Why choose the U1 for Imperial U-Flotilla?

[Oesten]

Deamon,

Why choose the U1 in Imperial U-Flotilla?

It's the first U-boat ever built - therefore also the worst one ever built. (Well, apart from the tiny UB1 and UC1, but they aren't real U-boats as far as I'm concerned, more like mini-subs.)

Only one torpedo tube, and only 3 torpedoes. And no deck gun! And you can only safely dive to 30 metres depth - that's not much more than periscope depth!

That makes it of only limited usefulness - even as a training boat!

Just think, you are in a torpedo training mission in the U1, you get into firing position, fire a torpedo at a moving target, and miss. Now you've got to wait, what, 15-20 minutes to reload! While using up your battery power frantically trying to keep pace with the target and get into firing position all over again! And you've only got 2 more shots.

Sounds very difficult and frustrating to me - especially for a training mission, which even in a simulation, shouldn't tax the novice player too much.

And with no deck gun, you can't do deck gun training with the U1. Which takes a lot of the fun out of training.

Now, for me, U3 would have been a far better choice as a training boat for your sim. Like U1, the U3 was a training boat throughout the Great War. However, it had 4 torpedo tubes (2 bow, 2 stern) with 6 torpedoes. And during the war it was fitted with a 105mm deck gun for gunnery training.

With U3, realistic training missions would be possible - by realistic, I mean training with a training boat which has similiar capabilities to the combat boat you'll be using on actual war patrols.

I know you've got a lovely model for the U1 and no doubt you'd hate not using it in Imperial U-Flotilla, but really, in my opinion it's only suitable for conning and navigation training, not combat training.

Why go to all the trouble of modelling the interior of a boat that is so poorly armed and therefore not much fun to use?


(Note: This is why the small Type XXIII didn't make it into SH2 or SH3 - with only 2 torpedoes, it simply wasn't much fun......even the Type IIA had 5 torps.)

[Deamon]

PART 1

Originally Posted by Oesten

Deamon,

Why choose the U1 in Imperial U-Flotilla?

It's the best documented boat i have. Thus ensures best possible authenticity and level of ditial. Thus best immersion. Infact after i discovered U 1 i came up with a whole new design for the whole sim. Just for it. The first release will not be an WWI subsim but an SMS U 1 sim.

It's the first U-boat ever built -

IUF is supposed to start in 1908 or even earlier. It was the only boat at this time. The player is supposed to witness and participate in the foundation of the german u-boat weapon. IUF will be of a historical value.

(Well, apart from the tiny UB1 and UC1, but they aren't real U-boats as far as I'm concerned, more like mini-subs.)

Coastile submarines. Non of the boats in WWI were submarines. They all were just submersibles.

The coastiles submarines were just smaller and had more limited performance but not less a submarine then their fleet type counterparts.

Only one torpedo tube, and only 3 torpedoes. And no deck gun! And you can only safely dive to 30 metres depth - that's not much more than periscope depth!

You must know that even during the war german submariners were very reluctant to dive deep. The usual depth was 20 maybe 30 meters. In peace time it was even more rigid. A long time the submarines haven't dived deeper than 15-20 meters. Iirc it was even forbidden to dive deeper than that. There wasn't so much trust in to the boats even if the safe diving depth was 50 or 75 meters.

When you look at the save diving depth of german WWI u-boats you will notice that till U 116 the save diving depth was merrely 50 meters. Since U 117 it grew to 75 meters and it never grew beyoned that.

When i read the accounts i noticed several times already that even during wabo attacks they tryed to evade them at only 20-30 meters.

I only seldome red a boat going deeper than that.

The confidence in the deep diving capeabilities started to grow as some boats dived to deep by accident or leaks or when they else were forced down. One boat, i don't remember which went as deep as 134 meters, iirc. I'm not sure if my memory play me a trick here but it was at least much below 100 meters.

U 1 was let down to 30 meters by a crane without crew. As all went well, with crew.

