Oh man, now I'm thirsty! Wow; you're doing magnificent work on this!
I agree with Bob, Bismarck ain't rocking enough for waves to have jumped that high. Waves would have to be much higher and his bow much lower as if dropping into a wave trough.
Thanks Mark, appreciate the kind words and the observation.
You are right on one thing, the bow should be lower and it actually is. What appears in the photo is the ship "sitting" higher than if it were attached to the base, because it's easier for me to place it on for a test and then remove it so I could work easier. It will sit lower than that.
On the other matter, ships that size don't rock that much. Bismarck was over 250m long, that's some 860ft long. There is a famous video of the Bismarck during the only voyage in the Atlantic, shot by a PR team from the deck of Prinz Eugen. They even got the Hood explosion on that film, that was in bad weather, mid Atlantic, doesn't get much choppier than that. You can see the Bismarck sailing without rocking, camera was perfectly steady, which also means the Prinz Eugen wasn't rocking much at all either. A destroyer or a frigate would go up and down like a mad roller coaster, but a battleship that size not so much.
I get the point and I have been trying to work this one out as best I could - amount of water on and over the deck must look realistic. The viewers must make that logical connection. I intend to have some water over the deck, a bow wave to explain it, without going nuts about it.
That is a piece by Chris Flodberg, King George V battleship. Look at how much water he captured there, without having any massive waves showing as such. I intend to do a scaled down version of that.
Thanks,
Laurence