Samurai's Shipyard

[colmack 662]

damn! you guys are right!

[KJakker 901]

Here is some info on the Mistral. I can see about putting together a data file for it if you want?

 

Mistral Info.7z

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Thanks for the info, KJakker. I'll get to work on the missile. Now all I really need is the train/elevation rate for the launcher itself.

 

The ship in its entirety should be ready in just over one week.

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Mesh is finished. Initial painting and testing underway.

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Mistral missile

Fins are fully animated, etc. etc. If you have any helicopters capable of carrying this weapon, a quick .ini edit will make it into an air-to-air missile.

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Textures are nearly complete, mostly just need occlusion and weathering. I think I'll be able to finish sooner than I estimated.

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

The Forbin is now finished and uploaded. 

So now we've got all three of France's most modern surface combatants. I think they look quite nice together.

 

I know some of you are going to bug me for a Charles de Gaulle now,    but I really need to get around to finishing some old projects before I even consider starting something of that scale.

[+Gunrunner 314]

No no, we are reasonable and not greedy at all, we'll be satisfied with the Clemenceau-class carriers and their escorts instead... are we not merciful ?

 

Joking aside, seems to be top notch work as usual, can't wait to try them out.

[fallenphoenix1986 603]

 

I know some of you are going to bug me for a Charles de Gaulle now,    

 

 

Nah don't worry... a Queen Elizabeth Class CV on the other had 

 

Seriously though, the more floaty things the better 

 

Craig

[+JAT81500 135]

Thanks a lot, speaking of finish something, a CDG would close your French period 

[+whiteknight06604 934]

Thanks a lot, speaking of finish something, a CDG would close your French period 

is CDG a brand of French tampons? ;)

[+JAT81500 135]

No but this french collection is a true masterpiece, in a painter way :)

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

I'm going to try and finish am older (and long overdue) carrier first.

The unwrapping is taking forever. There are so many tube-like structures such as gun pits and lookout platforms. They do not respond well to box mapping or flatten mapping. I have to meticulously cylinder-wrap the inside and outside of each one and then manually rescale the uvws.

Then there are these balcony/walkway/lint trap things, highlighted in the pic above. There are dozens and dozens of them spaced around the deck. Because I was an idiot when I first built these sections, I didn't unwrap the first one before cloning it fifty times and placing them. So I've got to do that all over again the right way.

 

On the other hand, I gave the doors around the ship their own texture already. The reason for this is that it would be too difficult to paint them onto the hull and island textures due to the uvw scaling and angle issues. It's an extra 2500 polygons, but there's no easier way at this point.

 

Also, I need to know what the original catapults looked like as-built. Can't seem to find photos of that, so any help would be appreciated.

[KJakker 901]

WBS, this WWII catapult training film should help. You might need to turn up the volume as the sound is rather quiet. The catapult in the film is on a CVE but as I understand it the same type of hydraulic catapult was used on all USN carriers during WWII. The thing is during the war some Essex class ships had two catapults and some only had one. I will have to look up which ones and when.

 

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

First three from my knowledge did not even have deck catapults.

 

They got them retrofitted after they came back and went back out.

 

But had a catapult that shot planes out the hanger deck!

 

I can PM more refs.

 

My recommendation. Make the ones with the full cats.

 

No single Essex was the same.

 

Rule of thumb. No Straight deck Essex had a steam cat. Hydraulic only.

 

 

Great vid Dude!

 

My recommendation WBS, is go easy composite.

 

Concentrate on Long vs. Short hull. But composites of each. Every one of them was different.

 

Short Early, Mid, Late.

 

Long Early, Korea.

 

PM for any ?

[Wrench 9,846]

 

thank you!

 

(maybe just leave the lint traps off???)

[KJakker 901]

Okay, here is a wall of text plus an attachment of photographs.

 

Edit: Fixed an attachment issue.

 

Essex Class Catapult Views.7z

 

Essex class catapult outfit. 

