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Welcome to the Hospital Ship Challenge! This topic was based on a suggestion in the future challenge ideas thread and chosen by popular vote following the Attack Helicopter Challenge. Please read the design requirements and challenge rules before posting a submission.

Design Requirements

1. Your entry must depict a fictional hospital ship.
2. The ship should be clearly marked as a hospital ship.
3. The ship must be unarmed.

Challenge Rules

1. Each participant must submit a single image.
2. The image should be a Shipbucket template modified to include the participant’s art. Templates which include a data sheet are allowed.
3. One side-view of the participant's ship must be included. One top-view is also permitted, but not required. All other views are prohibited.
4. If two views are included, they must depict the same ship, in the same configuration, at the same point in time.
5. All art must be in Shipbucket scale and conform to the Shipbucket style guidelines.
6. A textual description accompanying each submission is permitted, but not necessary.
7. Non-serious entries, or entries substantially deviate from the challenge requirements, are not allowed.
8. Off-topic posts will be reported to the relevant authorities.

This challenge will run until the 27th of March 2022, ending at 23:59 UTC-12 (International Date Line West).
A countdown timer can be found at this link.

A poll will be held after this date. Members of the Shipbucket community will have an opportunity to rate each submission. Please provide honest and meaningful scores for each entry. Responses which grant maximum scores to a select group of entries, and minimum scores to all other entries, will be deleted. Members of the community who manipulate the results in such a fashion may also be subject to a permanent ban. Scores will be allocated in two categories, each with a scale of 1 to 10:

• Drawing Quality - The overall quality of the drawing. One might consider detailing, shading, and accuracy.
• Design Quality -The quality of the design presented, irrespective of drawing quality. One could consider feasibility, practicality, and realism.

Westlandian hospital ship HMS Westlandic


At a length of 285 metres and a tonnage of over 55,000 GRT, the Westlandian Steamship Line's SS Westlandic was the largest ship in the world when she entered service in 1913. Not as fast as her older running mates SS Neritic and SS Pelagic, Westlandic had more economical triple expansion steam engines with a low pressure exhaust turbine on the central shaft, rather than only turbines. Nevertheless, she could reach a speed of 24 knots on a good day. The liner was built for the trans-Pelagic Pinwich-Fallasby-Onderdam-Polov service, though within two years the First Great War broke out.

Westlandic was briefly laid up, before being pressed into service as an auxiliary cruiser. The massive ship quickly proved unsuitable for the job, as she ate up the navy's coal supply at an alarming rate. She was therefore returned to her owners, who did not want to risk her and refused to return her to the trans-Pelagic route. She was laid up again, but within months the navy had changed its mind, re-requisitioning the ship but this time as a troop transport. This proved to be a better fit, and the liner, now called HMS Westlandic and painted grey with black funnels, spent two years ferrying troops to the continent. By mid-1917, however, the Westlandian army's battle for the Voliotine Canal was causing heavy casualties and it was decided to recall the ship and convert her to a hospital ship (which is how she is drawn here). She spent a little over a year as a hospital ship, until Ruzenia entered the war and she returned to transporting troops, this time taking Ruzenian troops across the Pelagic along her old peacetime route. During this time, she also received a dazzle camouflage paint scheme. After the war's end, she spent some time returning the troops home, and by 1922 she was once again in service on the Pinwich-Fallasby-Onderdam-Polov service.

SS Westlandic remained the largest ship in the world into the 1930s, when she was overtaken by a new generation of high-speed luxury liners. She spent some years cruising to the Midsummer Isles, but it was clear to all that her days were numbered. She was to have been scrapped in 1940, but the outbreak of the Second Great War prevented this and she spent the next eight years transporting troops again, this time painted battleship grey. After the war was lost in 1947, the ship was retained for another year to repatriate the troops and after that she was scrapped.

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I am colourblind, so please let me know if my colours are off.

Mataarian hospital ship SS Western Star


By the time the Mataar-Oltrin War broke out, the Western Star had already been all but ancient. Laid down at the turn of the 20th century and launched two years later, she was, at the time, the fastest, largest and most luxurious liner of the nation. In the years before and during her construction, the nation slowly began to open up to foreign tourists, something that had previously been reserved mostly for businessmen and politicians. In a great gamble, the owner and founder of the Great Western Line (of which Western Star would become the flagship) had anticipated this development and gambled large parts of his company's budget on her construction - rightfully so as it turned out.

While she would be the only ship of her class, and not many indigenous steamship operators would join the Great Western Line on the routes leading westward and southward, the ship would nevertheless see frequent and good service from 1904 all the way to 1920, when the rapidly degrading economical and inner-political situation made operating the aging ship impossible. As the Great Western went under, she was sold to a cruise liner operator, who ran her twice on the North-South route - a horrible idea given the current political climate.

