[WIP] Wolves of the Kaiser:1914-1918 Mod

[Hitman]

It would be interesting to see how large cruiser submarines would have performed in the Atlantic in WWII. I imagine it wouldn't have gone well for them, due to factors like air attack & slow diving time. Plus, even with 150mm guns I can't see a cruiser sub winning against a hunter-killer group attacking from multiple directions. Any thoughts? It's fun to speculate.

No need to speculate at all. The americans borrowed the plans as it fitted their doctrine of the time and almost cloned the concept in their Nautilus/Narwhal classes with 6 inch guns. You can see that those big US usbs had even a similar bow and on some pics you could mistake them easily for an U-cruiser. They were more or less a big failure in WW2, and that even if the japanese navy was technically lagging a lot behind the allies. Pitting those subs against the allied forces in the north atlantic would have been plainly disastrous.

On the other hand the big Type IXD/2 was also quite similar and it gave some moderate success in remote waters, so it's still food for thought.

Regarding the shore bombardment, is there any way to get renown for that?

[andycts]

This mod looks great,thanks for all the hard work and time that's going into it.By the way-please give plenty of warning when it will be released so i can book a weeks holiday off work to play it lol-and send wife to visit her mother for a week.

good luck

[in_vino_vomitus]

Originally Posted by c13Garrison

@Char

That is the best idea I've heard in years. I'll call HG Wells.

I have an idea about this - If it works, I'll pick you up last week.....

[iambecomelife]

I'm replacing the hat for the "Matrose" (sp?) "Obermatrose", and "Bootsmannsmaat". Three of the twelve heads for crewmen can now accept this modification.

Old model is on the first page of this thread.

New model is below. Question for anyone familiar with Kaiseriche Marine uniforms: did any Chief Petty Officers or men of similar rank wear caps with brims, like the ones that officers had? Or did they all wear caps without brims like this model? Thanks.


EDIT - SEE MOST RECENT POST (09/01/2013)

[Admiral Halsey]

Looking good.

[Sepp von Ch.]

Looks nice. Weather will also "European" or the stock game?

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Petty Officers were men who selected the Navy as a career and were considered under or officers in training. So their uniforms were differnt from the men, i am asking about your question about caps. above is one of the best remaining crew pictures. Remember tropical and colonial uniforms were differint.

here is regular navy saillor from the SS Goeben.

This is a studio photograph taken in Kiel, Germany about 1907-08. It shows a sailor ("Matrose") named Ludwig Krauss.

He wears standard German naval uniform as worn by other ranks from the 1870's until 1918. He has a dark blue woollen cap (see right) with an imperial cockade and black cap tally with a yellow (or white) metallic inscription showing the name of his ship- "S.M.S. PREUSSEN". His shirt is the blue woollen winter naval top ("Wollenes Hemd" or woollen shirt) with removable naval collar in a lighter shade of blue with three white stripes (see right). The collar is tucked into a black neckerchief at the front, tied with white cord. He would almost certainly have been wearing matching dark blue trousers worn loose over black boots.

here is the NCO cap:



and U boot crew cap



here is very good source for WWI German Fleet uniforms of all kinds with very good detail..

http://s400910952.websitehome.co.uk/...aluniforms.htm

it is mostly about Colonial German Service uniforms but covers regular too.

http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

a little known source was cigarette cards which were widely made and collected of uniforms of the period and ships and much more..here is a classic example of such in a book

http://www.saxoniamilitaria.com/page...e49/index.html

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

Petty Officers were men who selected the Navy as a career and were considered under or officers in training. So their uniforms were differnt from the men, i am asking about your question about caps. above is one of the best remaining crew pictures. Remember tropical and colonial uniforms were differint.

here is regular navy saillor from the SS Goeben.

This is a studio photograph taken in Kiel, Germany about 1907-08. It shows a sailor ("Matrose") named Ludwig Krauss.


He wears standard German naval uniform as worn by other ranks from the 1870's until 1918. He has a dark blue woollen cap (see right) with an imperial cockade and black cap tally with a yellow (or white) metallic inscription showing the name of his ship- "S.M.S. PREUSSEN". His shirt is the blue woollen winter naval top ("Wollenes Hemd" or woollen shirt) with removable naval collar in a lighter shade of blue with three white stripes (see right). The collar is tucked into a black neckerchief at the front, tied with white cord. He would almost certainly have been wearing matching dark blue trousers worn loose over black boots.

here is the NCO cap:



and U boot crew cap



here is very good source for WWI German Fleet uniforms of all kinds with very good detail..

http://s400910952.websitehome.co.uk/...aluniforms.htm

it is mostly about Colonial German Service uniforms but covers regular too.

http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

a little known source was cigarette cards which were widely made and collected of uniforms of the period and ships and much more..here is a classic example of such in a book

http://www.saxoniamilitaria.com/page...e49/index.html

Thanks! That answers my question. The Petty Officers would apparently not have worn caps with brims. In "Murder on the Atlantic" I noticed several of the U-20's lower-ranking officers (PO's?) wore them, but that was probably just another one of that movie's inaccuracies.

