[REL]The Wolves of Steel - SH5 Megamod

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi A

Do I have to change a setting in OFEV ?

Yes


Peter

[ouPhrontis]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Can you give me the date or at least month and the year?

It's 1939, I have the career still running, so will go back through and check.

[Ashikaga]

VIELEN DANK!!!!

[gap]

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Well...here's what I have observed relative to merchant vessels...

Not all have or follow any set "rules" for displaying flags at sea or in port. Most do fly the appropriate flag (either their national flag [e.g. American flag for US-registered commerical vessels] or a merchant ensign [e.g. "Red Ensign" for UK-registered commercial vessels]). When in port they display their flag at the fantail and the flag of the country whose port they are in at the main truck or a signal flag yardarm (I can't recall ever seeing one with a jack or even a jackstaff). [...] The display of their ensign/national flag at sea also varies widely, some fly it from the fantail flagstaff and some from the main truck; the former seems to be more typical.

[...]

As for using a gaff rigged to the mainmast...pretty much the same thing as flying it from the main truck. Sometimes a gaff is used, sometimes the top of the truck has more than one pulley and that is used (see below), sometimes for small ships that fly small size ensigns, a "pig stick" is used with the ensign attached to the stick and the stick hoisted to the gaff or the truck. The design of the mast is different from ship class to ship class and frequently from ship to ship as well, especially as they get older and have alterations applied.

Thank you very much for your replies. What I get from the text above is that commercial vessels are lesser bound to etiquette than naval ones, but though with a certein degree of flexibility relative to the actual hoisting point (stern fantail, signal flag yardam, mainmast gaff or truck), the ensign / national flag is alway to be found in the aft part of the ship and it is never flown from the foremast (when present). Are my conclusions correct?

Originally Posted by CaptBones

They also typically fly a house flag at a yardarm when in port and sometimes at sea as well.

So a yardam (at the mainmast I suppose), is the right spot for house flag hoisting. Does port/starboard make any difference in this case?

Originally Posted by CaptBones

House flags are not "official" displays in the USN, but rather flags that the crew would design and display on certain occasions. Generally they are only used when entering port...especially homeport...on return from a deployment or a "special operation"...including successful completion of most types of underway tests/trials/readiness inspections. etc.

I am especially interested in house flags because in the Flags of the World website I found drawings of the flags used by many SS companies during the 30s-40s, and many pictures of real (used) flags at the website of the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich (they belong mostly to British shipping companies, but there are also flags from other parts of the world).
I think that adding house flags to in-game ships would be nice for creating more variety and for easing the ship identification, but I am not sure that in real wartime practice, allied ships in convoys would have flown those flags especially in open seas. I know that at some point of the war most shipping companies dispensed with their distinctive colors, funnel markings, and anything else could identify them (including house flags probably), but what I have read in several modeller forums, this process was not as universal and as quick as one might think. I would be curiois to know your opinion on this respect too.

Originally Posted by CaptBones

I suspect the choice is largely driven by the distance someone has to run to render honors to warships they encounter at sea. It is common courtesy for merchant ships to render honors to warships, especially if the merchant vessel is in the territorial waters of the warship it meets! Rendering honors means dipping your flag, which the warship acknowledges by dipping her flag in return. It's quite "formal"...the merhcant ship dips its flag, the warship then dips its flag and returns it to full staff, then the merchant vessel may return its flag to full staff.

Yes, I knew that already. Nice tradition, but unfortunately this is not something we can simulate in game.

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Now for broad pennants and "house flags"...for USN, the most used pennant is the "coach whip" commissioning pennant. It is always flown at the highest point on the mainmast, above the ensign even. Of course, it's rather small and hardly noticeable, uness you're looking for it and know where to look (it is almost always attached to a "pig stick" and the stick hoisted to the top of the main truck). Broad pennants displayed are the identification pennants for embarked Squadron Commanders/Group Commanders. They are only flown when the Commander is "embarked", which doesn't mean physically present/onboard; their pennant will be flown from an inboard halyard on the main yardarm (therefore below the ensign when underway). When the Commander is embarked, but not onboard in port, an absentee pennant is flown from an outboard hoist on the main yardarm (Commanding Officers also get an absentee pennant when they are not onboard)...by default they will be physically above the ensign when in port, but since they are not displayed from the same mast as the ensign, they aren't really "above" the ensign.

Okay, that's clear. Commissioning pennants too are something I have had in mind for a long time, but at the moment I am more interested in broad pennants flown aboard Commodore / Escort Commander ships in convoys. In game, as in reality, those ships have a special role / behaviour / position within the convoy, and I think it would be nice and useful being able to identify them during convoy battles.

