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Does it look different than standard smoke launchers? (your 2nd idea does to me)
No problem, though I'd prefer being told before game/during deployment that it is a havoc launcher.

Does it look like smoke canisters, but you let me know before game?
No problem.

"The point of all this is to have a Havoc launcher that actually looks like it fires d6 S5 shots, rather than the current bit that clearly look like it should be firing S8 AP-2 shots."

You realize it's entirely possible the launcher is firing one tube per shot. It's a single "frag" missile each time you shoot it and it does d6 S5 shots which is already a step up game-wise from say the typical marine frag missile fired from a single-tube launcher doing d6 S4 shots and similar in size to one tube on the Havoc launcher.

So the current Havoc launcher seems entirely plausible/reasonable to me. If you don't like it and want to use something else that's cool but as others have said using the smoke launchers is ... weak? To me they're just too small and there is a lot of potential for confusion unless you really trick them up somehow. To me at least it needs to _not_ look like some other gear I would routinely expect to see on a chaos vehicle.

Regardless of how you go I would never refuse to play someone because of something like this. It's a modeling choice.

To answer OP: yes and no.

More specifically, yes in casual play as it doesn't the game tends to be looser and if the conversion is good no one will complain.

No for tournament play unless you get it cleared by a TO as taking a HL off the vehicle changes it's profile. A Rhino without an HL is shorter than one with one and can take advantage of LOS terrain easier to avoid being shot and that is rather important in an edition where terrain only gives you cover for being inside it instead of behind it.

I have two problems with this.

1. Nearly every Chaos vehicle with a havoc launcher also has smoke launchers. So which is what?

2. The smoke launcher bits are way too small imo to be that awesome Katjuscha-missile launcher .

Ruleswise yeah, the havoc launcher could be stronger, but oh well. They're anti-infantry weapons, maybe shrapnel explosives instead of anti-tank. It's okay for them to have the strength of a heavy bolter, which is also a rapid-fire rocket launcher.

In a casual game I've let far worse fly, though it's annoying. However, in tournament this is pretty confusing, and wouldn't get the ok for me. If you don't like the original model, convert something up.

Casual games, I'd be good with it as long as it's not confusing i.e. either they're all havoc launchers, or they're all smoke launchers, not mix and match.

You know though, this gives me an idea. I really like the look of the chaos versions of the smoke launchers but they are kind of hard to find on ebay. I was just thinking the'd probably be pretty trivial for me to model and 3D print, it's a very straighforward design. If I do I'll let you know, as once modeled it's only a few clicks to scale them up to a nice midpoint.

I NEVER model Smoke Launchers because:
A) they are standard wargear, so there are always "equipped" regardless of being modeled
B) there is almost never an ideal time to use them on anything aside from a Rhino with an melee equipped unit inside and I don't ever take these
C) It's more little details that have to be painted and may distract from the overall look. Personally, I don't like the look of smoke launchers as non-weapons sticking out on the vehicle.

So it would be abundantly clear on MY models that this would not be a smoke launcher.
And I am modeling them high up on a pintle, so LOS will be roughly the same.

I feel like most assume the smoke launcher are tiny compared to the Havoc and this is really not true. 2 of them put together and attached to the searchlight pintle should be almost exactly the same size (but the barrels would be smaller, which is what I like).
It would just be "landscape" instead of "portrait"
Like so:


The red rectangles are exactly the same size. And I can use either pintle as shown

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To the OP, it wouldn't bother me at all.

Looks good!

If you're double stacking the smoke launchers side by side like that it seems hard to argue against, since it's functionally a conversion rather than a counts-as.

Unrelated note, it was in fact trivially easy to 3d model the smoke launchers and print them. An hour in Rhino to design them and then 2 hours print time and now I have 8 for later.

Effort makes all the difference.

Minor conversion cuz you don't like the look of Havoc launchers? Cool! Looks good.

Vs.

Oh, those smoke launchers are Havoc launchers now...? Lemme guess, the bolter Marines are actually Noise Marines...naturally they'll happen to be holding whatever gun is most effective for that moment correct? No thanks, I'll pass.