I will tweak the caps so that the lettering & details look better. Maybe I can implement cap ribbons by attaching a 3d object node to the cap object in MARINE.dat? We'll see...

Based on my research there were a lot of ranks that could be on a U-Boat of WWI. UB-123 (a small attack boat of the UB-III type) had the following ranks on board when she was sunk in 1918:

-Oberleutnant zur See (Lieutenant)
-Leutnant (Sub-Lieutenant)
-Steuermann (Helmsman/Navigator)
-Marineingenieur (Marine Engineer)
-Maschinist (Chief Petty Officer, Engines)
-Bootsmannsmaat (Petty Officer)
-Maschinistenmaat (PO Engines)
-Funkmaat (PO Radio)
-Obermaschinistenwarter (Able Seaman Engines)
-Maschinistenwarter (Ordinary Seaman Engines)
-Funngast (Ordinary Seaman Radio)
-Obermatrose (Able Seaman)
-Matrose (Ordinary Seaman)
-Heizer (Stoker)

To simplify things I will probably only use the following ranks:

-Oberleutnant zur See (Lieutenant)
-Leutnant (Sub-Lieutenant)
-Bootsmannsmaat (Petty Officer)
-Obermatrose (Able Seaman)
-Matrose (Ordinary Seaman)

Your men will be able to get specializations, of course, as they gain experience, but they will not get a new name for their rank like "Maschinistenmaat". They will still be petty officers (Bootsmannsmaat).

Re: Dogger Bank: If I can finish the "Lion" battlecruiser model and a few German battlecruisers, then Dogger Bank will probably be modeled as a scripted event in career mode.

Re: weather: The weather and lighting will be changed to reflect a North Atlantic environment. One of my main concerns is that the entire ambience of the mod has a more "grim", cold, Atlantic feel - not the cheerful tropic ambience that the stock game seems to have. Fog, weather patterns, process filters, and even the game menus themselves will reflect this.

[c13Garrison]

Excellent attitude & direction Iam, bravo.

[Sepp von Ch.]

Yes, but the german standard WWI U-Boats crew clothing under combat conditions looks different as parade or standard "in port" clothing.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Sepp von Ch.

Yes, but the german standard WWI U-Boats crew clothing under combat conditions looks different as parade or standard "in port" clothing.

I understand. But based on movies, paintings, & pictures I've seen, they did wear the formal navy uniform on board submarines, especially towards the beginning of the war (note the officer seated in the painting below, for example). Despite looking nice it was not very comfortable, especially due to the extreme heat and cold you'd experience on your typical WWI U-Boat. Later in the war they were much more likely to wear waterproof pants/jacket, or warm civilian clothes.



I will be adding some less formal clothing to represent what U-Boat crews would have worn from around mid 1915 - 1918. I have already set some of the crew figures to wear the American stock waterproof coat, which you'll notice in some of the latest screenshots. It's a surprisingly good match for the WWI German gear.

[iambecomelife]

Changed the 1914-1915 uni's AGAIN - please excuse the repetitive pics, but I really wanted to get rid of the "Boyscout" style neckerchiefs. Now they are draped along the sailors' backs. Adding a 3d neckerchief to the crew model crashes the game, so I added it to the uniform skin.











Adding tattoos to make the crewmember skins more diverse. Not sure his mother is going to be pleased, eh? Maybe add a couple clamshells, for the sake of modesty..?

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Superb work on those latest ones. And yes ship board working outfits were developed later on in the war, and shortages of materials led to some drastic changes but for the first three years, officers would wear what we would think of as formal kit, it was unthinkable for a gentleman of that era to be underdressed..and even in the tropics they worse such. My grandfather who was a captain of a torpedo boat destroyer in 1916 said that coaling ship was dirty work for all hands for 30 hours but once over officers went right back into their full outfits or got severe reperemand from the Kapitain. Hands, ie sailormen were very proud of their uinforms and wore them with pride even in the roughest conditions. The U Boat arm was considered an elite of sorts even tho it was somewhat looked down upon by the big ship sailors and often fights and the right arm argument was used between the branches of the service ashore...but they were firecly proud of their ranks and selves and served with fierce determination partly because of the very rough conditions.

