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

[keltos01]

British M class submarine





http://gamecow.egloos.com/

Design

The guns were 12-inch (305 mm) 40 calibre Mark IX guns from spares for the Formidable-class battleships. The mounting allowed them to elevate by 20 degrees, depress 5 degrees and train 15 degrees in either direction from the centre line. The weapon was normally fired from periscope depth using a simple bead sight on the end of the gun aligned with the target through the periscope at a range of around 1200 metres. The exposure time of the gun above the surface was around 75 seconds. The submarine had to surface to reload the gun, which would take about 3 minutes. In practice the concept was not very successful and only three of the four M-class boats ordered were completed, all between 1917 and 1918. M-class submarines are sometimes called submarine monitors.
M1 and M2 also had four 18-inch (450-mm) torpedo tubes whilst M3 and M4 had 21-inch (533 mm) diameter tubes and were 3 metres longer to accommodate them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_M_class_submarine


what about modding this one ?

keltos

[pontius]

All is looking very good IABL! The skin of the Invincible could be abit sharper though
Another interesting english sub would be the K-class But there is so much important stuff left to be done. When all works out ok, maybe I can contribute a WW1 vessel. 3 D is done, Uvmap, skin and import left to do and I did this last time 2 years ago, so it will take time to relearn....

-pontius

[MGR1]

The Invincible does indeed look good, but the wee "hook" at the top of the bow looks a bit odd? IIRC, the class didn't have anything like that. Looking at the wireframe you posted earlier, is it based off the Colorado model?

@Keltos; the M was an interesting idea, but they were never actually used in anger. M1 was sunk in a collision, M2 was converted to handle a seaplane and sank in an accident; and M3 was converted into a minelayer.

@pontius; the K's were deathtraps! I bet the crews were happy to see the back of them when they were decommisioned! I don't think anyone wanted a repeat of the "Battle of May Island".....

If any British sub should be done, then it has to be the E Class!

The only issue is a lack of decent plans you could build a model from.

Mike.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by keltos01

British M class submarine





http://gamecow.egloos.com/

Design

The guns were 12-inch (305 mm) 40 calibre Mark IX guns from spares for the Formidable-class battleships. The mounting allowed them to elevate by 20 degrees, depress 5 degrees and train 15 degrees in either direction from the centre line. The weapon was normally fired from periscope depth using a simple bead sight on the end of the gun aligned with the target through the periscope at a range of around 1200 metres. The exposure time of the gun above the surface was around 75 seconds. The submarine had to surface to reload the gun, which would take about 3 minutes. In practice the concept was not very successful and only three of the four M-class boats ordered were completed, all between 1917 and 1918. M-class submarines are sometimes called submarine monitors.
M1 and M2 also had four 18-inch (450-mm) torpedo tubes whilst M3 and M4 had 21-inch (533 mm) diameter tubes and were 3 metres longer to accommodate them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_M_class_submarine


what about modding this one ?

keltos

Honestly I would rather model German subs first, such as the U-9, U-19, and UB boats. If any British subs are included I would prefer to include some of the more common ones, like the "E" class.

As for the Invincible, it still has some features of the "Colorado". I tried giving it a higher res skin but it crashed the game. The final product should be more polished.

[iambecomelife]

This weekend I managed to complete most of the crew uniforms for a possible SH3 version of the mod. The officers have several varieties of long coats/coveralls with gilt caps, and the men have black or grey work coveralls, plus brimless caps with the tricolor emblem. They also have lettering across the front "Kaiserliche Marine" for now, although I will create mods for "Flanders Flotilla", "U-Cruiser Flotilla", etc.

[iambecomelife]

Current version of the "Invincible" in SH4.

[Sledgehammer427]

I don't care if the pics are too big! looking d*** fine IABL!

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Sledgehammer427

I don't care if the pics are too big! looking d*** fine IABL!

Thanks!

