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

[Hitman]

Also the firing of the big guns caussed always damage to the decks, and bulkheads, paint blistered and burned from the muzzle blasts and the wooden decking often took damage as well from ths ships own guns. ...not to speak of damage from enemy fire. It was no small matter to fire the guns, and the barrels has a specific life time which would be affected by wear, and even in normal firing, the wear of the gun bore woudl change the deflection and the angle of fire achieved by each individual gun. So turrent captains were in charge of maintaining their guns quality and accuracy along with the Fire Control Officers and it was a complex and demanding aspect of the Big ships and their batteries. the ammunition itsself often had to be specifically machines for individual types of battery, and type, and the storage of the ammunitoin as you will well know was a critical matter and caused the loss of ships due to magazine fires esp for the Royal Navy at Jutland. Fortunatley for the High Seas Fleet due to an accident involving a magazine fire and flash back the High Seas Fleet has fitted fire proof doors to all their major ship magazines and did not suffer from this hazard.

IIRC there was a set of bells that ringed furiosly when teh ship was rigged for combat and hatches closed, so that nobody remained on deck. Anybody there after the ship commenced firing would be simply blown away and teared appart by the expansive waves on the air, coming from the explosions.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by Admiral Von Gerlach

I am guessing he may not even model the original Dreadnought, she was a minor unit by the time the Great War game along but who knows how much energy our creator has

I hope he does make her as even though she was a minor unit by the time the war started she was the ship that sank and killed Otto Weddigen.

[Chrisi078]

wie viel % ist die mod fertig und wirt es eine Beta geben?

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

Wir wissen nicht genau, wie viel fertig ist, hat er gesagt, er kann noch ein Jahr mindestens, und es gibt noch keine Beta.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Admiral Halsey

I hope he does make her as even though she was a minor unit by the time the war started she was the ship that sank and killed Otto Weddigen.

I strongly prefer to model ships that were very common in WWI (the "M" class destroyers, for example, with hundreds built.).

However, HMS Dreadnought, RMS Lusitania, and HMHS Britannic are three "unique" ships that are high priority to model due to historical value, even though there were few or only one member of their respective classes.

As usual, all I can say is it's a matter of how much time I have (and support from anyone who's interested).

Apologies for the delay with updates; I will try to post more screens in coming weeks. I have done more work on the "Kaiser" battleship, but it would be redundant to show more screens of it at this point...

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

HMS Dreadnought, RMS Lusitania, and HMHS Britannic are three "unique" ships

Good to hear that you're making the Britannic. If i'm in the Kea Channel on 21 November 1916 could I expect to see her there? Maybe running into a mine perhaps?(Don't know if that's possible but would be quite cool to see. It's probably just the matter of making the minefield dense enough to guarantee a hit.)

[Sledgehammer427]

hey IABL,
Just popping back in to let you know that I've been quietly following your work, and I'm still stunned as ever, and beyond excited at the huge potential this mod has. I'm not above making another install. This would definitely be a mainstay in my compute the second it gets released. Sign me up for the beta

[actonw5]

I have joined the forum largely to follow the progress of your mod. Best of luck - keep up the great work.

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD, actonw5!

A great many of us are enthusiastic about this mod.

[iambecomelife]

Well, the project had another narrow escape....on Wednesday my house was partly flooded due to bad weather, and I rescued my PC from the water just in time...if the flooding had happened while I was at work, I dread to think of what would have occurred.

Anyways, a question for people who know a lot about German battleships: when did the Germans start painting their battleship funnels red? Was it done throughout 1914-1918? I assume it was as an identification measure. Would the red funnels have been applied to all ships or were there exceptions?

Also, did the Germans ever use complex camouflage on capital ships in WWI? All of the photos I have seen seem to show battleships with basic, solid gray/whitish paint schemes.


Thanks!

To Adm. Halsey: famous U-Boat victims will be in the campaign layers at the times they were lost; if I have time to model the Britannic (a big if) then you will see her if you know when and where to be. The "Aboukir", "Hogue", and "Cressy" will definitely be in their location in 1914 because the ship model for that type of cruiser is nearly complete. It might be "easy" to cheat and ambush these ships for tonnage, but I'm a big fan of historical accuracy. Plus, many U-Boat successes could easily have been failures due to dud torpedoes, etc. Knowing [where to look] is only half the battle, as GI-Joe would say...

[Sailor Steve]

Glad it survived.

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

Anyways, a question for people who know a lot about German battleships: when did the Germans start painting their battleship funnels red? Was it done throughout 1914-1918? I assume it was as an identification measure. Would the red funnels have been applied to all ships or were there exceptions?

According to this source special paint schemes were only done for recognition purposes and only painted once at sea, being overpainted grey again before land was sighted. He claims that capital ship aft funnels only were painted dark red, and only at Jutland. He further states that at Dogger bank the aft funnels were all light blue. None of the several books I have mention it at all, so further than this I don't know.

Also, did the Germans ever use complex camouflage on capital ships in WWI? All of the photos I have seen seem to show battleships with basic, solid gray/whitish paint schemes.

I've looked through several books, and none of them say. Websites such as Wiki mention camoflage on British and American ships, but don't mention Germans. I've looked through a couple of forums, and the concensus seems to be that even the British used camo only experimentally, and the Germans not at all.