Iron/steel ships of that era had minimal comforts, remember NO air conditioning of any sort, so they were very cold, or hot, alwasy clammy from humidtiy and rough to live in and work in. Get into a large iron storage container and have someone beat on the outside with large hammers, and do that for days at a time and you will have some idea of what it was like to serve on those boats.

the cap ribbons were a small way of showing ship and rank pride, hardly known about now, but such things were very important to sailormen of that era, their lives were hard hard hard work with very few frills at all. That was very nice of you to notice that and think about it.

Dogger Banik was a very important event, if you can do the Blucher that would be great, and any of the birtish BCs could do at a pinch there were only two main ship types for them. Same for the German side, The Seydliz can stand in for most of the rest. They were all lovely ships, called the Greyhounds of the Sea back then and much envied and admired by all afloat and ashore. They had their weaknesses as we found out in action with the vulnerabiltiy of the magazines to flash danger but the German fleet was lucky to have had an accident aboard ship with that and put in flash doors which saved their ships but the UK did not and suffered for it.

You continue to do wonderful work. We will keep helping however we can, PM me if you have urgent need as i cannot get back here as often as i would like due to other duties.

some photos i found doing research..







SM U-118, minelaying German U Boat, 1919



some interesting news about wrecks found

On the old game show "What's My Line?" Briton Mark Dunkley might have been described with the following words: "He does what many adventurers around the world can only dream of doing."


Dunkley is an underwater archeologist who dives for lost treasures. His most recent discoveries were anything if not eerie. On the seafloor along the southern and eastern coasts of the UK, Dunkley and three other divers have found one of the largest graveyards in the world's oceans, with 41 German and three English submarines from World War I. Most of the submarines sank with their crews still on board, causing many sailors to die in horrific ways, either by drowning or suffocating in the cramped and airtight submarines.
Several U-boats with the German Imperial Navy are still considered missing today. Lists provide precise details on which of the U-boats the German naval forces had lost by the time the war ended in November 1918.
But it was completely unclear what had happened, for example, to UB 17, a subway crewed by 21 men under the command of naval Lieutenant Albert Branscheid. Neither was it clear where the 27-member crew of UC 21 -- a minelayer commanded by naval Lieutenant Werner von Zerboni di Sposetti -- had perished.
Securing British and German Heritage
But now things have changed.
Dunkley and his team of divers found UB 17 off England's east coast, near the county of Suffolk. UC 21 sank nearby. The fate of many other submarines, especially those that had suddenly disappeared in the last two years of the war, can now be considered known.
All of the sunken U-boats are relatively close to the coast, at depths of no more than 15 meters (about 50 feet). The diving archeologists will undoubtedly find the remains of sailors with the German Imperial Navy inside the wrecks. In the language of archeology, such finds are referred to as "disaster samples." In any case, the divers will be searching for signs of the crewmembers that died inside the U-boats.
"We owe it to these people to tell their story," says Dunkley. He works for English Heritage, a public body that is part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Its primary mission is to secure Britain's cultural heritage.
The British could see it as a peculiar irony of history that these measures are now benefiting the heritage of their former enemy. Since the Germans attacked civilian targets in World War I, British propaganda derisively referred to the submarines as "baby killers."
"Many have forgotten how successful the German U-boat fleet was for a time," says Dunkley -- an assessment that is by no means intended to glorify the German attacks. In fact, one of the goals of the most recent English Heritage project is to remind people that, although they might be more familiar with submarine warfare from World War II, the ships also caused considerable devastation in the previous world war.
A Slowly Embraced Weapon
Indeed, it had practically vanished from popular memory that the Germans caused great losses to their main enemy, Great Britain, in World War I through targeted torpedo strikes against the British Merchant Navy. At the beginning of the war, there were only 28 U-boats under the supreme command of Kaiser Wilhelm II, a tiny number compared to the Allied fleet.
At first, many political decision-makers in Berlin were unclear about exactly how the military devices, which were still novel at the time, could be used. Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had such a low opinion of the importance of the steel diving vessels that he even referred to them as a "secondary weapon."
An operations order signed by Kaiser Wilhelm on July 30, 1914 also assigned a secondary role to the U-boats at first. Under the order, they were to be used primarily to engage hostile ships in naval battles with the Imperial High Seas Fleet, which had been upgraded at considerable cost.
But after a German U-boat sank three English armored cruisers, an unbridled enthusiasm erupted in the German Empire for this still relatively untested form of naval warfare. A large number of volunteers signed up for submarine duty, even though serving in the cramped cabins was practically a suicide mission at the time, especially in comparison with the types of underwater vessels used in World War II and, even more so, today's submarines.
The conditions inside the boats were claustrophobic and extremely hot. There were cases in which entire crews were wiped out when a torpedo misfired. Likewise, since aiming torpedoes was still such an imprecise science, the submarines had to come dangerously close to enemy warships. And if spotted, they became easy prey: Early submarines moved through the water so slowly that enemy warships could easily take up pursuit and sink the attackers, either with depth charges or by ramming. In fact, some 187, or almost half, of the 380 U-boats used by the German navy in World War I were lost.
A Race Against Time
Dunkley and his colleagues examine the wrecks with ultrasound sonar devices they wear on their wrists like watches. The devices allow them to measure wall thickness and determine the extent to which corrosion has already eaten away at a ship's hull.
Measures to secure the vessels are urgently needed, says Dunkley. Since the U-boat graveyard at sea is gradually disintegrating, time is of the essence for the archeologists. Under the strict guidelines of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, the World War I wrecks sitting on the seafloor are currently not even considered archeological artifacts deserving special protection.
The disintegrating war machines are currently just shy of the 100 years required to attain this status. For this reason, Dunkley's team is trying to wrest as many secrets as possible from the wrecks in the coming months.
In cases where mines or torpedoes have torn large holes into the vessels, the archeologists can even peer inside. When this is not the case, robotic vehicles will cut open the hatches of the steel coffins and go inside.
"We divers only approach the boats with great caution. Venturing inside would definitely be extremely dangerous," Dunkley says.
It is hard to determine how almost a century of lying in place, as well as sedimentary deposits, have changed the structural integrity of the wrecks. If a U-boat turns over as a result of the divers' movements, its narrow corridors could become deathtraps.
The treatment of the crews' remains is also complicated. By law, the sites are considered inviolable gravesites. Nevertheless, the archeologists don't want to miss the opportunity to try to recover other signs of the erstwhile sailors in the underwater crypts. "Perhaps we'll find a cup or a sign with a name on it," Dunkley says.
Attacking and Sinking in Groups
The marine archeologists were struck by the fact that sometimes two or three German U-boats were found lying in close proximity to one another. For historians, this serves as evidence of a certain German combat strategy in an especially drastic phase of the U-boat war.
In February 1917, the Imperial Navy had altered its strategy and was now torpedoing and firing guns at British commercial ships on a large scale. The Royal Navy reacted by providing the freighters with warship escorts, as well as using airships and aircraft to spot enemy submarines from above.