When the Northern Secession occurred in 1922, she was present near the "front lines" in Chernyagan harbour, and was promptly acquired on charter by the Army as a hospital ship, operating a year in this role even after hostilities died down as the local power supply was intermittent enough to be worrisome to hospital operations ashore.

Once that role became superfluous, she served as a barracks ship for a while longer before being returned to her owners - who didn't know what to do anymore with the at this point ancient and poorly maintained vessel. Restoring her would have been massively expensive, but with investors seeking to purchase the ship for various uses - a floating hotel and a museum amongst the proposals - she was left in limbo while workers from the various investors came to try and preserve the slowly decaying hulk to their best ability, though with limited success.

By 1934, her powerplant was basically a lost cause (even though she had received oil firing in 1919), and her underwater ship was described by divers as "a lovely underwater forest that could give biologists a good time". Minor leaks were occurring with steadily increasing frequency, and the once lavish wooden interior had been neglected. Even the effort needed to turn her into a stationary attraction quickly became too expensive, and Western Star was sold to a breakers' yard in '35.

She was mere days from being towed off when, in 1937, war broke out. The ship was one of the largest available vessels at the time in spite of her age and at cheap cost, so Western Star was chartered by the government for use as a hospital ship, hastily repainted, and sent to the fortress port of Angelos - steaming mostly on thoughts and prayers - where she was presumed safe from hostile threats.

Mere weeks later, the city came under siege, which would not be lifted for another six desperate months. The ship's staff and crew had their work cut out for them in this time, trying to shore up leaks and maintain decades old and poorly looked after machinery to keep the lights on in the operations rooms upstairs. Without spare parts, her engineers soon took to dismantling her dubious main engines to fashion replacement parts for her auxiliary generators. This meant that, when the city fell, she was finally and permanently stuck in place and was surrendered to Oltrin control.

Her brief moment of historic fame came when Western Star, now renamed Progress, was given as a present to the Oltrin puppet state, the Socialist Republic of Mataar, as the first official action of the Oltrin Sovets towards their nascent allies. It was spun as an act of generousity, an attempt to help rebuild and repay the damage done during the siege, however Oltrin really had no use for the derelict ship at this point and were content to push responsibility off onto someone else.

In this capacity, Progress operated until 1940, when a rumor made the rounds amongst the underground resistance that prisoners were occasionally taken aboard her and ruthlessly interrogated. Although this rumour was never confirmed and Oltrin deny any such allegations vehemently, on March 21st, a pair of amateur divers placed makeshift explosive charges on her port side hull. An hour later, explosions shook the vessel, and she quickly began to list and settled on the harbour floor, her ancient systems and makeshift crew defenceless against the raging floods.

The socialist propaganda machine ran haywire with the story claiming as many as 500 souls killed in the attack (in reality, it were closer to 50, the ship had been seeing much reduced use now that fighting had moved on elsewhere), and headlines about the incident and the ensuing investigation, show trial and ultimate execution of a suspected saboteur ran in the newspapers for months afterwards.

However, after the liberation of Mataar, a pair of men came forth, claiming responsibility while presenting convincing proof of their statements. In spite of having essentially pleaded guilty to a crime of war, no prosecution was ever launched, showing the hardened militaristic stance of Mataar in the 1950s and the increasing enstrangement with her erstwhile allies.

-o-

Author's Note:
My first post on here. I hope I don't embarass myself too much. This was written at 11PM so if my writing leaves to be desired, this is why.

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SMH Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große of the Eucadian Imperial Navy



With the crowning of the Chernovan Federation's Albatross-class liners as the world's largest and fastest ocean liners, the Imperial Star Line knew that it had to do something to combat this achievement. As such, they announced in 1933 the authorisation of what was going to be "the largest and most powerful liners the world had ever seen" alongside an equally impressive deadline of 2 years or less for production to christening.

Two years later, the first of the class - SS Imperator - was christened and sent for fitting-out, which took a year and a half. The ships were built around a design style that originated years earlier in the neighbouring Beriyllian Republic, known as "Style paquebot." This style was a form of art deco, and saw the ships given a "futuristic" and sleek design. In June of 1935, Imperator set sail for her maiden voyage with a special honour of transporting the Eucadian Emperor Joseph IV to the capital city of the Chernovan Federation. Her two sisters, Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große and Atlantis were completed in 1937 and 1939, respectively.

