Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

After the Gepard class, I've decided to try my hand at something larger in the same style.
Since there were some undocumented non-built variants I needed for some AU stuff I will probably stop procrastinating about and post some day or another, I have taken the occasion to re-draw the baseline Sovremenniy to the latest standard (in this case, based on Gollevainen's new Pr.1134B variants).

For the zero persons who have never heard about this ship: The Project 956 Sarych was developed in the 70s by Severnoye as the first purpose-built destroyer (most of the previous developments were considered and designated as pure anti-submarine ships as opposed to surface-action destroyers) and the first clean break in post-war Soviet destroyer design.
Christened "Sovremenniy" class by NATO after the lead ship, it was a surprise and a puzzlement for Western intelligence, due in part to the extensive and bristling anti-ship and and-air weaponry, associated with what was perceived as an antiquated steam-boiler propulsion system, which proved temperamental when mixed with the low training standard of Soviet conscript sailors. The ship can be better understood when compared with the contemporary anti-submarine ships, as complementing surface action groups with emphasis on area air defense and ASW defense, as well as a specialist combatant to escort landing groups. It was also the first concrete step towards the creation of a true multi-purpose Soviet destroyer (before the Project 1155 Fregat/Udaloy) which would never see the light of day.
In all, 23 hulls were laid down for the Soviet navy, with 17 ships being commissioned between 1980 and 1993. In addition, two unfinished ships were refurbished in the late 90s and sold to the Popular Republic of China, which ordered two more to a slightly modified Pr.956EM design after 2000.

Design note: this is an unfinished draft with a lot of equipment not installed (as can be seen flying around the drawing) and most railings, cables and antennas omitted for clarity. Since the design is complex to the point of obfuscation, I would appreciate some feedback at this stage before it start with the furnishing.
On a similar note, the current version is base on the early ships but does not represent a specific ship as such. Soviet shipbuilding being(having been?) what it is(was?), I haven't found two identical ships so far. Final versions of the drawing will represent specific ships where applicable.

Still and all, I hope you enjoy this!

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
My Worklist

I see two twin(?) rocket launchers, 1 each fore and aft for AA missiles. That could give up to 4 missiles in the air at one time but I can see only one controller? I know the US/UK run two missiles to one controller, were the Russian controllers better?

It certainly looks like a good big powerful ship.

I somewhat doubt the accuracy of the shading on the hull representing the real shape of the vessel well, but other then that nice work!

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Krakatoa, he has not yet fitted any of the illuminators.

I'm not equipped to comment on the accuracy of the drawing, but it's detailed as shit. Very impressive.

Yeah, this was bound to happen with me posting an unfinished ship
The missile directors are floating above the ship so far to expose the structure beneath (they are most of the whitish slanted bulbs); I will assemble them in the final versions. For the two single-arm SAM launchers (kinda-sorta-Mk-13 SM1MR equivalent), this ship carries 3 pairs of illuminators: two on the sides of the helo hangar, two on top of the bridge between the main mast and the gun FC radar, and two lower above the torpedo tubes. Makes a lot of channels for launchers with a 12 sec catalog reload rate if you ask me, but that's another topic.
Thanks for the feedback! Could you be more specific about the shading? I admit I've had trouble figuring it out so far. The bow shading is tentative and will probably evolve slightly, but the shading line below the forward turret is supposed to be representative of the lower hull flaring out and meeting a more slab-sided part. My problem is that the middle part of the hull (where most of the windows are) starts vertical below the Moskit missile boxes but flares out towards the stern, so that I could even add a second shading line somewhere below and abaft of the current one. That or add a third shade, but I understand that that's frowned upon.
Might be clearer in the picture below:

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
My Worklist

The issue with the shading is basically, that it looks like pictures. however, shipbucket is not pictures, and should not be represented as such
The best way in my opinion is explained here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/632 ... le%203.png
Having the hull shaded incorrectly is in my opinion worse then not shading it (or better said, shading it very simple, example http://shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Re ... 201977.png) so when in doubt, follow the shipbucket tutorials and you get shading such as on that drawing

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Thanks for the reminder, though it looks like the guideline only really explains about keel shading, and I would love to have hull cross-sections to do this properly .
And I get what you say about the photographic look and the downsides of excess shading, but clean-looking as your version is, the Perry isn't really the best example. Once again, I am working with a complex hull, so I feel that "no shading" would be a cop-out. For canon equivalents, we are facing a mix of the flared-bow drop-shadow of a Burke mixed with the differential angle shading of a Meko.
Removing the bow shading doesn't hurt and I'll probably do that in the next versions, but some way of showing the canted hull sides seems important to me.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
My Worklist

well if you have an good idea about the hull shape, you can get quite far. you can for example shade everything not vertical (leaves very little unshaded) or everything over 45 degrees (leaves everything above the waterline still unshaded (except maybe for some bits of stern and bow) but shows the shape under the waterline. everything like that or in between them is great, as long as you keep one basic angle from where the sun can reach (the perry basically has only the very bottom of the hull doesn't have light, so not an good example of how to show an complex hull, but a great example of how to do it if you cannot do it accurate otherwise) I have not yet found any drawing where I had hull shape references where it was impossible to represent the shape. as extreme as http://shipbucket.com/images.php?dir=Re ... nguard.png or http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... Tonijn.png is possible.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Yes, that one is more what I had in mind in terms of hull shape
What I have so far (apart from the bow which I have de-shaded since) is mostly in the "everything not vertical" camp, with the caveat that I don't have reference material for the detailed hull shape, and the several angles between plates change continuously along the ship.
Ah well. I'll keep tinkering towards something more harmonious and seeing if I can find more material, but I think that the shadow notch below the turret is here to stay.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
My Worklist

Looks good so far and is very detailed indeed. I feel this is going to be an impressive series of ships if you intend doing several real ships plus variants etc.
I'm with Ace, if in doubt don't hull shade unless you know what your doing or have enough hull cross sections to make a decent stab at it.

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