 

Note in pre-modernization Essex class carriers the port catapult is off set slightly aft of the starboard catapult. This is still true after the SCB-125 modernization and the switch to the H-8 catapult, though it becomes much less apparent.  

 

---------------Short Hull Essex---------------

 

No catapult when commissioned. Two H-4 catapults were wating for her at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard but she never had need to return to the west cost for refit during the war. One H-2 flight deck catapult was installed on her starboard side during a refit.

 

CV-9 Essex: Catapult refit completed May 6, 1943.

 

------------------------------

 

One H-4 flight deck catapult on the starboard side and one H-4A hanger deck catapult when commissioned.

 

Hanger deck catapults were ordered removed in May 1943. A second H-4B flight deck catapult was added on the port side and the hanger deck catapult removed during refit.

 

CV-10 Yorktown: Catapult refit in September 1944.

 

CV-11 Intrepid: Catapult refit in June 1944.

 

CV-12 Hornet: Catapult refit in September 1945.

 

CV-17 Bunker Hill: Catapult refit in January 1945.

 

CV-18 Wasp: Catapult refit in June 1945.

 

------------------------------

 

One H-4 flight deck catapult on the starboard side when commissioned. A second H-4B flight deck catapult was added on the port side during refit.

 

CV-13 Franklin: Catapult refit in January 1945

 

CV-16 Lexingtion: Catapult refit in December 1943

 

------------------------------

 

One H-4 and one H-4B or two H-4B flight deck catapults on the port and starboard sides of the flight deck when commissioned. I have read that CV-31 had two H-4B catapults when the Korean War broke out and as the were WWII catapults may have been installed from the start. 

 

CV-20 Bennington: August 1944

 

CV-31 Bon Homme Richard: November 1944

 

---------------Long Hull Essex---------------

 

One H-4 and one H-4B or two H-4B flight deck catapult on the port and starboard sides of the flight deck when commissioned.

 

CV-14 Ticonderoga: May 1944

 

CV-15 Randolph: October 1944

 

CV-19 Hancock: April 1944

 

CV-21 Boxer: April 1945

 

CV-32 Leyte: April 1946

 

CV-33 Kearsarge: March 1946

 

CV-34 Oriskany: 25 September 1950

 

CV-36 Antietam: January 1945

 

CV-37 Princeton: November 1945

 

CV-38 Shangri-La: September 1944

 

CV-39 Lake Champlai: June 1947

 

CV-40 Tarawa: December 1945

 

CV-45 Valley Forge: November 1946

 

CV-47 Philippine Sea: May 1946

 

---------------Catapult Info---------------

 

F MK II (10,000 lb to 35 mph) flywheel type aboard CV-2 & CV-3 from 1920's.

 

H MK II (7000 lbs to 70 mph in 55-ft); pre-war Yorktown class & Wasp fit (including hangar catapult).

 

H-2-1 (11,000 lbs to 70 mph in 73-ft); CVE/CVL fit, and late 1943 fit for CV-3 & CV-6.

 

H-4 (3,500-16,000 lbs to 90 mph in 95-ft); Essex class early fit.

 

H-4A (16,000 lbs to 85 mph in 72.5-ft); Essex Class hangar fit, removed from May 1943 on.

 

H-4B (18,000 lbs to 90 mph in 96-ft); Essex class later fit.

 

H-4C (16,000 lbs to 85 mph in 72.5-ft); CVE/CVL fit late war.

 

H-4-1 (28,000 lbs to 90 mph in 150-ft); Midway class early fit.

 

H-5 (16,000 lbs to 90 mph in 96.7-ft); seaplane catapult, all converted to H-4.

 

H-6 (60,000 lb to 120 mph); seaplane catapult.

 

H-8 (15,000 lb to 120 mph or 62,500 lbs to 70 mph in 190-ft); replaced H-4B & H-4-1 in post-war Essex & Midway class modernization's.

 

H-9 (45,000 lb to 120 mph or 100,000 lbs to 90 mph in 210-ft); for CVA-58 United States, cancelled.