[iambecomelife]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Glad it survived.


According to this source special paint schemes were only done for recognition purposes and only painted once at sea, being overpainted grey again before land was sighted. He claims that capital ship aft funnels only were painted dark red, and only at Jutland. He further states that at Dogger bank the aft funnels were all light blue. None of the several books I have mention it at all, so further than this I don't know.


I've looked through several books, and none of them say. Websites such as Wiki mention camoflage on British and American ships, but don't mention Germans. I've looked through a couple of forums, and the concensus seems to be that even the British used camo only experimentally, and the Germans not at all.

Thanks! I am amazed at how much you subsimmers know about my most obscure requests...your link also taught me that German battleships should only have the circle painted on their turrets from 1917 onwards; not throughout the war....very informative.

[Admiral Halsey]

Originally Posted by iambecomelife

To Adm. Halsey: famous U-Boat victims will be in the campaign layers at the times they were lost; if I have time to model the Britannic (a big if) then you will see her if you know when and where to be. The "Aboukir", "Hogue", and "Cressy" will definitely be in their location in 1914 because the ship model for that type of cruiser is nearly complete. It might be "easy" to cheat and ambush these ships for tonnage, but I'm a big fan of historical accuracy. Plus, many U-Boat successes could easily have been failures due to dud torpedoes, etc. Knowing [where to look] is only half the battle, as GI-Joe would say...

Thanks. That's why I love the RSRDC so much due to its accuracy. I wait until the battles finish and pick off the survivors as it's less cheaty IMO.(The area around Savo Island normally nets me a nice hunk of tonnage.)

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

I am glad you escaped the flood. Please be sure your work is backed up every day if possible on media out of the computer.

re paint, no they never used any dazzle scheme on the Battleship squadrons.

the funnels were never painted entirely ever. They had bands of colour for ID for squardons, parallel bands usually white or light colour. Red was not used ever to paint the entire funnel or was blue that report is anomalous from everything i know. It was an id scheme used by a number of navies but none used entire funnels being panted that I know of.

You will see on the lead ship here, bands of light colour at the top of the aft funnels...



and in this photograph, the lead ship has bands of ID marking on the lead funnel:



and this one of the Battlecruiser Squadron, you can see ID bands on both funnels:



there is a book by Hipper about the Battlecruser squadron and it has photos with the painted bands on the funnels, that may help if you can find it.

I believe squadrons of teh Battle Fleet had demarkations based on ship type, for instance the Heligoland Class Dreadnoughts of the Highs Seas Fleet were grouped in one squadron, which made sense as the ships all had the same engines and speed and handling characteristics and that made command and control easier. I seem to recall seeing them with four strips on the funnel at one point, but that may be a vagary of memory as it has been many many years since I commanded the High Seas Fleet in wargaming with the Naval Wargame Society in London in teh 1970s. We had full fleet engagements with all ships involved and keeping so many ships underway and operating safely in close proximity with poor visibility at times was no joke.

Remember also that all command and control was mostly thru flags and lights, as radio was unreliable and unpredictable, so flag hoists which were often obscured by funnel smoke esp at high speed were the main method and squadrons had to pass the signal down the line of battle, at night which the High Seas Fleet had trained for and the British fleet had not, coloured lights were used on the fore mast and the smaller ships such as the torpedo boat destroyers were controlled from a light cruiser in command of the individual squadrons or a lead boat.

It is really remarkable there were not more collisions and accidents when underway but that was due to the high standard of training which both fleets achieved thru constant practices and fleet manuvers and exercises in both peace and war. The comsumption of coal and supplies was enourmous if you recall that the demand created for coal by those huge engines underway esp at high speeds was just incredible. Coaling ship was an all hands operation that took days for the largest ships. That plus all of the spares and maintenance and supplies and upkeep, routine replacement of gun barrels, and ammuntion it is staggering the expendicture for a large battle fleet when the upkeep of an individual large dreadnought could reach 20 million pounds A YEAR. That plus the cost of new ship construction with new classes of both captial ships, and crusers both heavy and light and the ever evolving design of the countless torpedo boat designs and classes ...and then minelayers, mine sweepers, patrol trawlers, anti submarine shps, and later on early air craft service ships, and tenders ......net barrier tenders, and so forth, ...it was a huge undertaking by both fleets.



sorry to ramble but these thoughts came up as we discusses the funnel markings.

A number of marking schemes were tired over the years, often involvilng both paintings the ship funnels, usually with bands of colour...and also colouring the heavy gun amunition with coloured dye.. a practice that the Japanese Imperial Fleet used as late as WWII which mystified and actually alarmed the US navy which thought eronously that the IJN was using gas shells when actualy they were using dye to mark range and fall of salvo spreads.

In summary for accuracy purposes i am thinking the best guess is using a dull shade of white for the bands avoids making mistakes about colour but i dont think making entire funnels any other coour than the naval gray is safe without more proof....unless anyone has it.


hope that helps.

btw for the purpose of teh final format of the mod if you need nice images of ships of that era one of the finest british naval artists was Bernard Finnigan Gribble...some are here:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....20Vessels.html

[Char]

You keep Throwing all this at him he'll never get done guys!

Next thing you know,you'll be giving him accurate Rivet counts to Model!


All in fun though,Good to see you made it through the Flood!