Ship Art

[Matian]

Historically, navies were the projection of power and pride of many countries. Looking their absolute best was probably equivalent to law - hull art would probably be considered vandalism at best.

That's true, but you're forgetting about mastheads, which were decorative and which were considered good luck. They went out of favour in our culture, but that doesn't mean other cultures wouldn't still keep the tradition in some form or another.

/Devil's advocate

 

[Jeff Hopper]

Y'all know that sometimes things just appear on the sides of ships, Kinda like the "Show Us Your Tits" that kept showing up on the port side of the USS Constellation in '86 & '87, Just forward of the Chaplain's office port hole. (whic was a good 15 feet below the port catwalk.

You know you would think they would have figured it out after a certain crew went down the starboard chainway to renew the gold paint on the Starboard Shithook. (and Yes we were technically "underway" during that evolution)

Years ago, while serving onboard the USS MIller (FF-1091), I observed a Boatswain's Mate who went to Captain's Mast. Part of his punishment was no liberty call when we pulled into port and extra duty - usually painting sections of the hull. So when we pulled into Bermuda, he was over the side painting the hull while the rest of us hit the beach.

Upon our return to the ship, we found his signature on the hull. FTN was painted in letters about five feet high in a lighter and very visible shade of grey on the starboard side.

He went back to Captain's Mast that night.

 

[Ishmael]

When I was on the USS Kitty Hawk, we ran over a Russian submarine and nearly sank it.
I large picture of a Russian sub with a Ghostbuster's symbol over it was painted on the island next to the painted ribbons that the ship had earned over the years.
It stayed there as a sign that we were the Navy's only proven sub-killer until some diplomatic protest was filed.

 

[BP]

Historically, navies were the projection of power and pride of many countries. Looking their absolute best was probably equivalent to law - hull art would probably be considered vandalism at best.

That's true, but you're forgetting about mastheads, which were decorative and which were considered good luck. They went out of favour in our culture, but that doesn't mean other cultures wouldn't still keep the tradition in some form or another.

/Devil's advocate

Nope - didn't forget - just didn't mention in the context we were posting... and that was a response to why current navies might frown on ad-hoc 'art'.

As many of these posts indicate - Traveller seems pretty popular with the Naval crowd. And it sounds like decorating the hull is not generally officially sanctioned

Traveller military starships seem to generally borrow a lot from Naval ships themes - this seems natural. So things like discipline to maintain safety would easily apply - other traditions would seem far less likely. In the 3D conjested space around starports and with hulls being reachable without drydocking - highly decorated ships might even be natural. Not to mention that long distance space battles might negate any negative to uniquely visually identifying a vessel (possibly a factor contributing to the disappearance of mastheads or a replacement in modern navies?).

 

[Infojunky]

When I was on the USS Kitty Hawk, we ran over a Russian submarine and nearly sank it.
I large picture of a Russian sub with a Ghostbuster's symbol over it was painted on the island next to the painted ribbons that the ship had earned over the years.

Not to mention her concrete nose after that incident...

 

[locarno24]

Pretty much agree with the above. It'll largely depend on whose the ship is, where on/in the ship the art is, and what it is.

I can well imagine fighters - especially in feudal-esque societies - being done up in what amount to heraldic colours. They're lying there, in what's probably a pressurised bay, and with IFF or equivalent it's not like you're relying on visual appearance to identify them. Equally, kill marks on a pop-up flak turret are easy to add and hardly garish.

It'll probably depend a lot on the society; taking fighters as an example, does the fleet in question assign a fighter tail number to a pilot permanently? or does the pilot just take whichever is the next one out of the maintenance shed, company-car fashion?

In the former case, the craft would probably have the pilot's name permanently on the cockpit.