[Seaboy]

I sent an email to you about other details,

but here are some sites no doubt you already know, but I'll post them here just to make sure.

Good site for WWI torpedo stats
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/index_weapons.htm
Especially this page:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTGER_PreWWII.htm

German DESTROYERS - Large Torpedo Boats/Torpedo Boat Destroyers
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyGermanDestroyers.htm

Imperial German Navy Deployment, 1914
http://www.gwpda.org/naval/fdgn0001.htm

WWI u-boat Crew lists (perhaps important since your sim includes full interior, I don't know...)
http://www.ubootwaffe.net/ww1/crews.cgi

Basic War outline
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/F/Fi/First_Battle_of_the_Atlantic.htm

German Submarine Losses From All Causes During World War One
http://www.gwpda.org/naval/sml00001.htm

some good online data:
http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1914-18.htm
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1CampaignsNorthSea.htm

Perhaps a source of a WWI u-boat map for sale
http://www.derrittmeister.com/13369.htm

of course you must have this or better for u-boat operating stats:
http://www.uboat.net/wwi/types/?type=UB+II

WWI US DDs - pics
http://www.navsource.org/archives/05idx.htm

Brit WWI DDs
http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishDestroyers2.htm

general interest only:
http://www.ub88.org/
http://www.vectorsite.net/twsub22.html

[Seaboy]

these u-boat loss stats were important:
Ramming 20
Gunfire 20
Expl sweep 3
Aircraft bombs 1
Depth charge 30
Enemy torpedo 18
Own torpedo 2
Enemy mines 48
Own mines 9
Stranded 5
Unknown 19
Other 3
TOTAL LOSSES 178

[Seaboy]

oh, and note those depths on the u-boat map chart - and note that the maker of the map is good ole Mittelmeer (weren't they the ones who designed the Mittel subs?)

[Deamon]

Ahoy Seaboy,

[Seaboy]

the site:
http://www.derrittmeister.com/home.htm#indextop

under the Category of the u-boat pin picture or Kaiserliche Marine
http://www.derrittmeister.com/navy.htm

not sure about the email flaw. But its not important - I was going to send the Kaiserliche Marine mod for SH2 that I made a month ago, but the more I thought about what it is you are making - which is something beyond words - perhaps something equal to my greatest wet dream - I decided that sending my material would be silly. If you can build your sim as you plan, you guys will become the gods of the u-boat sim world.

my only suggestion is that when you come out with your Imperial U-Flotilla 2.0 (after your first sim) that you make it so that each sub can have a crew of 8 real players inside one sub (unless you already plan something like this for Imperial U-Flotilla 1.0.

[Deamon]

[Seaboy]

Just seeing your models was highly interesting. There was something so raw and prehistoric about those old subs. It always amazed me how Germany could go from having no subs to having the most effective fleet of subs in history in less than 10 years. Well for that matter the sudden creation of the Imperial surface fleet was astounding. It certainly caused the Brits to go into shock when one decade not much was there and the next decade - poof - an entire fleet super modern capitalships (with better armor, shells, optics, and gunnery).

Sh2 is a broken game as you know and what I did was add in a bunch of new posters, art and such (see: http://www.angelfire.com/co4/kivatraveler/sh2WWI1.html ), and I updated all the existing u-boats to match the operational specs of WWI u-boats - trying to assign subs to each WWI class based on length and gun type. For example, where say a WWI u-boat might have a forward and rear deckgun I would take a newer type 7 with a rear 30 mm, and upgrade it to being an 88 or 105. The forward 88 I would ramp up to being 105s if that is what the specs called for. And I would alter the displacements, speeds, and so forth. I was never certain about the dive times, and it appears from reading your site that I made the dive time too fast for the gas-powered subs. For those subs I used the small Brit sub that came with SH2 since it had forward dive planes set high on the sides of the boats like the early subs.