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Well, that's a small treatise...hope it clears up some of your questions.

Definitely yes, thanks again for taking the time to answer in such a detail my (silly) questions

[CaptBones]

Originally Posted by gap

Thank you very much for your replies. What I get from the text above is that commercial vessels are lesser bound to etiquette than naval ones, but though with a certein degree of flexibility relative to the actual hoisting point (stern fantail, signal flag yardam, mainmast gaff or truck), the ensign / national flag is alway to be found in the aft part of the ship and it is never flown from the foremast (when present). Are my conclusions correct?

Essentially "yes"...but in a ship with the primary superstructure and bridge amidships, the national flag/ensign is almost as likely to be displayed at sea from the mainmast. Tankers and bulk carriers are frequently the exception; they generally have a large superstructure aft with crew's quarters and it's not a long walk to the fantail, so the flag/ensign might be flown there when at sea. Again, just as often a matter of the Master's choice and convenience and I don't think either placement would be "wrong" for the sim. Most commercial vessels don't have a "foremast" per se; they typically have Kingposts, goal-post cranes and jib-crane poles or even just a seperate pole/mast for mounting the masthead light (the range light being on the mainmast).

So a yardam (at the mainmast I suppose), is the right spot for house flag hoisting. Does port/starboard make any difference in this case?

Well, the starboard yardarm is the "senior" position for any flags/pennants displayed. I'd suspect that would be where a proud crew would choose to fly their house flag.

I am especially interested in house flags because in the Flags of the World website I found drawings of the flags used by many SS companies during the 30s-40s, and many pictures of real (used) flags at the website of the National Maritime Museum of Greenwich (they belong mostly to British shipping companies, but there are also flags from other parts of the world).
I think that adding house flags to in-game ships would be nice for creating more variety and for easing the ship identification, but I am not sure that in real wartime practice, allied ships in convoys would have flown those flags especially in open seas. I know that at some point of the war most shipping companies dispensed with their distinctive colors, funnel markings, and anything else could identify them (including house flags probably), but what I have read in several modeller forums, this process was not as universal and as quick as one might think. I would be curiois to know your opinion on this respect too.

In wartime it is generally a good idea to make it as hard as possible for your enemy to find or identify you. Now, if you're a neutral vessel and you think that both/all warring sides are going to respect International Law as well as each other's, and their own, Prize Regulations, I suspect you would at least try initially to make yourself as readily identifiable as possible. Once that quaint romantic notion of "civilized" warfare wears off...it's out come the paint cans and down come the flags...be as unidentifiable as you can for as long as you can. Plus, in convoy, you do not want any "miscellaneous" flags flying that could possibly be mistaken for a signal in the air...signal flags and flashing lights are the primary and sometimes only allowed means of communication in the convoy.

Yes, I knew that already. Nice tradition, but unfortunately this is not something we can simulate in game.

Yeah, not at all practical in a wartime convoy either.

Okay, that's clear. Commissioning pennants too are something I have had in mind for a long time, but at the moment I am more interested in broad pennants flown aboard Commodore / Escort Commander ships in convoys. In game, as in reality, those ships have a special role / behaviour / position within the convoy, and I think it would be nice and useful being able to identify them during convoy battles.

Yeah...great idea! To be clear...a USN Broad pennant is the personal command pennant of an officer, not a Flag Officer, in command of a Division of BB's, CV's or CA's/CL's or a designated Force, Flotilla/Group, or Squadron of ships or craft of any type (which would include a convoy itself and the ships in a convoy escort force, although the escort commander could be flying a Burgee pennant instead). A Burgee pennant indicates command of a Division of ships or craft other than BB's, CV's or CA's/CL's. Flag Officers obviously display their personal flag in their flagship, when in command of any group of ships. If a ship of that type were escorting a convoy, you would possibly see a Flag Officer's personal flag displayed.

In the USN, Broad pennants are white swallow-tail shaped with dark blue stripes along the top and bottom of the fly (same as the Flotilla pennant in the RN, but the blue is darker); Burgee pennants are narrower swallow-tail shaped and have red stripes along the top and bottom fly (not equivalent to the RN Division pennant). The use of Roman numerals and Arabic numerals is specific, but probably too much so for this discussion (or use in the sim).

