Well, the ships in that time did look different!
As far as I know the russian baltic sea fleet had to come to the rescue and its captain had painted all the funnels black yellow striped and the sides of all his ships had on bright yellow line.
The other parts of the ships were painted in a bright white. To say the least the ships looked magnificient, I've seen pictures of them ones on TV, however, they could be seen on the ocean for miles even in the thickest fog. That eventually got them all sunk by the japanees.
But I believe you are right in that you can simply take some ships from a good WW1 scenario and just repaint them in the right colors.
I know nothing of japaness ships however. The only thing I know is that they copied a lot from the british so maybe also their ships looked similiar.
About that playtesting thing: Don't bother testing the version you currently have. There are some mistakes and bugs in it. Nothing serious though. You will get a new one with all the final details,( including sounds, more events, etc,) sometime in the next days. Btw, how does it look? I mean athmosphere, graphic and so on...
Just email me about it.
Once you get it please start testing it till the keyboard breaks apart.