The biggest trouble was that when I ramped down all the surface ships that I was to use (I used the WWI looking Texas for a Kaiser Class - with the German Jack on its rear it looked ok) I found that without their radar the SH2 ships could not fire their guns at the sub very well, if at all. So I had to put the radar back on them. Also at the beginning of the war I had German subs without sonar, and discovered that in SH2 if the subs don't have hydraphone that they can't hear the enemy sonar ships later in the war.

I was never certain when to place sonar on to the German subs, though I knew the US was putting them on their subs by late 1917. So I did the same with German subs in mid 1916.

In any event without sonar or a good naval air recon I found that trying to locate ships was almost impossible. So I added a light naval air-recon fairly early in the war.

I built a few levels for the first months of the war - where the German u-boats mainly are going after warships, as in Scapa Flow in August of 1914, and are running into alot of bad weather, per the historical problems with that in late 1914. That plus one level where the main goals were to support the Imperial Surface fleet in a recon roll. At the beginning of the war the German naval command kept seeing u-boats as mere support for the big ships, and their one dream was to use their surface ships to lure the Brits into sailing across a hidden patrol line of u-boats. That never really happened as you know, and finally they got the idea that sinking merchants was more important.

But the trouble was also that making levels for SH2 is like trying to pull out your own teeth with your fingers. So I gave it up.

[Deamon]

[Guest]

I am amazed about the early German sonar. Of course it only makes sense, since a sub underwater is moving blind. So the amazing thing is I suppose that the Brits and allies waited so long before they put sonar into their subs.

[Deamon]

Forgot to tell that at the end of the war the germans developed a new hydrophon system that allowed to measure bearings to the target without turning the who submarine.

[Seaboy]

yes it was, not sure what happened there...some glitch with the system.

[Deamon]

[Seaboy]

No, SH3 is modding restistant. It can be done only to a point. And trying to replace the subs with models such as yours would be impossible as things are. Some people mod because they are artists. I only made the WWI SH2 mods because I wanted to play WWI. My ambition now is to wait for your sims.

Your plan for an alternate reality is really what every sim/game needs. They should be based on reality, but offer expanded possibilities. Actually every wargame is such, since in the real wars of history none of us were actually there. To have us there doing our own thing, means that it is an alternate reality from the get-go.

Had Germany ignored the complaints of the USA and just stuck to their original unrestricted u-boat warfare, it is likely they would have brought England to its knees. But Germany kept flip flopping from unrestricted to restricted and back to unrestricted. Even had the USA joined the war early, I doubt this could have had any effect had the u-boats continued to fight unrestricted from the first.

But Germany was a new naval power and never really seemed to feel confident at sea. Even their first war strategy was all based on the idea that England would send a massive naval attack into German waters to sink the German fleet in a knock out punch. Only after more than a month of waiting did it dawn on the German command that the Brits had no intention of doing that. And of course as later battles would reveal the British heavy shells had a major design flaw that cuased them to explode before they could penetrate the German armor. Even when the German command learned of this, it never caused the German navy to go beyond making jokes about the Brits guns, rather than forcing an absolute showdown. Of course the Kaiser was most of the problem - his dream had always been to parade his fleet with his cousin's British fleet in some grand event where their grandmother could look on. I don't think he really wanted to seriously hurt the British until quite late into the war. Even Hitler seemed to suffer from this same flaw where Britain was concerned.

But the Brits never suffered from this military flaw - they were always ready to play dirty and mean from the get-go in all their wars.

[Deamon]

[Guest]

Yeah, that's true, the Germans really did not expect the land war to last more than 6 months and so a naval victory was not considered all that important.

When I mentioned that the Brits were willing to play as mean as required to win, what I meant was that the British Government was that way. The British 'people' are themselves the very opposite. As a population they usually wanted to play things fair or at least believe that they were being fair and merciful. But the British government has always been willing to do just about anything it takes to win a war, and yet they always manage to stage-handle the whole show so that in the end they manage to retain their 'name' for being a nation led by Gentlemen who play by the prevailing rules of war. They also manage to always cast their enemies in the role of being war villains and barbaric.

