Italian Soldati re-skins (To be released with next HT mod)

[Marhkimov]

*EDIT* December 26, 2005



CamO Crazy!!??? UPDATE: These skins will be released with the next edition of HT mod.


^New (optional) dark/light silhouette pictures for the rec manual.


^generic5 Soldadi DD (based on Condottieri V)


^generic4 Soldadi DD (based on Attilio Regolo)


^generic3 Soldadi DD (based on Quintino Setta)


^generic2 Soldadi DD


^generic1 Soldadi DD


^Alpino Soldadi DD


^Bombardiere Soldadi DD


^Legionario Soldadi DD


^Corsaro Soldadi DD


^plain camo Soldadi DD


I tried my best to make each Soldadi look exactly like its real life counterpart, but with the texture repeat, it is just not possible. Therefore, we have to settle for ships that are almost exact, but not exactly exact... Oh well. They look good enough.


Cheers!
Marhkimov.

[Marhkimov]

Here's some shots of the default Soldati, btw.




No doubt, it's a really good skin, but NOT ALL Soldati's should look like that. For lack of the Italian warships in the Mediterranean, at least I can skin the Soldati for some variety...

[Rubini]

marhkimov,

I, Scirè and Eweber are working on RSI and Black Sea Scenario. We will use some more Soldati, then if you make new skins will be good. I think that is a good idea to you to contact Scirè, he have access into a lot of info on Italian forces on WWII.

Cheers,

Rubini.

[HundertzehnGustav]

for the hell of it, afaik i have a dozen VWs, from scratch, 14 or 15 Type 34 (should fit the Type 36 a too) and 3 c class.
in the works is the Tribal Class, and the Clemsons too.

I work from selfmade Paint shop Pro 8 templates, so i can make as many as i want with a minimum amount of work....

good to see another one Join in the repaint frenzy.

[Marhkimov]

Does anyone know why Soldati's have red and white stripes painted on their bows?

[Scire]

Originally Posted by marhkimov

Does anyone know why Soldati's have red and white stripes painted on their bows?

It was intended to avoid friendly fire from air attack in the same way of the german svastikas on the Bismark, but it were soon deleted in the very first time of the conflict.
About the camo pattern most of the ships were simply grey but the camoufled ones adopted a great number of pattern variants.
Between 1925 and 1945, the Regia Marina built only one kind of explorer, the "Navigatori" class. These units were classified explorers in 1929 and reclassified destroyers in 1938. During the period leading to World War II, the Regia Marina built or refurbished 8 battleships, numerous light and heavy cruisers, but the units which were built in the largest number were destroyers and explorers. The destroyers were, by then, units belonging to naval squadrons and not any longer than the original torpedo boat hunters. This new class of ships was required to be able to attack using torpedoes and cannon fire and was also expected to provide escort for larger units. These new units not only grew in scope, but also in displacement which from the original 1,560 tons of the "Turbine" class, grew to the 2,460 tons of the "Soldato" class. The armament usually consisted of several 120mm guns and 4 to 6 533mm torpedo launchers.
One of the original requirements was speed. These new units were capable of speed of 38 to 39 knots while being sufficiently seaworthy.

[Marhkimov]

Scirè,

Thanks for the info and pics. We are gonna have some WILD Soldati's!


But I noticed one thing. Only your first and fourth pic are of Soldatis. The rest of the ships are of a different class (2 funnels and more main deck cannons).

But does it really matter? I like all of the camo schemes. Would it be too crazy if I decided to skin a bunch of non-Soldati camos too?

[Scire]

Do not worry about it Marhkimov!

The italian Regia Marina was usual to apply the same camo patterns "style" with no care about the class of the vessel.
So the same camo variant (generally tipical for each arsenal were it was applied) were used on many ships from destroyers to battleships, from torpedo motor boats ,to resupply ships.
So you can simply copy the pattern even if coming from others ship class and you are always historically rights!

(BTW: please sorry for my bad english! )

[Marhkimov]

No problem. I almost have the blank camo scheme done. After that, applying camo stripes will be easy.

[Marhkimov]

Does anyone know where I can find color illustrations?

Or at least some color schemes? I dunno what colors to make of all my black and white photographs...

[Marhkimov]

Nothing makes a boat look better than a spiffy paint job...


My first camo scheme is still a WIP

The portholes are smaller than stock. They've also been put into their correct positions. Also, different Soldati's had different amounts of portholes, but do we really need to be that specific? I don't think so...

Currently, it's a remake of the default paint scheme. There is also a hint of rust, but overall it is not a rustbucket as originally portrayed by Ubi.

So how's she look so far?

[CCIP]

Very pretty!

I love the subtle aging; I used to like the "rust-buckets", but I've really grown very fond of the slightly-aged look.
This one looks great - very sharp

Are you planning to extend that pattern?

[Marhkimov]

Yeah, I am planning on finishing the rest of the hull.

But It is getting very tedious because I have to pack the skin into the dat file every time I need to check on the stripe alignment. That means packing the skin, booting SH3, loading naval academy, taking screenshots, quitting, then back to skinning some more, and repeat whenever I need to check on something again... Skinning is naturally a time-consuming process... but OUCH, that is a lot of wasted time...

On the other hand, it is much easier to skin on multi-skin ships because you can alter-tab in and out of the game, and skins will refresh in realtime while you are skinning... Soooooo much easier to get something done.

It will be slow until Sergbuto helps me to make the Soldati a multi-skinned boat. Soon I hope.

[Scire]

Marhkimov ,
a PM for you about Soldati class!

[Marhkimov]

Originally Posted by scirè

...the italian navy as a result of the difficulties in receiving refueling generally employed the same varnish of the received kriegsmarine as war supply therefore the ships employed the same bottom gray with generally black camouflage bands or more very rarely in dark green.

So did the Italian ships have red keels? If not, were they grey or black keels?

Did their ships have black waterlines above the keel paint? Did they even have painted waterlines?

In most of the b&w photographs, the plain camo paints look very light. Is that a German style grey or is it more "whitish" paint?


Does anyone know?


Thanks,
Marhkimov.