German military strategists devised a plan to break up these massive convoys: attacking the naval convoys with several U-boats at the same time. But the strategy was difficult to implement because it was very difficult to coordinate such complex maneuvers at the time. Historians are divided over whether the convoy system ultimately saved the United Kingdom from defeat or whether it was the United States' entry into the war on April 6, 1917.
Before then, the British had relied on creativity to fend off U-boats and other enemy ships. The hulls of their own ships were painted with confusing patterns designed by artists at the Royal Academy in London. But there is no historical evidence to prove that this measure saved even a single ship from the German torpedoes.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-911648.html



very good close up of German Destroyer showing the engine vents...





german u boat gun by Krupp

[iambecomelife]

Thank you very much for your reply! A font of information, as always! Fascinating bit about the uniforms, and how you were expected to dress like a "gentleman" regardless of discomfort...my own grandparents lived in a tropical climate, and it amuses me to see old photographs where they're in coats/ties/long dresses even though it's likely 90 degrees Fahrenheit!

That's a very interesting family connection. Do you know if your grandfather was at Jutland, Dogger Bank, or anywhere else?

Also, do you know what caliber the gun below is? I'm guessing well below 88mm...?

[iambecomelife]

Had the day off, and continued to work on the crewmembers. There's tremendous room for modding with SH4,
and it surprises me what hasn't been done. Like adding more crewmember faces, for instance. I'm far from expert at skinning,
but some of the newer software tools have been a big help to me. The skins below are what can be done for Head#12
alone (blonde haired skins). Young men, grizzled vets, and salty sea dogs with tattoos.

Haven't even started on the redhead & brunette skins yet. Once again, that will be a chance for more variety.



Hopefully this will give your crew a little more individuality - seeing the same old heads is a little boring.