Auxiliary Cruiser mod

[V13dweller]

I have read up on the Penguin and the Komet before, I was just commenting that 1 gun is unacceptable, even though these ships were armed to the teeth in real life, but the four guns on the Penguin and two guns on the Komet would be acceptable, even though most Armed Merchant Cruisers of the era were carrying many more guns. In the stock SH5 the 'Rawalpindi' Armed merchant Cruiser has about 8 (?) single 20mm anti airguns and the 6 BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns, making it just as dangerous as a destroyer if you were to be caught surfaced by one, making it a much more viable ships as an escort then the Komet or Penguin in game.
Even in real life the HMS 'Rawalpindi' had 8, not six of the 6 inch naval guns, and was also armed with 2, 3 inch QF12 pounder's as anti aircraft defense, not 8(?) single 20mm anti airguns.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I have read up on the Penguin and the Komet before, I was just commenting that 1 gun is unacceptable, even though these ships were armed to the teeth in real life, but the four guns on the Penguin and two guns on the Komet would be acceptable, even though most Armed Merchant Cruisers of the era were carrying many more guns. In the stock SH5 the 'Rawalpindi' Armed merchant Cruiser has about 8 (?) single 20mm anti airguns and the 6 BL 6 inch Mk VII naval guns, making it just as dangerous as a destroyer if you were to be caught surfaced by one, making it a much more viable ships as an escort then the Komet or Penguin in game.
Even in real life the HMS 'Rawalpindi' had 8, not six of the 6 inch naval guns, and was also armed with 2, 3 inch QF12 pounder's as anti aircraft defense, not 8(?) single 20mm anti airguns.

Yes, talking about stock ships' armaments, there are still too many inaccuracies that need to be addressed

There's an excellent though not very popular mod, called Cerberus 62 Historical Ship Equipment, that partly fixes them. Nonetheless, by the time it was released little could be done for increasing the number of guns that could be fitted about units, or for changing the position of the existing bones.

Despite the beta state of TDW's GR2 Editor/Viewer, by now we can perform the above mentioned tasks and much more

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

The Auxiliary cruisers can be found as convoy escorts in the Mediterranean

Originally Posted by V13dweller

...they serve as escort ships, and there are strangely a lot of this one ship. They also see wide service in the Mediterranean...

German auxiliary cruisers on escort duty in the Mediterranean?

I don't think so for at least 3 reasons:

1. as I said a while back, there were only 9 of these ships in service with Kriegsmarine, not exactly "a lot" considering their wide range of action;
2. their main task was not escorting friendly convoys, but rather taking advantage of their camoufflages and heavy armaments for harassing single enemy merchats;
3. they operated mainly in South Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian Ocean. In the Mediterranean they would have been easily pinned down and, what's more, I doubt they would have made it through Gibraltar safely.

Italian destroyers and corvettes would have been a much more likely option for escorting axis shipping in the Mediterranean. If German auxiliary cruisers are used as escorts in Mare Nostrum and Battle of the Mediterranean, something is wrong with these campaigns... Trevally will have to deal with my complaints

[Cybermat47]

^^^^^

gap, Ubisoft made this game. Are you expecting historical accuracy from them?

[gap]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

^^^^^

gap, Ubisoft made this game. Are you expecting historical accuracy from them?

Not at all: I am expecting us to make it accurate

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by gap

Not at all: I am expecting us to make it accurate

Amen

[gap]

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Amen

[V13dweller]

What I mean by saying I have seen them in the Mediterranean, I don't mean it's accurate, I have just seen them there, I believe to have even seen two Auxiliary Cruiser Komets guarding the same convoy, I have even seen two Emden Class Cruisers at the same Port, (There was only one of this ship) one was at dock, the other was escorting the convoy. Ill do some more "Convoy watching" to see if i can get a screenshot of this.
So im just saying what i see in game, this has no regard for historical accuracies.
And if we look back at the stock game, there was only one HMS 'Rawalpindi'. If you take a look at Scapa flow or Loch Ewe you can see about two-three of them parked next to each other, and in two of the stock missions you have to "Sink five AMC ships" and Rawalpindi Armed Merchant cruisers are the only ships that qualify.
This game has quite some inadequacies.

