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Lowered the freeboard, moved the mainmast aft, and made some other adjustments. I'll start adding cranes and other equipment if there's nothing wrong with what I have so far.

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... It is not easy to give hints: I guess that the target is to draw a huge and impressive IB but this one doesn't look harmonic.
First of all it seems too "fat": I would reduce of about 4-5 meters the draft.
Moreover I would remove 3-5 decks.
I would move forward the mast, maybe taller, with a suitable observatory on top.
Too high the bow protection. Moreover I would use a side protection of the bow deck. Finally, taking into account a so long unit a foremast with radar and ligths.
The bow is too much carved and should be moved forward.
Bow-thruster... I would not use because dealing with 2-3 meter ice is quite hard.
Azipod: not convinced. Propellers must push the ship over the ice and therefore I would trust more on horizontal shafts. Moreover shuch a long ship does not need great side movements. .

PS: the (canceled) project for Aurora Borealis was made thinking to a large research unit with moonpool and drilling rig: thus the need of very precise control of the ship position via azopods and thrusters.

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I can't offer a ton of substantive commentary, but I'd nix the angled superstructure features, and for that matter the gray paint. Large radar and visual cross-section is a feature on an icebreaker, not a bug.

Firstly, I'm sorry for such a long time between replies. I recently moved, then took a break from ship drawings to practice at aircraft liveries. I've attempted to implement most of the suggested changes as faithfully as possible, and I'd like to think the latest version looks much better than the previous one. The current drawign can be found at the bottom of this post. Indeed, the draft was intended for the original hull size before I lowered it. This is one of the critiques I would have preferred to have received back when this was an outline, when everyone wanted to know why America needed a large icebreaker.

Nevertheless, I experimented a bit with this idea, but it always created complications elsewhere or produced a result I didn't like. It might dovetail with a switch to conventional screws, but I'm going to avoid that for the moment, which I will address below. Given one of the vessel's roles as a convoy leader, the need for high initial stability in open water, and concerns about topweight (which seems to be the type of error we encounter more), "beaminess" is an error I can live with. Indeed, with my recent additions of heavy equipment to the deck, I'm thinking a wide, deep draft, high-stability vessel is a safe bet. I shortened the fore superstructure and lowered the bridge while leaving the LIDAR at its original height and creating a taller foremast, with an additional radar, lights, and rangefinder. This resulted in deleting two superstructure decks. I'm reluctant to lower the above-water hull any more than I already have unless there is a compelling reason. At the moment I'm trying out an integrated mast/rig concept roughly amidships. It's not as large as the one used on Aurora Borealis, and if it proves too short to be useful, I may either find another purpose for it or make the mast narrower and opt for a towed rig for the appropriate missions. I've made the top part of the bow protection shorter and lengthened the side protection with a small gap covered by rails, after adding equipment such as cranes, ISO vans, anchor chain, etc. The foremast atop the bridge has two radars, additional lights, and a LIDAR unit for surveying the ice. I changed this and think it looks better now. I think I was going for something similar to what I saw on the US Polar-class. I want to use this for the research role you describe below, but I've added grate protection to the forward thrusters. Azipods appear to have been validated on a number of icebreaker designs, including the Aleksey Chirikov, USCGC Mackinaw (WLBB-30), and Finnish icebreaking buoy-layer Seili (one of the first tests of an azipod that improved icebreaking performance).

Most of these appear to be double-acting ships, however, so I'm not sure what that means for my design, which is designed to break ice ahead. My primary reason for using them is that it makes it easier for the ship to reverse and then push ahead to break tougher ice. Combined with hydrodynamic composite slats on the intake, the kort nozzles should also help shield the propellers from ice chunks and reduce injuries (e.g. of the "corkscrew" type) to nearby marine life. That's partly what I'm envisioning here as one of the roles for this ship, essentially a multirole IB along the ilk of Healy which is capable of research, escort, SAR, and maritime law enforcement duties, but to an increased degree. I can elaborate on the general idea behind it i another post, as this one has gotten quite lengthy. In all honesty, angled features are among my last vestigial "rule of cool" neuroses. I'm retaining them for this version, as I don't see them actually harming operational performance in any significant way. The NoCGV Svalbard, while more the exception than the rule, seems to validate these features in the arctic. I was really conflicted about the paint job. I wanted a striking dark hull similar to the Russian NIBs, and a superstructure that was different from those but wasn't just white, either. I compromised by going for a very light gray that was still recognizable as gray, along with some markings on the corners of the deckhouse and along the rear superstructure in the colors of the participating agencies.

