Combat viewer problem: Some models not showing

Here is the situation: Have several empires with same Xfile ship set, some models can be viewed (player in my case) and others from the opposing empire can not!

Tried different configurations and it seems to be the custom ship sets at risk since I could get the stock ones to render ingame.

Example: made colony ship exactly like an opposing empires, put it in the combat viewer and mine displayed but the opposing empires did not. No error saying bitmap or xfile not loaded, just a blank spot where a model should be displayed. If you select via clicking on it, it shows up in the stat box.

Any ideas?