[V13dweller]

And with 'Open Horizons' comes the 'North-sands' large freighter, and that shares the same skin as the Auxiliary Cruiser Penguin without its (1) gun (s) , there is also a rename of the Komet as well with a 3 inch(?) put in place of it's quad Flak , but I cannot remember that name right now. There also come the 'Troop Transport' that is a Rawalpindi Armed Merchant cruiser without the 6 Inch guns. From what i have seen, the 'North-sands' Large Freighter would have a better chance of defending itself because it's single gun faces backwards but can aim to a certain extent forwards, this supported by the fact that, Merchants begin to take repeated left-right-left-right course changes on sight of danger(Submarines and their torpedoes)

[V13dweller]

After looking through some convoys, i have also seen multiple 'Carl Paters fleet tenders' in one convoy.
In real life, there was only one fleet tender by that name, the other fleet tenders looked similar but not that similar, I have also got a good example of ship armaments that Gap was talking about, the 'SV medium freighter' has seven large calibers guns, this seems like a more realistic weapon setup.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

What I mean by saying I have seen them in the Mediterranean, I don't mean it's accurate, I have just seen them there, I believe to have even seen two Auxiliary Cruiser Komets guarding the same convoy, I have even seen two Emden Class Cruisers at the same Port, (There was only one of this ship) one was at dock, the other was escorting the convoy. Ill do some more "Convoy watching" to see if i can get a screenshot of this.
So im just saying what i see in game, this has no regard for historical accuracies.
And if we look back at the stock game, there was only one HMS 'Rawalpindi'. If you take a look at Scapa flow or Loch Ewe you can see about two-three of them parked next to each other, and in two of the stock missions you have to "Sink five AMC ships" and Rawalpindi Armed Merchant cruisers are the only ships that qualify.
This game has quite some inadequacies.

I've got your point V13dweller

Have you experienced all of this with OHII enabled? Hopefully it won't be too difficult for Trevally fixing those issues, since all of the auxiliary cruisers/merchant raiders featured in game are grouped under the same 'UnitType', and mission editor let us choice how each "class" is used in game

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

And with 'Open Horizons' comes the 'North-sands' large freighter, and that shares the same skin as the Auxiliary Cruiser Penguin without its (1) gun (s) , there is also a rename of the Komet as well with a 3 inch(?) put in place of it's quad Flak , but I cannot remember that name right now. There also come the 'Troop Transport' that is a Rawalpindi Armed Merchant cruiser without the 6 Inch guns. From what i have seen, the 'North-sands' Large Freighter would have a better chance of defending itself because it's single gun faces backwards but can aim to a certain extent forwards, this supported by the fact that, Merchants begin to take repeated left-right-left-right course changes on sight of danger(Submarines and their torpedoes)

Originally Posted by V13dweller

After looking through some convoys, i have also seen multiple 'Carl Paters fleet tenders' in one convoy.
In real life, there was only one fleet tender by that name, the other fleet tenders looked similar but not that similar, I have also got a good example of ship armaments that Gap was talking about, the 'SV medium freighter' has seven large calibers guns, this seems like a more realistic weapon setup.

Having units that are playing multiple roles is quite normal: SH5 got a limited number of ships, and some of them where "cloned" (either in stock game or in OHII) with a variety of skins and loadouts for representing different classes.

In some cases this is acceptable to me. Take for instance the yet discussed axiliary cruisers/merchant raiders case: in real life they were requisitioned and converted merchant ships of common design (like the Ems class freighters). So duplicating them in game with lesser armaments in order to represent normal merchants, should be entirely legitimate. In other cases I will agree that this trick is just a forced compromise.

Nonetheless, once/if we get more detailed models, and as soon as we will able to import them in game as GR2 unit, it won't be difficult replacing the cloned ships in campaign with better models

[V13dweller]

I was experimenting with the Mission editor again, and I have found that the Scharnhorst and Deutschland Pocket battleships main guns actually don't fire
They track the targets, but they don't fire, the ship only uses it's secondary weapons, like the smaller single barrel cannons.

It's quite strange, I put all of the German battleships in a line, and some British battleships in a line, the Germans won, after a long battle, the Schleswig-Holstien seemed to have been attacked the least, and made most of the kills (Strange for a per-dreadnaught)
The Bismarck charged in and make short work of the destroyer screen guarding the battleships, took some damage but came out alive.

If you want the statistics of battle, the British had HMS Suffolk, Hood, Barham and Ark royal. 3 Kent heavy cruisers, 2 A class destroyers, 4 flower corvettes, and 2 Black swan sloop's. The Germans had KM Tirpitz, KM Scharnhorst, KM Deutschland, KM Konigsberg KM Koln 4 type 34 destroyers AMC Penguin AMC Komet and KM Emden.
What a battle it was.

I did my best to make it as fair as possible, because the pocket battleships don't use their main guns.

Also the Auxiliary cruisers did not maneuver to attack the enemy
They just did that zig-zag course non-destroyers do when enemies are nearby.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I was experimenting with the Mission editor again...

Hi again V13dweller, we are going off topic here. I will reply instead on this thread:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show....php?p=1935678

[V13dweller]

I think I found a solution to your problem, go the the Eqp file and set the date it get's attached to whet ever date you please, like 1938, that will make the four guns present constantly, so they will have their cannons from the start.

I hope this solution helps.