Next I hope to add the secondary guns, plus some static officer & sailor figures (I can't stand the default AI ship crewmembers, even though they move).

Afterwards I'd like to work on a few more of our worthy foes - "Indefatigable/"Australia"/"NZ", "Lion", "Queen Mary", and some pre-dreadnoughts. Also start on improved U-Boat conning towers.

[GlowwormGuy]

Wow! That just looks amazing. You know how much I love the Great War period warships - just seeing that really made my day.

Did you get to read Robert Massie's Castles of Steel? The U-boat fleet really played a very important part in the Great War but at the start no one could predict it would be such a deadly and feared weapon. Old Forkbeard Tirpitz believed in it but many others thought that they were little more than toys. Of course - as you rightly are trying to simulate - the whole issue revolved around the use of standard Cruiser Rules for sinking merchant ships. And they didn't really know too much what would happen in U-boat vs warship combat until Weddigen sunk the three Cressys.

There's a lot of behind the scenes politicking going on during the war as Tirpitz and the fleet commanders want to push the limits of their weapon as it is the best - and often times the only (because the Hochseeflotte is 'shackled' to port by the Alle Hoch) way to strike back against the Allies. Like there would be times that the ships can undertake more unrestricted submarine warfare tactics and other times they'd be limited (the negotiations with Pres.Wilson would determine that subs could attack only such and such ships or that passenger vessels would absolutely not be attacked) or even withdrawn from the anti-merchant campaign altogether and employed offensively against the Grand Fleet. Indeed the standard Hochseeflotte strategy, harking back to their Jeune Ecole roots, was to try and weaken the Royal Navy strength as it sortied through mine barrages, ambushes of their light forces or catching their scouting heavy ships (ie. Beatty's Battlecruisers and any supporting battle squadron) in a trap with the German battlecruisers as bait and the battleships of the Hochseeflotte as the steel teeth, and of course with submarines which, happily for the Imperial Navy, were more potent than many traditionalists had imagined.

Hopefully as it grows and goes there will be expansions into the Mediterranean perhaps or the possibility to command light warships like small TBs?

Is there a mission editor guide for SH4? I'd like to check that out and perhaps in future I can come aboard as well!

All the best of luck with this project! It looks awesome =)

[pontius]

She looks beautiful in SH4.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by pontius

She looks beautiful in SH4.

Yes; SH4 enabled me to use the huge, 16MB skin that I had designed for her originally. Much better than the SH3 one.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by GlowwormGuy

Wow! That just looks amazing. You know how much I love the Great War period warships - just seeing that really made my day.

Did you get to read Robert Massie's Castles of Steel? The U-boat fleet really played a very important part in the Great War but at the start no one could predict it would be such a deadly and feared weapon. Old Forkbeard Tirpitz believed in it but many others thought that they were little more than toys. Of course - as you rightly are trying to simulate - the whole issue revolved around the use of standard Cruiser Rules for sinking merchant ships. And they didn't really know too much what would happen in U-boat vs warship combat until Weddigen sunk the three Cressys.

There's a lot of behind the scenes politicking going on during the war as Tirpitz and the fleet commanders want to push the limits of their weapon as it is the best - and often times the only (because the Hochseeflotte is 'shackled' to port by the Alle Hoch) way to strike back against the Allies. Like there would be times that the ships can undertake more unrestricted submarine warfare tactics and other times they'd be limited (the negotiations with Pres.Wilson would determine that subs could attack only such and such ships or that passenger vessels would absolutely not be attacked) or even withdrawn from the anti-merchant campaign altogether and employed offensively against the Grand Fleet. Indeed the standard Hochseeflotte strategy, harking back to their Jeune Ecole roots, was to try and weaken the Royal Navy strength as it sortied through mine barrages, ambushes of their light forces or catching their scouting heavy ships (ie. Beatty's Battlecruisers and any supporting battle squadron) in a trap with the German battlecruisers as bait and the battleships of the Hochseeflotte as the steel teeth, and of course with submarines which, happily for the Imperial Navy, were more potent than many traditionalists had imagined.

