity that has been needed. Once fully released, this mod plus Nisgeis' TDC will take what the devs were able to do and what Ducimus, Lurker, LukeFF, Skwas, et al built upon and make this the penultimate simulation of the US submarine campaign.

[cdrsubron7]

This mod is looking totally awesome, can't wait to give it a try. If you guys should by any chance need some beta testers, I'd like to volunteer my services.

Totally looking forward to this, well done on a great job.

[Sailor Steve]

[sergei]

Originally Posted by tater

Another thing I might try is to replicate the ONI photograph IN GAME.

That's what I was thinking Tater, in case you didn't have enough real photos to use.

[GerritJ9]

Japanese hospital ships were marked according to international regulations- white hull and superstructure, green band round hull, red crosses on hull and funnel(s), lit at night etc (which does not mean that the Japanese did not use/misuse these ships for more warlike purposes. The Japanese had little regard for international law regarding hospital ships, witness their illegal seizure of the Dutch hospital ship "Op ten Noort" in the Java Sea, and later commandeering her for their own purposes as the hospital ship "Hikawa Maru No.2"). Ships carrying POWs/Asian slave labourers, however, were not marked as such in any way at all; the Japanese simply appointed an available vessel as POW carrier and crammed the unfortunates in the holds. I certainly have never heard of any hellship such as "Kachidoki Maru", "Rakuyo Maru" or "Junyo Maru" receiving any kind of special paint/markings. To be fair, though, the "Laconia", sunk in the Atlantic by a U-Boot while carring Italian POWs, wasn't specially marked either as far as I know.

[sergei]

Originally Posted by GerritJ9

Japanese hospital ships were marked according to international regulations- white hull and superstructure, green band round hull, red crosses on hull and funnel(s), lit at night etc

Early war hospital ship.


Late war hospital/POW ship

[GerritJ9]

There is a photo of "Hikawa Maru No. 2" on:
http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/Noort.htm
The ship is clearly painted in the white hull etc scheme but the date when the photo was taken is unknown.
Re the second scheme you posted, I think this is the scheme used by Japanese repatriation ships post-war. I have seen several b&w photos of Japanese merchant and naval ships with white crosses on the hull, these were all taken post-war when the vessels were used to repatriate Japanese citizens.

[tater]

The POW paint was later in the war. We have RL examples that sergei used as a model (green paint measure, with crosses).

Some US subs reported hospital ships that were NOT lit, I seem to recall this from my reading of books by skippers.

[tater]

Originally Posted by sergei

That's what I was thinking Tater, in case you didn't have enough real photos to use.

I like this idea, but it has one flaw... in the case of ONI entries for "similar" ships that are in fact different looking we don't have a SH4 ship to take a shot of. Your PS skills might well be such that you could make them indistinguishable, but obviously if the player sees a SH4 shot they'd be certain it was a "real" ship.

Again, part of the rationale behind the real ONI pages is that it will create confusion. SH4 ships are roughly designed after the ships that they are named for (some considerably more roughly than others ). That said, they need to also function as "generic" ships. As such, when a ship is an analog for many RL ships of similar configuration (5k tons, MKFM Split, say), we can clone her, make some slight variation, then give her the ONI page for one of the "similar" ships that none the less look different enough that no one would probably mistake them in SH4.

It's a compromise, I realize, but the rec manual paradigm in SH stinks, frankly. The only way to really reorganize it is to make many fake countries, then assign copies of all the ships as clones that are warships for the new countries. the new countries would have names like " Composite Superstructure" or "Engines Aft."

It's rather complicated, however.

[tater]

BTW, regarding the rec manual, right now, my images are roughly scaled to each other as they are in ONI. In other words I have my PDF viewer to full screen, then take a SS of the page. If the ship is "little" in the ONI drawing, it's little in this one. That could change I suppose, but most are already done (though I have yet to alpha channel all, so many are not in my WIP version right now).

I'm open to suggestions.

[GerritJ9]

Mescator, the ship you are referring to is most probably the "Montevideo Maru", see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montevideo_Maru

Sadly, this was by no means the only instance of Allied subs sinking Japanese merchies which were transporting Allied POWs and/or Asian slave labourers (the latter victims almost completely forgotten today). To name but a few:
Kachidoki Maru
Rakuyo Maru
Junyo Maru
Lisbon Maru

None of the hell ships had any distinguishing markings to indicate they were transporting POWs as far as I know.

Tater, no need to apologize- we are all learning from each other as far as i'm concerned .