This is the current state of the drawing, close to finished and likely the definitive version, as long as there isn't anything egregiously wrong with it. Next will be helicopters and a pair of crests I'm working on.

I'm having some issues shrink-wrapping the template around the ship, and I think this one would qualify for the "unusual dimensions" exemption. Would it be acceptable to use a 160m scale, or must it be in multiples of 100m?

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The template should always be made to fit around the ship. In this case I think you should still use the 200m scale bar and move the text over as far as you can (leaving about 15px of space between the text's left side and the scale bar's right side).

It should be obvious to move the bottom and right borders of the image up and over to make a neat 15px white padded space around the content of the drawing...

Using the templates isn't rocket science and I'm surprised it's so difficult for so many people...

edit: here you go: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/161 ... xample.png

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Try to find out for yourself what each part does. you have cranes, walkways, vehicles and boats all over the ship, but what exactly is the purpose of each of those parts? are they in the right place, and are they not in each others way? for example:
- on your main radar mast on top of the bridge you have 2 radars. one forward, one aft. you have 2 on that mast so you have all around coverage, without the mast blocking your aft arc. however, you have an huge mast 30 meters further, still blocking the aft radar.
- the azipod thruster has a rudder on it. a rudder is normally aft of an propeller, because the effectiveness increases when the flow around it increases. by putting it not behind the propeller, is it actually useful? or is it in the way?
- what exactly is the purpose of the transverse thrusters? with the azipods, you can turn within your own length, and you will not spend that much time in narrow ports that you really need them for docking. so, you are thinking of moving sideways a lot of the time? in addition, I think the stern thrusters are made redundant by those azipods, becoming an vulnerability instead.
- there are 10 cranes on your ship, not counting single purpose davids. all of these need crew to operate, maintenance, and, because there are 5 different types, trained crews for 5 different systems. what are you planning to do with all those, which you cannot do with 4 or 5 well placed ones, of only 2 or 3 different types?

you do not have to answer these things to me, especially since I see plenty more, which I don't want to spend time on. just try to think what is practical, and make sure to answer these problems with the drawing

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That works, thank you. Overall, I based the layout on the Healy, with some influences from Aurora Borealis and Victory. Placement of boats etc. was based on both the Healy drawing (which lacks or misplaces a lot of detail) and several high-resolution images of that ship. I did as much research as I could on parts, including their placement on other drawings and in images, videos of how they move and deploy, how much clearance I would have on the davits to ensure they reached the water, etc. I pored over as many high-resolution images I could find of ships that influenced the design, from multiple angles.

I'm currently looking at ways to resolve the issues you pointed out. Again, I should note that I did take time to research the functions of the equipment and visualize how they would look in action. I already see areas where I would make changes, however.

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I have made a number of modifications to the design to address some of the concerns about parts. I've done my best to "audit" as many major parts as I could to assess their purpose, the reasoning behind them, if another part could supplant them, if their placement was problematic, etc. I acknowledge that there are sometimes gaps in my knowledge that are not easily filled, particularly things such as the purpose of very small sensors or the layout inside the ship. I have never been on an icebreaker, much less worked on one, so I try to map these details onto what I know from other ships and follow that as closely as I can. The parts you see here either correspond to the same or equivalent parts in similar locations on existing ships (e.g. ducts, A-frames, boats, etc. from Healy), have a specific mission in mind (e.g. land transport for researchers or rescuers in remote arctic-type regions, last-resort self-defense), or serve a general goal (e.g. easy and fluid movement of large numbers of people throughout the decks, redundancy of safety equipment in case of emergency).

The primary changes are as follows:

• Moved aft radar to aft mast to restore full coverage. (I'm just noticing I left a small sliver behind on the foremast; will erase.)
• Deleted the rudder on the thruster and added a dedicated large rudder behind it, mounted on a downward extension of the fantail.
• Deleted the stern thrusters. I'm still keeping the bow thrusters for the time being, as I've seen numerous IB designs featuring both azipods and bow thrusters. Moreover, I could see scenarios, especially in foreign ports of call or on research missions, where additional side thrust from the bow may be desired.
• Reduced the total number of cranes from 10 to 7 and the number of types from 5 to 4, including A-frames, which is the same number of both found on Healy. The large crane amidships offers coverage over a large area completely encompassing that of the crane above the helideck, rendering the latter redundant. Only one of the large cranes should be needed, so I moved it to the center and reoriented its stowed position.

I'm still unsure about the satcoms. They mostly correspond to satcoms on Healy, but I'm not sure whether the mast would obstruct them or if it would not make a difference.

I can also answer questions about missions where a particular piece of equipment would be used.

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