Edited July 24, 2015 by KJakker

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Thanks so much for all the info, guys. I think it's the "every one of them is different" thing like Crazyhorse said that's giving me a lot of trouble. Ideally I'd like to keep it to two or three variants at most for this long hull boat.

 

The island and deck edges are next to be unwrapped. Stock carriers and some other third party ones use a wrap-around tile for the edges, which is efficient in terms of texture size, but that won't let me do ambient occlusion or proper weathering in those areas. I'll do my best to find a balance between detail and performance.

 

I'm going to be out of town the rest of this weekend, but I thought I'd upload one more model before that. I put it together from existing parts and retextured it in about 2-3 hours.

 

With this ship and the Absalon, the sim will be able to create miniature task forces for the Royal Danish Navy starting from 2011 on terrains like the Baltic Entrance.

 

[+Coupi 4,388]

Top!

[+Hans Topp 115]

Nice work, we are ready for baltic campaign.... now we need some units for mediterranean sea

[+JAT81500 135]

Thank you very much for all your work.

 

To complete the actual French Frigates are you going to make the D614/D615 FAA ?

 

And do you plan to make the FREMM DA variant ?

[KJakker 901]

On the Essex Class, since we are not going to be using the hanger deck catapult in game, you only really need two different catapult layouts. One for the single starboard side catapult only flight decks and one for the dual catapult decks. There is no need to do a flight deck without any cat visible for the Essex CV-9 because even though she only had a catapult after May 6, 1943 the visible track on the deck for it was there from the start and she saw no action before her first catapult was installed.

 

I did a little more research and found out when the Essex class ships WWII configurations were commissioned and decommissioned as well as the dates that the single catapult ships underwent the refits that installed the second deck catapult. As such I was able to put together two "_Names.ini" files for you. One "Essex1C_NAMES.ini" is for the single cat ships and the other "Essex2C_NAMES.ini" is for dual cat ships. "EndDate=" and "StartDate=" for ships that appear in both files take into account the dates they underwent refit.

 

Essex Names Lists.7z

 

 

[+WhiteBoySamurai 1,094]

Thank you very much for all your work.

 

To complete the actual French Frigates are you going to make the D614/D615 FAA ?

 

And do you plan to make the FREMM DA variant ?

 

I was thinking about doing the Georges Legues and Cassard, but I may not have time for them. I need to finish my current big project and then get back to the Asian theater first.

The air defense FREMM is only an idea on paper right now. When they build a real one, I'll make a model of it.

 

 

 

On the Essex Class, since we are not going to be using the hanger deck catapult in game, you only really need two different catapult layouts. One for the single starboard side catapult only flight decks and one for the dual catapult decks. There is no need to do a flight deck without any cat visible for the Essex CV-9 because even though she only had a catapult after May 6, 1943 the visible track on the deck for it was there from the start and she saw no action before her first catapult was installed.

 

I did a little more research and found out when the Essex class ships WWII configurations were commissioned and decommissioned as well as the dates that the single catapult ships underwent the refits that installed the second deck catapult. As such I was able to put together two "_Names.ini" files for you. One "Essex1C_NAMES.ini" is for the single cat ships and the other "Essex2C_NAMES.ini" is for dual cat ships. "EndDate=" and "StartDate=" for ships that appear in both files take into account the dates they underwent refit.

 

Essex Names Lists.7z

 

Your research is much appreciated.

To be clear, I'm only doing the long-hull (CV-14) version, since that's the one that was requested. The short-hulls have significant structural differences, so reworking the model would not be that easy. 

 

I finally have the island, walkways, deck edges, and platforms seamlessly unwrapped and organized. Now I just need to fit them all on a single texture sheet, or otherwise add yet *another* material to the model.

Welcome to my nightmare.

 

 

 

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,557]

Is it the ww2 version or the one with the angled deck?

[Wrench 9,846]

judging by the MAX render behind the maps, I'd say WW2 (or at least 45-50), as I can see the a couple of dual 5" mount locations

 

--

This is going to look SOOOOOOOOO much better than what's (un)available until now!!

Great work WBS!!

and my thanks!