There are only two issues (quibbles, really):
1) BigB did not use the foldered system, so many of his new shipsides do not change when they receive upgrades.
2) A number of the new shipsides have database entries which are only applicable to the B-Mod, so you'll never see them otherwise.
But the real frustration for a ship lover like me comes from knowing that BigB created many more shipsides than those which actually appear in a non-foldered system. Just look at his fantastic art for CL Cleveland (see Item #1 on the attachment) - 8 different shipsides, yet bmp limits mean that only three will appear in game.
Which brings us, finally, to the topic of this thread - PT Boats. BigB has done a nice job with these as well - nine new shipsides (#2), all extremely accurate and far superior to those in the base game. Unfortunately there's only THREE PT bmps and they never upgrade visually, so the Elco 77 footer you start with in 1941 is identical to the one you see in 1945. Ugh. Not to pick on PT boats of course, as the same is true across the whole line of Allied ships, albeit to varying degrees. Accordingly, the intent of this thread is to rectify that for all classes of PT Boat in AE.
OK then, let's talk about colors and armament at the macro level. Depending on when or where each squadron of PTs was built, there were a dizzying array of official color schemes - at least nine different "measures". However, once they deployed into the active war zones (and especially in the early days), crews often repainted them with whatever could be scrounged up locally (there's a graphic example of this coming up in the first review). As for armament, there are the official weapons and upgrades, but crews often modified their boats to add different weapons of various types, depending upon individual scrounging ability and the sorts of targets they were likely to encounter in their particular region. And of course all of this changes radically when comparing the Pacific theatre to the Med. Which means that trying to find the one "correct" set of colors and armament applicable to, for example, the 115 ships in the Higgins 78 ft class is a fool's errand! That said, those who followed the Japanese Ships – Colors & Camouflage thread will know that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and you're going to see some of that here.
Before we begin, here's a tip of the cap to the fantastic PT Boat World, truly a wonderful resource. And not to be forgotten, the many participants in the Calling all PT Boat fans thread at ModelWarships.com. Those guys know what they are talking about and they have the photos and models to prove it. To that point, check out just two of many photos from the Summer in Bastia diorama appended below (#3 & #4). Coming up next, the four PT boat classes which share the 319.bmp. Yikes!