Case in point, Britain itself turned the seas around Germany into an unrestricted war, and when Germany tried to do likewise the Brits made sure that the so-called guilt stuck to Germany, but slipped off themselves. Or another case - but in WWII - German u-boats tried to start off the war by helping the crews of the sinking merchants, but Britain - actually breaking internation convention - forced their ship captains to report the u-boat locations, or even try to ram them, and thus force the u-boats to break off attempts to help the merchant crews. In the case of The Laconia Incident
the Americans were responsible. The US attacking u-boats trying save survivors of a ship, when they u-boats had radioed for help from all ships, including the allies, is actually a war crime. Both the Brits and the USA are good at using small acts of war-crimes in order to force their enemy to move away from following international laws. Then both the Brits and the USA are perhaps the most expert at rallying the world media to their side to condemn their enemy once it gives up on the accepted rules of war.

Germany has always come in 2nd best in using these kinds of tricks.

My point about WWI and America was really this: I know my fellow Americans, and know that at no time in their history have they been able to sustain a war more than a few years of hard fighting, that is, if the Initial provocation was unclear or very small. Pearl Harbor was a very clear and large provocation. But unrestricted u-boat attacks in the Atlantic in WWI would never have been enough to equal a provocation that could sustain the USA in trench warfare for more than 2 years. (actually as it was, WWI was NEVER popular in America even after it joined the war - the numbers who avoided the draft was always large. Most Americans felt like Wilson has betrayed them and the only way the war could be sold to them was with the silly notion of it being a war to end all wars). Since America at that time, besides its navy, had almost nothing worth calling an army or airforce, and since it would take over a year before Gen. Pershing could hope to field even one division, my thought was that it would be better to drag the USA into war early – seeing that it would not likely have affected the Western Front much, and would only have added American cadavers to the fields of Flanders and Verdun. I don’t think those American troops would have pushed the German line back 50 meters – adding them would count about as much as adding another million or Russia’s army. And by the time the allies finally go their heads out of their behinds – I think the US troops would have been just as exhausted as the Brit and French armies.

On the other hand a steady attack of unrestricted u-boat attacks would have increased the speed at which the exhaustion took place and by 1918 I think the US would have been torn apart by riots (Americans would never have put up with 4 years of trench warfare). I realize the Kaiser could not see any of this from his position.

In the scheme of reality the German military was more like the Greek Spartans and the allies more like Xerxes’ vast horde. Adding another layer of millions to the ancient Persian army would not have had much effect upon the Greeks and would not have saved given Xerxes victory. Likewise had the German’s pushed right into the Brit Grand Fleet (especially before they could redesign their heavy shells or figure out why their ships were always blowing up while the German ships didn’t), say at Jutland, then I believe the Brit Grand Fleet would have indeed have been swept off the map. You just can’t win if your shells explode before they penetrate the armor of the enemy ships! Also German gunnery was about 40% better than the Brits (most of their shells fell in the water).

But alas for the Kaiser, he never really took off his gloves and continued to pull his punches, except on land of course.

By the way when it comes to psychological warfare the USA is not much behind Britain (in many ways they are the same). After WWII the US made a big production of blowing up the Japanese fleet with the atomic test (Baker Test 1946) of a shallow burst at Bikini atoll. While no doubt it was a valid test, the main drive was to show that surface fleets were now obsolete – especially armored fleets. It never actually proved this, for what it did show was that with a bit better construction big ships could survive such an attack. But it was nevertheless used to prove that great fleets were a thing of the past. It wasn’t until I was much older that I finally got just who the message was being directed to.
In 1946 the USA had no plans to let any other nation get the secret. Russia had no fleet to speak of. Italy and France didn’t have much. Japan was finished, and Germany was kapute. The message was being directed to Britain with its large fleet. The message was, we are in charge now – its our world.