IMHO, under-sized missiles on the rails might be more clear about what we're looking at. I know that broaches the usually contentious issue of how to represent over-scale missiles...
Fair point. I hadn't considered on-rail missiles for this ship, but maybe I'm stuck too close to the design and I haven't realized that others may not know its equipment by heart.
On the other hand, I hadn't tackled the Buk (or most other SAMs) yet and it turns out that the standard version is a bit on the fat side, so I have taken the liberty of re-scaling the unattached missile to the same scale as the AShMs I have already posted (namely 8.5px/m). That way, all missiles on the drawing are to the same scale. The on-rail missiles are back to ship scale, and may appear too thin in turn, but this is meant to avoid a fat, blunt-nosed 4px-wide missile. All in all I think it fits, but it may be less controversial to just remove the on-rail missiles.
The mainmast is perhaps a little clumsy still but at this scale such small lattice masts are a pain in the ass to draw!
That has been my problem from the beginning with this ship. The lattice looked too thin to show in full 3px thickness, but once I started thickening the platforms I found that the version with thick struts was more harmonious.
The later ships in the series have a less organic-looking mast with thicker beams and a simpler structure from the get-go, so I don't preclude going back to thinner lines for this version to highlight the difference.
That being said, here is the Sovremenniy updated according to the latest remarks as well as some touch-up.
She is followed by two sister-ships of the early series, with a slightly different fit each time:
- Osmotritelniy (yard n° 864) the 4th ship in the series, was the first ship to carry the new hybrid MR-710M1 Fregat-M1 with one single slab of electronically steered radar for 3D air search. She entered service in the Pacific Fleet in 1984.
- Boevoy (yard n° 866), 6th ship built, carried first the final radar fit with the MR-750 Fregat-M2 with dual scanned-array plates.
Other minor changes in the layout are apparent from ship to ship.
That's all for now, from now on I will start on the later part of the Pr.956 series, as it evolves into its final Pr.956A configuration step by step, as well as the export and unbuilt variants.
Enjoy and stay tuned!
Edit: Sovremenniy corrected, missile bottom lines from missiles repaired as per Hood's remark below.