In the RN, the Flotilla pennant is white, swallow-tail shaped with light blue stripes along the top and bottom of the fly. The Squadron pennant is squared with colored quadrants; light blue in the upper-left, yellow in the upper-right, red in the lower-right, and white in the lower-left (as viewed with the hoist to the left). Division pennant is squared with horizontal stripes; red, white, blue, and yellow, from top to bottom. If the convoy commander (not the escort commander) is RN, he might even display a RFA Commodore's pennant; dark-blue swallow-tail with a "gold" anchor in the middle, surrounded by a circle of "gold" line (rope, to the landlubbers out there).

Definitely yes, thanks again for taking the time to answer in such a detail my (silly) questions

There are no silly questions...sometimes silly answers though.

[vdr1981]

Two questions for you guys. First...

Has anyone used these "functions" ever? Do they work at all?



...and second, has anyone ever experienced intense sound glitch which can sometimes be heard while your sub is damaged and under depth charge attack? The glitch can last for 15-20 seconds...Is it just me?

Thanks...

[Fifi]

Never used those buttons, cause never noticed them!
But could try soon...

No, never had this sound glitch when damaged or under depth charge.

[ouPhrontis]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

Two questions for you guys. First...

Has anyone used these "functions" ever? Do they work at all?



...and second, has anyone ever experienced intense sound glitch which can sometimes be heard while your sub is damaged and under depth charge attack? The glitch can last for 15-20 seconds...Is it just me?

Thanks...

Just some online tonnage board, doesn't interest me at all.

[Fifi]

So capt log buttons aren’t working here. Probably because my PC is internet disconnected.

Ouphrontis, are you internet connected when playing?
I can’t see what is written on your picture, is it other players?

[Cybermat47]

Vecko, I have a question about Allied submarines in TWoS. IIRC, they can be found in the Mediterranean, but can they also be found in the North Sea, Arctic, and Bay of Biscay? They operated there historically.

[Ashikaga]

I edited the flag with the ss skull to show my tonnage. Works very well.

On another note. I experience game difficulties when playing the game in very long stints. Might be my memory and chipset and older video card. Moving to a much better rig soon. From 2.33 dual core with nvidia GT720,to i5 with 36gb Ram and nvidia GTX 1050.

But for now, does anyone here regularly save their game during missions (not in the operations zone) to keep gameplay stable and without freezes/ctd's?

If so please tell me if that worked for you. Just started doing that to prevent freezes in missions with very large convoys.

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

...and second, has anyone ever experienced intense sound glitch which can sometimes be heard while your sub is damaged and under depth charge attack? The glitch can last for 15-20 seconds...Is it just me?

Originally Posted by Fifi

No, never had this sound glitch when damaged or under depth charge.

Thanks guys for your feedback. Anyone else? It seem that the glitch can be heard only when flooding is present...

[gap]

Originally Posted by CaptBones

There are no silly questions...sometimes silly answers though.

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Essentially "yes"...but in a ship with the primary superstructure and bridge amidships, the national flag/ensign is almost as likely to be displayed at sea from the mainmast. Tankers and bulk carriers are frequently the exception; they generally have a large superstructure aft with crew's quarters and it's not a long walk to the fantail, so the flag/ensign might be flown there when at sea. Again, just as often a matter of the Master's choice and convenience and I don't think either placement would be "wrong" for the sim. Most commercial vessels don't have a "foremast" per se; they typically have Kingposts, goal-post cranes and jib-crane poles or even just a seperate pole/mast for mounting the masthead light (the range light being on the mainmast).

In short, your answer is: at least in the USA there are no written rules which prescribe / help deciding which mast a ship ensign should be flown from, but the one that is closer to the superstructure / crew area, is the one that most likely will be preferred both for mechant ships and military vessels. Is that correct?

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Well, the starboard yardarm is the "senior" position for any flags/pennants displayed. I'd suspect that would be where a proud crew would choose to fly their house flag.

Roger that

Originally Posted by CaptBones

In wartime it is generally a good idea to make it as hard as possible for your enemy to find or identify you. Now, if you're a neutral vessel and you think that both/all warring sides are going to respect International Law as well as each other's, and their own, Prize Regulations, I suspect you would at least try initially to make yourself as readily identifiable as possible.
Once that quaint romantic notion of "civilized" warfare wears off...it's out come the paint cans and down come the flags...be as unidentifiable as you can for as long as you can.

