SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - Stiebler 'Surrender' and 'Smoke on Horizon' patchkit for H.sie V15G2

Stiebler · 08-26-11, 10:43 AM

I have updated my Surrender/Smoke-on-Horizon mod, with the inclusion of code to handle a CAM-ship (Catapult-Aircraft-Merchant-ship). In addition the Smoke-on-Horizon mod has been upgraded to prevent the watch-officer from shouting ‘Smoke on the Horizon, Sir!’ during the hours of darkness (thanks to code discovered by H.sie).

CAM-ships provided temporary air cover to threatened British convoys from mid 1941 to about March 1943. They were merchant ships, carrying normal merchandise, but fitted with a catapult forward that could throw a Hurricane fighter into the air. The aircraft patrolled the vicinity of the convoy when U-boats were thought to be present until its fuel was exhausted. Then it crash-landed in the sea next to the CAM-ship and the pilot was rescued. The aircraft was lost. Thus each CAM-ship could provide just ONE flight. There was rarely (if ever) more than one CAM-ship added to any one convoy. In later years, CAM-ships were replaced by escort carriers, which had flight decks to allow aircraft to return to land.

CAM-ships are NOT provided as part of the original SH3, therefore naturally the devs have provided no code for them. However IAmBecomeLife (IABL) has created at least three ships with catapults fitted, M36B, M21B and T14B. The first of these, M36B, was released by itself some years ago, is added to most of the super-mods now, and is well tested and completely stable. The other two are provided as part of his major MFM-Interim-Beta mod, a release of many merchant ships, and are less well known.

All IABL’s ships can be adapted to fly off aircraft by making two changes. The first is to change UnitType to 8 (was previously 102 for M36B, or 100 in GWX) in the M36B.cfg file (data\sea\M36B.cfg) (or M21B or T14B), and the second is to add these lines to the bottom of the same file:

[AirGroup 1]
StartDate=19390101
EndDate=19430601
Squadron1Class=FBHurricaneMk1
Squadron1No=1

You will also need to change the roster entry (data\roster\british\sea\M36B.cfg) for the CAM-ship, to give it the same UnitType=8, and DOC=19410501, DOD=19430301

The problem with these changes is that SH3 regards the new AirGroup as a conventional airbase, like the land airbases, which fly off fresh aircraft whenever the U-boat is within range. Thus, if you approach a convoy protected with a CAM-ship, you are attacked repeatedly by the one Hurricane which is supposed to have crashed after its first flight. This is not realistic.

My mod allows the Hurricane to make up to five ‘appearances’ in succession over your U-boat, whether surfaced or submerged. The times of these ‘appearances’, which you will rarely see, vary according to circumstances (none during darkness), but typically last up to six hours. This gives the Hurricane plenty of time to find you once, and to make repeat attacks if you remain on the surface, but the aircraft will then stop flying. If you dive at once, and stay submerged until darkness, you should be completely safe from a further attack.

In order to function, my mod provides its own Hurricane, a clone of the original Hurricane, with changed, unique, radius and name (‘CAMHurricane’). This mod needs to be installed with JSGME, and you MUST change ‘Squadron1Class=FBHurricaneMk1’ in the cfg file above to ‘Squadron1Class=CAMHurricane’.

Tested for many hours in mission and campaign files, works well. Important limitation: once the local CAMHurricane ceases to fly, NO CAM-ship (of the same type, eg M36B) will fly off another Hurricane until you restart the game completely. It is not sufficient to reload a new career or a saved game, you must restart SH3. It seems that all CAM-ships of the same unit name share the same airbase - which my patch has now altered. This is not a serious limitation, since U-boats will have encountered Hurricanes from CAM-ships very rarely anyway.

Users of GWX: it seems that the CAM-ship M36B is provided with GWX3 (as type 100), but it is not scripted into any convoy. You will need to change *one* of the generic (‘ClassName=[NULL]’) British merchant ships in convoys from 1941 to mid 1943 to a ClassName=M36B, UnitType=8.

The code can be enabled/disabled with the new Options Selector (supplied with the patch) in the usual way.
Download the patch from here:
http://www.subsim.com/mods1/nygm/Sti...r_Smoke_CAM.7z

Stiebler.

