Yeh, they got good use of them in the Black Sea against the Ottomans.
I think I have seen a reference to it a while back, some sort of compromise with the factions in the Red Navy that were pushing for Naval Aviation.
Along with the other 3 Gibbs and Cox Battle ship designs, they are plans that I know exist but can never find all that much about them. I would love to do a model for them. Heck, I'v even done this.
Cruiser Maxim Gorky (mine survivor and flag 1?) or Komintern (mines and instillation deployment).
Destroyer. Ognevoy Class Destoyer. An improved version of the Gromky class Kharkov Leningrad Class, very active in the Black Sea
Planes Tu-2 Bomber. Big Brother to the Pe-2. There was a torpedo variant. Beriev Be-4 or MBR-2 Reconnaissance Float Planes.
Instillation Maxim Gorki Gun Batteries by Sevastopol
Fantasy Most realistic, a rebuilt Frunze as a battlecruiser. Frunze was the 4th Gangut that was burned out by fire in the 1920's, Red Navy always had plans to have it rebuilt or repurposed as a Battle Cruiser or Carrier. Most needed, a 50-60 point battleship. That is the largest hole in the Soviet fleet. Either the Italian UP-40 design that was sold the Soviets similar the Marcantonio Colonna, A early Soyuz Design Type A, or a one of the 1916 16" gun ships designed by the Russian Navy. Most interesting. The 240mm guned Cruiser x design.
There was a colored sand stone. The detail wasn't horrible but were a bit grainer than WSF. Also, I didn't set up the colors right so they were all off. And there was a lot of color bleed through.
I am sure that this new material will work much better. But I already have a hard enough keeping my ships printable with Shapeways ever increasing pickiness. Stuff that I uploaded years ago are now getting rejected. I can only imagine what I will have to do to get stuff printed in this new material.
Firstly, the minimum wall or wire thickness are 2-4 times larger than natural versatile plastic. I have enough trouble keeping my models within spec for versatile plastic.
Next, it requires textures, which is a massive additional undertaking. I can't even begin to imagine the workload to map textures to my models. That answers your question about setting the colors. No, this would have to be on the model side. Even if I were to distribute texture files (just an image) and allowed customers to re-color as they saw fit, I don't think that Shapeways has any way for the customer to upload a custom texture file.
If someone were to want to try texturing one of my models I'll be happy to work with them and give it a shot, but I'm not confident that it will be fruitful.
And not cheep, mid $30 for a mid to large size ship.
Minor Navies fleshed out. Can't ever compete with the big 7, but theater conflicts could be were smaller, less advanced forces fight it out. Turkey vs Greece, maybe potential ABC tussle, China vs Siam. Yeh, they might not be the flashest units with a full card of SAs. BUt there is something to be said to restricting a game to not having super carriers and 6 hull point BB's.
And yes, need countries that the Soviets can beat up.
I've tried to keep an eye on Briggs/SWO project and add in miniatures to match. But over time I've fallen behind and not sure what needs to be covered. Anything you want to see done let me know.