A long time there even wasn't a reason to dive deep. When you was at 15-20 meters you was safe from any ramming. Wabos and nets and maybe good visibility of the water were then the reasons to go deep.

Don't forget that we are talking here about WWI. The diving technology and the confidence in it was in its infancy.

There was at all little confidence into the capeabilities of the u-boats. There were doubts that an u-boat can take a seastorm. There were doubts that an u-boat can operate on the high sea far away from the base, lets say around england. There were doubts that the engines can operate that long. Before the war broke out the u-boats usualy haven't stayed at sea longer than one day. They moved out in the morning and formed a circle around heligoland and were replaced at night by other boats.

The longest imaginable operational time for an fleet type u-boat was 5-7 days. No one could imagine that a human can live longer than that in an u-boat on the sea.

It were only the accidents, mishaps and emergancy cases that revealed the true capeabilities of the u-boats and the confidence grew slowly.

That makes it of only limited usefulness - even as a training boat!

Just think, you are in a torpedo training mission in the U1, you get into firing position, fire a torpedo at a moving target, and miss. Now you've got to wait, what, 15-20 minutes to reload! While using up your battery power frantically trying to keep pace with the target and get into firing position all over again! And you've only got 2 more shots.

Oh don't tease me like this

When you miss your chance is gone no matter how many tubes you have becose your targets are warships and you can't keep pace with them once you miss.

Sounds very difficult and frustrating to me - especially for a training mission, which even in a simulation, shouldn't tax the novice player too much.

Hmm, you cannot compare IUF with other games. It's radicaly different. It's a reinvention of the genre. It's supposed to become a SIMULATION. It's absolutely none arcadish.

Shooting torpedos in IUF will be a highlight as it is in real life. And it will have a whole different appraoch to training. It will be very cohesive and systematicaly. Not just a loose bunch of boring training missions. I have my own concept to make it appealing and tasty.

And with no deck gun, you can't do deck gun training with the U1. Which takes a lot of the fun out of training.

The truth is there was no gun training at all in the u-boat weapon. Becose the u-boats had no guns at all. Guns was an upgrade durign the war, as it turned out that u-boats were supposed to hunt merchant ships. Before that they hunted warships. For this purpuose guns were useless cose every little torpedoboat outguns you a big time.

Now, for me, U3 would have been a far better choice as a training boat for your sim. Like U1, the U3 was a training boat throughout the Great War. However, it had 4 torpedo tubes (2 bow, 2 stern) with 6 torpedoes.

I have almost no references about this boat. Not even plans exist of it anymore. I will simulate thous boats in the first place that are best documented.

And during the war it was fitted with a 105mm deck gun for gunnery training.

Are you sure ?

With U3, realistic training missions would be possible - by realistic, I mean training with a training boat which has similiar capabilities to the combat boat you'll be using on actual war patrols.

I think you error here, besides 4 tubes it had not nearly the capeabilities and reliability of the combat boats. This is where IUF will differ alot from other sub sims. Capeabilities of a boat are not determined by it's tubes alone. Armament is realy only one factor. I'm going to simulate the other factors too. Remember IUF is not arcade.

I know you've got a lovely model for the U1 and no doubt you'd hate not using it in Imperial U-Flotilla, but really, in my opinion it's only suitable for conning and navigation training, not combat training.

It has torpedos on board. It's a weapon. So its suited for combat training. Thats what it served to in peacetime as during the war. People like Otto Weddingen were trained on it. And overall it had the reputation of being reliably.

Why go to all the trouble of modelling the interior of a boat that is so poorly armed and therefore not much fun to use?

Wait till you have seen it.

At all judging by your post you have a very arcadish attitude towards subsims :p

I'm now woundering how well you know this subject at all ?

After i started with serious indepth researches i realized how unexploited this subject is and what is all missing in all the sims that would make ALOT of fun. Well at least to me.

IUF is going to simulate all the intricacies and subtleties of submarine warfare and operational hazards most maybe aren't even aware of.