08-26-11, 10:43 AM	#10
Stiebler Fuel Supplier Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 1,237 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 4	Patch now includes code for CAM-ships I have updated my Surrender/Smoke-on-Horizon mod, with the inclusion of code to handle a CAM-ship (Catapult-Aircraft-Merchant-ship). In addition the Smoke-on-Horizon mod has been upgraded to prevent the watch-officer from shouting ‘Smoke on the Horizon, Sir!’ during the hours of darkness (thanks to code discovered by H.sie). CAM-ships provided temporary air cover to threatened British convoys from mid 1941 to about March 1943. They were merchant ships, carrying normal merchandise, but fitted with a catapult forward that could throw a Hurricane fighter into the air. The aircraft patrolled the vicinity of the convoy when U-boats were thought to be present until its fuel was exhausted. Then it crash-landed in the sea next to the CAM-ship and the pilot was rescued. The aircraft was lost. Thus each CAM-ship could provide just ONE flight. There was rarely (if ever) more than one CAM-ship added to any one convoy. In later years, CAM-ships were replaced by escort carriers, which had flight decks to allow aircraft to return to land. CAM-ships are NOT provided as part of the original SH3, therefore naturally the devs have provided no code for them. However IAmBecomeLife (IABL) has created at least three ships with catapults fitted, M36B, M21B and T14B. The first of these, M36B, was released by itself some years ago, is added to most of the super-mods now, and is well tested and completely stable. The other two are provided as part of his major MFM-Interim-Beta mod, a release of many merchant ships, and are less well known. All IABL’s ships can be adapted to fly off aircraft by making two changes. The first is to change UnitType to 8 (was previously 102 for M36B, or 100 in GWX) in the M36B.cfg file (data\sea\M36B.cfg) (or M21B or T14B), and the second is to add these lines to the bottom of the same file: [AirGroup 1] StartDate=19390101 EndDate=19430601 Squadron1Class=FBHurricaneMk1 Squadron1No=1 You will also need to change the roster entry (data\roster\british\sea\M36B.cfg) for the CAM-ship, to give it the same UnitType=8, and DOC=19410501, DOD=19430301 The problem with these changes is that SH3 regards the new AirGroup as a conventional airbase, like the land airbases, which fly off fresh aircraft whenever the U-boat is within range. Thus, if you approach a convoy protected with a CAM-ship, you are attacked repeatedly by the one Hurricane which is supposed to have crashed after its first flight. This is not realistic. My mod allows the Hurricane to make up to five ‘appearances’ in succession over your U-boat, whether surfaced or submerged. The times of these ‘appearances’, which you will rarely see, vary according to circumstances (none during darkness), but typically last up to six hours. This gives the Hurricane plenty of time to find you once, and to make repeat attacks if you remain on the surface, but the aircraft will then stop flying. If you dive at once, and stay submerged until darkness, you should be completely safe from a further attack. In order to function, my mod provides its own Hurricane, a clone of the original Hurricane, with changed, unique, radius and name (‘CAMHurricane’). This mod needs to be installed with JSGME, and you MUST change ‘Squadron1Class=FBHurricaneMk1’ in the cfg file above to ‘Squadron1Class=CAMHurricane’. Tested for many hours in mission and campaign files, works well. Important limitation: once the local CAMHurricane ceases to fly, NO CAM-ship (of the same type, eg M36B) will fly off another Hurricane until you restart the game completely. It is not sufficient to reload a new career or a saved game, you must restart SH3. It seems that all CAM-ships of the same unit name share the same airbase - which my patch has now altered. This is not a serious limitation, since U-boats will have encountered Hurricanes from CAM-ships very rarely anyway. Users of GWX: it seems that the CAM-ship M36B is provided with GWX3 (as type 100), but it is not scripted into any convoy. You will need to change one of the generic (‘ClassName=[NULL]’) British merchant ships in convoys from 1941 to mid 1943 to a ClassName=M36B, UnitType=8. The code can be enabled/disabled with the new Options Selector (supplied with the patch) in the usual way. Download the patch from here: http://www.subsim.com/mods1/nygm/Sti...r_Smoke_CAM.7z Stiebler. __________________ NYGM Tonnage War Mod - More than a mod: it's an experience!