Hopefully as it grows and goes there will be expansions into the Mediterranean perhaps or the possibility to command light warships like small TBs?

Is there a mission editor guide for SH4? I'd like to check that out and perhaps in future I can come aboard as well!

All the best of luck with this project! It looks awesome =)

I really want to buy "Castles of Steel". Might be good Spring Break reading.

I might add mini-mods to the main mod for the player to install depending on what year it was, so that early in the war you will be penalized for sinking passenger ships, while later on they will be legit targets and give you a huge renown bonus.

Also interesting that you mentioned the "Cressy" class - once I design and build better models of the armored cruisers, the engagement with U-9 & Weddigen is sure to be one of the single missions. In the campaign layers, the "live bait squadron" will spawn patrols of these ships until the date of their sinking.

One thing can't figure out is how many cruisers from the 7th Cruiser Squadron would have been on patrol at any given time. I know that Cressy, Aboukir, Bacchante, Euryalus and Hogue were all part of the squad, and that Euryalus should have been on patrol that day but lucked out. Perhaps a regular patrol of 3-4 ships would be sufficient.

[GlowwormGuy]

Ah, that's easy - and it's actually in Castles of Steel. The ships were manned by reservists and they were very old. Their main duty was to protect Channel shipping particularly the vital ships carrying men and materiel transiting the channel and as a bonus interdict any possible German merchant blockade runners and smaller ships off the Broad Fourteens but due to weather - this is very important in the book, it mentions how destroyers are sometimes forced back to base by turbulent North Sea weather while bigger ships take damage and burn up fuel - and mechanical issues - also very important! At any given date the Grand Fleet ships and patrolling forces might be reduced by 1 or more ships due to condenser problems, boiler retubing, even collission damage. Jellicoe's policy of constant patrolling took its toll on the ships and men but did maintain the distant blockade policy quite well! - the paper size of the squadrons at sea were difficult to maintain. So yes, 3-4 in rotation. Yes the HMS Euryalus should have been there but she had to return to port to refuel.

Best wishes,
Mountbatten

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by GlowwormGuy

Ah, that's easy - and it's actually in Castles of Steel. The ships were manned by reservists and they were very old. Their main duty was to protect Channel shipping particularly the vital ships carrying men and materiel transiting the channel and as a bonus interdict any possible German merchant blockade runners and smaller ships off the Broad Fourteens but due to weather - this is very important in the book, it mentions how destroyers are sometimes forced back to base by turbulent North Sea weather while bigger ships take damage and burn up fuel - and mechanical issues - also very important! At any given date the Grand Fleet ships and patrolling forces might be reduced by 1 or more ships due to condenser problems, boiler retubing, even collission damage. Jellicoe's policy of constant patrolling took its toll on the ships and men but did maintain the distant blockade policy quite well! - the paper size of the squadrons at sea were difficult to maintain. So yes, 3-4 in rotation. Yes the HMS Euryalus should have been there but she had to return to port to refuel.

Best wishes,
Mountbatten

Thanks a lot for the information. It reminds me of the sinking of the "Hampshire", where the Destroyers turned back in the storm and were unable to help the survivors after "Hampshire" was mined (although in that weather they might not have done much good).

Anyway, I have made minor changes to the "Invincible", mainly adding crewmembers and part of the secondary armament. The hit boxes & zon file have also been much improved.







This evening I placed the model on land to simulate a shore target. The results were promising; after about one minute the hull stopped moving and no longer incurred damage from being placed on land. It should be easy to swap out ship parts for buildings and human figures - this means that bombarding airfields, supply dumps, and other facilities might be feasible.

[K.u.K Forever]

Possible Features
-Austro-Hungarian campaign with appropriate medals, ranks, & uniforms

Ooooo. I really hope you guys chose to include this!!! I'm drooling just thinking about it!