(Note: This is why the small Type XXIII didn't make it into SH2 or SH3 - with only 2 torpedoes, it simply wasn't much fun......even the Type IIA had 5 torps.)

Oh IUF is about so much more than just torpedo shooting. If torpedo shooting is the only realy interesting thing in a sim then it's arcadish!

Torpedoshooting is just the orgasm but where is the foreplay ? The foreplay is the actual fun!

IUF is about this foreplay in the first place.

The type II was my favoured boat in SHIII. It had only limited capeabilities(and that is what you complain about here). Everything was so much more intense in it; you had to take much greater care of what you do; you needed better planing; you remembered the ships you sunk ; every torpedo was costly; Every shot is a highlight. This is immersion.

And this are the reason why i like it!!! With such a boat you have to exploit its potential.

IUF is about immersion too. In the past as i knew only as much about submarines as what i have seen in the games, shooting was for me also the only realy interesting thing. Only after i made my researches and found out about all the other gems of u-boat operations, i also started to like them as well or even more than just shooting. It's this knowledge from where my vision comes.

The first release is about learning. IUF is supposed to become my personal interactive multimedia library where i'm going to store all my knowledge in the academy curriculum

IUF is also an experiment. Basicaly i'm going to kick casual gamers in the nuts and see whether they like it

Well IUF will also contain arcade playing modes. Well arcade by IUF standarts.

Damn, i'm getting to tired. Part 2 comming after that. Stay tuned.

[Oesten]

OK Deamon.

If you don't have good source material for the U3, then you can't make it. Fair enough.

I know UB1 and UC1 were coastal subs. Not very impressive ones, though..........

I can see why early German uboats wouldn't need to dive deeper than 20 metres to avoid ramming. However, in these very early boats, there's always the possibility of mechanical failure or human error during diving, which can cause you to dive deeper than intended! I wouldn't want to die on a training mission.............(even if it would be realistic, lol!)

I know that uboats were only intended to target warships initially. But if you've got within 500 metres before firing, and your first torpedo misses a warship target, then provided the warship didn't spot the first torpedo, you'll have time to fire a second -provided you have a second tube. If you only have one - mission over as the target steams out of range. And anyway, big warships are likely to need more than one torpedo to sink them.


Finding what deck gun the U3 had is a bit difficult:
www.uboat.net says that the Type U3 had a 105mm gun.
But the book 'Business in Great Waters' by John Terraine says the Type U3 had only a 50mm gun. (Better than nothing, I suppose.)


I like the Type II in SH3 as well - in fact I've hardly ever done patrols in anything else! Starting in 1939 in a tiny, obselete boat is a lot of fun. Just a few days ago, I actually did a convoy attack in a Type IIA - at night and on the surface. It added spice to the thrill of the attack when I saw two destroyers that could go not just twice, but three times faster than I could on the surface! And going at only 10 knots in very heavy seas, it seemed an AGE before I got close enough to fire......

[Deamon]

Part 2

Let me summarize why i choosed SMS U 1:

1. It's the best documented boat i have
2. It has served as a training boat. So fit well in to the training release
3. It's the first german war u-boat thus it operates much different than the later boats and its capeabilites are much lower. This is a nice challange and it makes an transition to a newer better boat much more interesting cose you can see how the performance differ and can suddenly do things and use tactics that were not possible before. Thus boats like U 1 ensures very variable game play. Especialy when someone came from WWII subsims will find here a welcomed(or not so welcomed ) game play diversion. I think a different game play, a different challange a different setting is one of the main reasons to try out a WWI subsim.

Switching to U 1 allowed to make a whole new game design and a huge saving in developement resources.