Weighing in at just over 83,000 GRT, the ships were indeed able to outshine the Albatross-class. In addition, the ships were equipped with four prototype KMW-332 turbo-electric turbines that were capable of producing a maximum horsepower of 202,000. These engines were able to give a max recorded speed of 33 knots, but they normally cruised at a lower speed. Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große herself was able to break the record time to cross the Corentian Ocean in a remarkable 4.2 days, with the previous record being about 4.8 days. Another record was made when she was the first ocean liner to be able to land her seaplane on her catapult. She was hailed as the "Pride of Eucadia" (Stolz von Akiedenland), and kept that title for many years.

However, things changed when the Second Great War struck. Her sisters were chosen to be troopships, but with the loss of Atlantis in 1941 it was decided that Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große would not be risked and was given the role as hospital ship. In July 1941, the ship was requisitioned by the Imperial Eucadian Navy and work began to prepare her for her new role. She was also given a new seaplane, a modified Av-148 reconnaissance plane modified to have more space and a special loading mechanism to assist in transport of critical patients that could not wait for the ship to arrive to its destination. It was also often used for search-and-rescue operations throughout the war. In late August, she was formally commissioned as Seiner Majestät Hospitalschiff Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große and ordered to the site of the first successful defensive action of the Imperial Army in the Akatsiyan Islands.

After 4 years of service through the war, Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm der Große was decommissioned shortly after partaking in the victory parade of 1946. While she faithfully served the wounded of the Eucadian military, she was now wary after years of heavy usage. The Imperial Star Line reacquired the ship, and decided to repair and retrofit the ship for return to the civilian world. She would continue to be the "Pride of Eucadia" until 1975 when she was finally retired. It was believed that she would be scrapped, but fortunately a preservation group was successful in raising funds to purchase the ship. She is currently a museum ship in the harbour of the Eucadian capital.

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Foley Class Hospital/Disaster Response Ship
My submission to the Hospital Ship Challenge is the Australian Ship (AS) Mary Foley which is a Disaster Response/Humanitarian/Hospital Ship named after nursing officer Commodore Mary Foley who championed nursing officers since the 1970's. She passed away from breast cancer in 2014 and this ship was named in her honour. She provides support in the Asia Pacific Region at any time and whenever she is needed. Primarily she is set up as a Hospital Ship but she can also assist with lost infrastucture during natural events such as a mobile telephony communications hub, electricity generation, water purification and transmittable disease control.

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There is no "I" in TEAM but there is a ME


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Current Worklist:
Redrawing my entire AU after a long absence from Shipbucket

Type 910 hospital ship


The Type 910 hospital ship was built in the 1970s. It is based on a space survey ship and has excellent habitability and seaworthiness. It provides medical support for military and aerospace activities in the South China Sea and performs a large number of humanitarian medical missions.

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伟大、光荣、正确的中国共产党万岁!

Decided to do something small and sensible instead of big and crazy for once so I did a River Hospital Ship like Brazil has. Had most of it done quite early and then only had time for occasional revisits to polish it. Mostly happy with it.

I only saw the challenge late and with work being crazy as ever I had very little time to work on an entry. I opted to reuse an incomplete hull from the old Ro-Ro challenge and came up with this.



The MV Clémence is a fictional converted Roll on-Roll off vehicle ferry that I opted to depict in a scheme inspired by Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). I considered depicting it as a Mercy ship but figured I’d rather do something a little different that still suited the role.

With a bow loading ramp, a central stern ramp and a big side ramp, the ferry is perfect wherever quick access is needed and available for vehicles without having to go through the process of loading vehicles as deck cargo. The large car decks also serve well as providing additional accommodation space for ward or triage setups, as well as simplifying the loading and transporting of cargo and goods.

The ship is intended for use primarily as providing medical support for locations where facilities are not available or inadequate. A secondary role is in the provision of aid in disaster relief. The ship Carrie’s tent facilities that can be set up shoreside to increase capacity beyond what can be contained solely within the ship, with the ships generators supplying power.

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Not my best drawing or entry but I wanted to do something if I could. It’s a little sparse for my tastes but I know very little about modern ships and did not want to go about adding bits and pieces without knowing what they actually were for.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

had not so much time nor inspiration for drawing full scale and new ocean liner converted into a hospital ships, primarily due to the *eghem, eghen* little thing and annoying invasion of my country on 24th of February 2022... But anyway seen there is a complete lack of sail boats so decided to submit my Luipaard class 5th rate frigate converted into a hospital ship just for fun not really caring about realism.

Thought to put at least steam engine and direct screw shaft but then reconsidered

P.S Gonna edit this post or make new post with Luipaard being a floating hospital barrack ship since technically speaking hospital barrack ship isn't really a ship

All these drawings are awesome! Have to say the sailing hospital ship is quite unique...never seen a full-masted ship painted like that before and it only serves to enhance her beauty.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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