Well, wether belligerents will respect international law, Geneve convention, engagement rules or not, I imagine that the best thing you can do at any stage of the war as a neutral subject or organization caught in the middle of it, is making yourself visible and marking your neutrality as clearly as possible. As far as I can understand, zigzagging, proceeding with obscured lights and/or hiding any element that might have helped own identification, would have been a suicidal tactic for a neutral vessel, unless she was sailing in British waters and she was actually trying to smuggle goods in the UK.

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Plus, in convoy, you do not want any "miscellaneous" flags flying that could possibly be mistaken for a signal in the air...signal flags and flashing lights are the primary and sometimes only allowed means of communication in the convoy.

I see you point here. I suppose the same would have applied to flying ensigns outside territorial waters. Isn't it?

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Yeah, not at all practical in a wartime convoy either.

Lol yes

Originally Posted by CaptBones

Yeah...great idea! To be clear...a USN Broad pennant is the personal command pennant of an officer, not a Flag Officer, in command of a Division of BB's, CV's or CA's/CL's or a designated Force, Flotilla/Group, or Squadron of ships or craft of any type (which would include a convoy itself and the ships in a convoy escort force, although the escort commander could be flying a Burgee pennant instead). A Burgee pennant indicates command of a Division of ships or craft other than BB's, CV's or CA's/CL's. Flag Officers obviously display their personal flag in their flagship, when in command of any group of ships. If a ship of that type were escorting a convoy, you would possibly see a Flag Officer's personal flag displayed.

In the USN, Broad pennants are white swallow-tail shaped with dark blue stripes along the top and bottom of the fly (same as the Flotilla pennant in the RN, but the blue is darker); Burgee pennants are narrower swallow-tail shaped and have red stripes along the top and bottom fly (not equivalent to the RN Division pennant). The use of Roman numerals and Arabic numerals is specific, but probably too much so for this discussion (or use in the sim).

In the RN, the Flotilla pennant is white, swallow-tail shaped with light blue stripes along the top and bottom of the fly. The Squadron pennant is squared with colored quadrants; light blue in the upper-left, yellow in the upper-right, red in the lower-right, and white in the lower-left (as viewed with the hoist to the left). Division pennant is squared with horizontal stripes; red, white, blue, and yellow, from top to bottom. If the convoy commander (not the escort commander) is RN, he might even display a RFA Commodore's pennant; dark-blue swallow-tail with a "gold" anchor in the middle, surrounded by a circle of "gold" line (rope, to the landlubbers out there).

Great information thank you very much!

Adding an extra node/bone to the tallest mast of each ship, and linking a Flag Officer's pennant to it (as a normal equipement) should be no problem. The problem is making sure that, for each convoy series, only the first escort unit assigned to the convoy (acting in game as the escort leader) and only the first merchant unit (acting as the commodore ship), have the proper pennants for their role.
In order to achieve that, we could create proxy copies of some destroyers and of some valuable merchant ships, give them pennants, and make sure that one of them is on top of the ship/escort list of each convoy series with a spawn probability of 100%, but then commodore ship and escort commander would always belong to the same class for that convoy series.
A possible alternative could be assigning the ships with pennants to one or more of the special ship types (Type17=Elite Destroyer escort, Type108=Rare Cargo ship, Type109=Rare Troop Transport), and putting on top of each convoy's merchant/escort list a generic entry with a 100% spawn chance and a special ship type specified, but again, if we needed to use ships from of those types elsewhere in the caimpaign, they would always display the pennants, even when they don't apply to those ship's momentary role.
A third alternative is creating one or two new nations (one for Axis and one for Allies), and putting in their rosters only ships "equipped" with command pennants. If we did that, we could draw commodore ships and escort leaders for each convoy from that generic nation, being sure that the game will pick up randomly from their pool and only from there, and we no limitation but the fact of seeing the new fantasy nation(s) listed in museum.

Vecko, if you have followed the whole discussion and if you are interested into its practical (modding) aspects, what do you think about my speculations?

[skin-nl]

Originally Posted by Ashikaga

But for now, does anyone here regularly save their game during missions (not in the operations zone) to keep gameplay stable and without freezes/ctd's?

If so please tell me if that worked for you. Just started doing that to prevent freezes in missions with very large convoys.

I only save when i quit the game and i have no ctd's at all,even when i save with a large convoy in the neighborhood.

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by gap

Vecko, if you have followed the whole discussion and if you are interested into its practical (modding) aspects, what do you think about my speculations?

Can't say that I have but I'll check it out for sure , although I'll definitively need a dictionary since I'm not familiar with many of used nautical terms...

However, I have moved flag nodes for few ship types which already have unused flag masts in their stern and in game it looks like this. is this OK or I should discard the changes?