1. It had no deckgun and not even a mchinegun. So no need to model it and corresponding damage modeling and AI.
2. It's short range makes it superfluouse to model half of the globe. A small fraction of the globe would be enough for the first release.
3. For realistical training setting i will model only practice torpedos, without warheads. So no need again for damage modeling, AI and stuff

Whats the benefit of all this ? It's a huge reduction in workload. The saved resources can be then focused in to things like:

1. Making U 1 with all bells and whistles. Making it a gem of a boat.
2. The way smaller map can be modeled in level of ditail never seen before, that is nice to sail around in and watch it doing its business. And it can be easier made dynamicaly. In IUF the map will not be as empty as what you are used to in other subsims.
3. People won't need to wait for 20 years for the first release. And while they are playing it and making their training we can fix the gun, fix the damage modeling, AI, the war campaign, add more terrain, more enemys and stuff.

Focusing on U 1 was a good good decission. Don't you think so ?

And there are more goodies in the pipeline.

Originally Posted by Oesten

OK Deamon.

If you don't have good source material for the U3, then you can't make it. Fair enough.

BTW: Max Valentiner who commanded it in WWI during some operations in the east sea wasn't very enthusiastical about it, to put it mildly

I know UB1 and UC1 were coastal subs. Not very impressive ones, though..........

Well, coastiles boats are never that impressive. And in this case they had to be equiped with long-boat engines which were not optimal for this boats(but there were no others) and gaved them a lame surface speed.

I can see why early German uboats wouldn't need to dive deeper than 20 metres to avoid ramming. However, in these very early boats, there's always the possibility of mechanical failure or human error during diving, which can cause you to dive deeper than intended! I wouldn't want to die on a training mission.............(even if it would be realistic, lol!)

This early boats are coastile boats. In the case of U 1 it was designed to operate in waters like the Kiel Bay where the water is hardly deeper than 20 meters. Of course even in shallow waters is a boot with deep diving capeability better cose its more shock resistant against wabos and maybe collisions.

I know that uboats were only intended to target warships initially. But if you've got within 500 metres before firing, and your first torpedo misses a warship target, then provided the warship didn't spot the first torpedo, you'll have time to fire a second -provided you have a second tube. If you only have one - mission over as the target steams out of range.

To have a chance for a second shot in the case the first one miss the target need to move realy slow. Warships usualy move fast.

The only benefits i see for more than one tube are fan shots and the possibility to shot several times in a short succession. When attacking two targets for example.

And anyway, big warships are likely to need more than one torpedo to sink them.

Dreadnoughts maybe. But you can sink with one torpedo everything up to a battleship. Especialy when you hit the ammo stores. But U 1 had older and smaller 45mm torps with a smaller warhead and older weaker explosive type.

Finding what deck gun the U3 had is a bit difficult:
www.uboat.net says that the Type U3 had a 105mm gun.
But the book 'Business in Great Waters' by John Terraine says the Type U3 had only a 50mm gun. (Better than nothing, I suppose.)

My sources and photos also suggest a 50mm gun. This informations on uboat.net seem to be wrong. They also say that it hadn't made any patrols what is not ture. Even U 1 made some patrols.

At all mounting such a big callibre on this old smaller boats would surely make alot of technical problems becose the recoil of the gun damages the boat. I guess that's the reason why they mounted only a small calibre gun.

I like the Type II in SH3 as well - in fact I've hardly ever done patrols in anything else! Starting in 1939 in a tiny, obselete boat is a lot of fun.

That's my point and approach for IUF. When you'r done with the academy and enter the war, you get your new fleet type boat with much better capeabilities and first have to make some training trips to get used to it and explore its capeabilities. This are always special moments in a subsim. The game play changes alot.

Just a few days ago, I actually did a convoy attack in a Type IIA - at night and on the surface. It added spice to the thrill of the attack when I saw two destroyers that could go not just twice, but three times faster than I could on the surface! And going at only 10 knots in very heavy seas, it seemed an AGE before I got close enough to fire......

What do you mean with AGE ?

I espcialy loved the Type II for port infiltration and shallow waters operations. Especialy with the batter fix mod. The coast always attracted me. The Type II is smaller, more maneuverable, can operate in shallower waters. I love it.

In IUF you will operate in shallow coastile waters most of the time.

Deamon