..how about a shelter half palace?
I don't know the source for this picture, someone used it in an ebay sale for a shelter half.
how...
We need possible schematics and a working plan damn it. 
For the top picture we'll need 10 shelter halves all with buttons and slits, not press-studs. It's 6 halves around the edges, then for halves buttoned into full pup tents on top. You'd need some pretty sturdy poles for this!
I make it.
For the bottom 6 single ended shelter halves that all match. I believe we pretty much have those in doughboys with our WPG repros and ranj's original.
For the top another 4 single ended shelter halves, though my guess is that double-ended will work at a pinch.
I'm not sure why you insist on not poppered, headshot, I'd have thought as long as they match it wouldn't matter?
For poles you need: 6 normal length ones and 3 double length ones, which I suggest should be custom made from single lengths of wood for strength. I'd have thought that was doable.
Some extra long ropes may be needed as well.
I'm not sure why you insist on not poppered, headshot, I'd have thought as long as they match it wouldn't matter?
Truth, though I'm not sure how sturdy the poppers are.
Another issue would be how to keep the lower structure under tension with guy ropes getting in the way in side. I guess if you made it with the guy ropes in place to start with, then removed them once the whole structure was up, that could work.
Hmmm... Yes that may work. It may not be a problem when you consider how the whole thing fits together.
Anyway it's still something we'll have to try sometime! 
Only things that need making are the centre poles... though I do wonder if some of the postwar sectional rather than folding poles might be strong enough for that...
No, my sectional ones barely hold up the pup tent!
Hmmm... the ones that dean and co use seemed a lot stronger than that. In fact I had problems getting them apart!
so did they when they got back - though I picked it up yesterday and succeeded 
, must have been swollen by the wet at a guess.
They are pretty sturdy, but do bend all over the place like the period/repro ones. I wouldn't trust a 6 section one. 
okay, single pieces of wood for the 3 long poles then!
Unless I am wrong, and I may be, your original photo looks bigger - being oblongy rather than squarey.
However I am pleased that I so totally understand those instructions. 
I think you are right, 2 shelter halves down each long side and 4 on top.
aka Stigroadie
AFRA
better by design
"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. "