How do I build historical ships in different eras without designing them myself?

[angelsdodgers]

When I start a game in a specific era (e.g. 1900) there is a list of specific historical ship types to chose from when building ships. When the game moves to the next era of ships these old designs are obsolete and disappear. They are not replaced by the new designs of the next era. So basically there is nothing to build. It looks like I have to design my own ships which I do not want to do. For example, I want to start in 1900 and then be able to build the Missouri in the 1940s. I do not want to design the Missouri myself from scratch. Is there a way to buy each different eras ships based on a historical ship design or do I have to design everything myself? My interest is to construct a navy with the historical ship designs I want, in the quantities that I want without doing any of the actual designing myself. Thanks for all your help.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Open ship designer, select ship class, click on the conputer symbol next to the ship class field to computer design ship.

Remove all illegal features since the computer designer loves to create illegal designs.

Save the design and order detailed design. Once it is done you can build it.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Misunderstood your question, sorry.
For RtW2, there were mods with historical starting fleets.