Grays Harbor Designs

[Zephyr]

That cammo pattern should dazzle any sub captain,it sure dazzled me.

Thanks! I just kinda made it up as I went along, then filled in the details. Who knows, I may get brave and/or ambitious and try a French style zebra stripe pattern next.

[travestytrav25]

Your camo pattern on the Quinn Bay Class CVE looks awesome.

And your submarine doesn't look too bad to me. LOL, a lot of early submarines from that period did look like "glorified cigar tubes", so you're design is not too far off the mark. The only thing I might say is most subs had smaller conning towers back then, and 6 bow torpedo tubes might be a little bit too optimistic. Most subs back then had no more than 4 bow tubes, but 6 is not impossible. Other than that, the hull shape and features looks pretty spot on for the period to me.

Its actually based on the British L Class, Group 3, which had the large con and 6 x 21" bow tubes. Its just that mine looks, well, bare ... to me, and I'm not sure how to proceed. I don't want to over-shade it, that would look silly, but just having a single line doesn't quite cut it either. I probably ought add some sort of deck gun, I'm sure of that at least.

I dusted off one of my old submarine reference books and was looking at the British and US L-class subs, which were slightly similar, although the British subs were a bit newer and more advanced. The sides of the upper hull on the L-Class were straight, so I'm not sure you could shade that part. Perhaps a little shading on the saddle tanks and underside of the hull would be in order. And yeah, you could definitely use a gun or two. Perhaps a retractable 3" gun like the US L-Class subs had. Maybe some Lewis guns on the bridge or something would be good.

If you really want to make it a little more exciting maybe you could try some camouflaging like your CVE. I've seen some interesting pics of camo schemes used on subs. I think the Italians were big on camouflaging their subs.

[Zephyr]

Thought I'd try for something a bit different, patrol balloons (blimps) from 1914-18

Two type of gondolas, the Type 1 built by Guild Aero and the Type 2 built by Bellsmith Boat Builders. The blimp portion was manufactured by Endricksen Fabrics, the primary maker of the fabric coverings for military aeroplanes at the time.
Guild Aero won the initial contract for the gondolas and based their design on current aeroplanes, but this proved unsuitable because of the cramped conditions for the 2 man crew on extended patrols, sometimes up to 8 hours. As Guild Aero began building more pursuit aircraft and bombers their facilities quickly became overtasked, so the Admiralty re-assigned production of the gondolas to Bellsmith, who redesigned the gondolas to be more boat-like. The increased size permitted more room for the crew, more petrol storage, and the ability to carry a pair of medium sized depth charges or bombs. The increased petrol also extended the endurance up to 10 hours maximum. The Type 1 was fitted with fore and aft pontoons to permit landing on water. This was not needed for the Type 2 as the boat-like gondola permitted this without pontoons. As a general rule, they only landed on water during emergencies however.
The majority of the patrol balloons were used from shore installations, however 2 Mail Packets were converted in late 1915 to carry 2 each and were used as anti-submarine escorts for convoys.
Guild Aero built 18 gondolas, Bellsmith built 46. Endricksen manufactured 64 blimps.
Active service began in march 1915 and lasted throughout the war. After the war they were gradually replaced in the coastal patrol role by fixed wing seaplanes and rigid airships, the last patrol balloon being withdrawn from service in april 1924.

Type 1 is on the left, the Type 2 is on the right

[Rhade]

This is not something you see on Shipbucket, nice idea and hob Zephyr.

[Zephyr]

This is not something you see on Shipbucket, nice idea and hob Zephyr.

Thanks. I got the idea from here. I was looking for info on RN rigid airships, and saw this little bit and became fascinated by the idea, so I figured, "oh, why not?". Seemed a pretty decent idea for anti-sub patrols during WW1.

[Novice]

Pretty good idea. One thing is I'll check the math, as you said "Endricksen manufactured 64 blimps" but then "Guild Aero built 18 gondolas, Bellsmith built 41". That means 5 blimps had no gondolas (18+41=59)

[travestytrav25]

Very nice designs. That is a good idea. But I don't think I'll be going up in them. I'll just stay on the surface. LOL.

[Zephyr]

Pretty good idea. One thing is I'll check the math, as you said "Endricksen manufactured 64 blimps" but then "Guild Aero built 18 gondolas, Bellsmith built 41". That means 5 blimps had no gondolas (18+41=59)

I'm going to put that little error down to either "too early in the morning and tired", "mathematically challenged", or "Spare Balloons".

Changed the number to 18 and 46 = 64.

[Rhade]

I was also think that they are spare balloons. You need spare parts so why not a whole spare balloon.

[Thiel]

Neat design, though I can't help but feel that the boat like gondola is going to be much heavier than the plane like one which should result in reduced performance and not the other way around.
Also, you seem to have used anti aliased text on the template.