Transiting the Kiel Canal in realtime!

[WargamerScott]

I have just installed the Grey Wolves super-mod and I am loving it! What a great improvement to the game! Thanks so much to everyone who contributed their efforts to make this a reality!

Since installing it, and starting my career over (back to 1939), I decided to give the new Kiel Canal mod a try as it would save so many miles off my trip. However, it appears that the Kiel Canal has proved to be something of a trap as it is taking me forever to navigate it! For some reason, the vast majority of the distance I have covered (about the first 1/3) has been done at 1X---the game will not let me accelerate the time except for very brief periods. I thought you were only forced to go in realtime when there were nearby ships. Despite being alone in the canal, I am still forced to travel at 1X. Is there a way around this? At this rate, I should get out of the canal in about four to five hours of real-world time! Ouch! LOL!

Just curious.

Thanks!

[Sir Big Jugs]

You are too close to shore. Time compression automatically drops here.

Use SH3Commander to change the "When near land" option to more than the default, which is 4x.

[Henry Wood]

LOL! Yes, I found that too, though I did enjoy my first trip or two through it. Now I employ a Kiel Canal Pilot and sit back for a few minutes while we transit. You must change your time compression for when near land and I have done this using SC3 Commander. I have eventually upped it to 64x for near land and that is the slowest I go through. If I have plotted my course very carefully to be as near midstream as possible, I can navigate other parts of it at 2048x! (Always on the nav map, of course for the whole trip.) HTH.

[HunterICX]

I never ever go throught that canal again....i,m not going to sit 2 hours to get my boat out of that canal...I just go around it with 1024X TC

[Henry Wood]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

I never ever go throught that canal again....i,m not going to sit 2 hours to get my boat out of that canal...I just go around it with 1024X TC

But you can go through it as fast as you like if you increase TC to 1024x for near land and only use that increase when in the canal. I like using it because it saves fuel for my Type IIA out of Kiel base.

[Stiebler]

The new Kiel canal and other canals in Grey Wolves and NYGM (and perhaps other mods) require users to download a revised file Terraindata.bfd (among other files) which occupies a staggering 242 MegaBytes *itself* (113 MBytes when compressed with 7-Zip).

This is a major reason why NYGM and GW are so huge to download and such a pain for those with dial-up modems. The benefit is, as stated by users in this thread, completely marginal. No one is likely to use the Kiel Canal after 1940, and the only way to get a speedy transit is to alter the time compression while traversing the canal. Then alter it back again afterwards.

I really would like to see this near-worthless burden removed.

Stiebler.

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by Stiebler

The new Kiel canal and other canals in Grey Wolves and NYGM (and perhaps other mods) require users to download a revised file Terraindata.bfd (among other files) which occupies a staggering 242 MegaBytes *itself* (113 MBytes when compressed with 7-Zip).

This is a major reason why NYGM and GW are so huge to download and such a pain for those with dial-up modems. The benefit is, as stated by users in this thread, completely marginal. No one is likely to use the Kiel Canal after 1940, and the only way to get a speedy transit is to alter the time compression while traversing the canal. Then alter it back again afterwards.

I really would like to see this near-worthless burden removed.

Stiebler.

Yes I grant you its a slow process but if you are playing with limited fuel its a godsend
I normally plot my way thru Kiel and bugger off and do something else
Let the thing run itself to the end

The last thing I'd call the Kiel Canal is nearly worthless. That has to be one of the best features of the large mods. I am not averse to playing Type IIs out of Kiel, and believe me, that canal can add a week to your patrol. It takes one day to get through the canal on 1/3 ahead, it takes at least three to get out around Denmark. Double that for the trip back and you've added a week to patrol times.

It should have been included in the stock game. (I wonder how many times that has been said.)

[HunterICX]

I cant go 1024 throught the Kiel Canal..It turns on and off orange when I try go higher the 4X TC

[Henry Wood]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

I cant go 1024 throught the Kiel Canal..It turns on and off orange when I try go higher the 4X TC

That is because you must have TC set to 4x when 'near land'. I changed it using SH3 Commander to 64x. I have found that quite safe as I would never try to run at a fast TC when in any other coastal waters.

Also, if you zoom right in on the canal when plotting a course through it and mark your course as close to the centre of the waterway as you can, there will be many stretches of the canal when you can move through at your max TC.

[irish1958]

The NYGM Tonnage War 2.0 mod has a feature to set the patrol course through the Keil Canal. If one uses this and sets the time compression via SH3CMDR to a reasonable level, the canal is a godsend as it adds a week to your patrol in a type II.
I would hope the GW team comes up with some sort of auto-plot for the canal.
When did the canal become unsafe for travel during WW2? And is there any records available that show it was used by U-Boats? After the French bases became available why would it be used?
irish1958

[Henry Wood]

Originally Posted by irish1958

I would hope the GW team comes up with some sort of auto-plot for the canal.

In RL commanders who were unfamiliar with the canal used the services of a Pilot; perhaps a mod of 'Use Canal Pilot' could teleport users from one end to the other if they wished to use it?

Originally Posted by irish1958

And is there any records available that show it was used by U-Boats?
irish1958

There is a report in 'First U-Boat Flotilla' (Lawrence Paterson) of U-13, Kplt. Karl Daublebsky von Eichain, returning to base in September 1939 after a mine laying patrol and developing serious engine trouble on the home run. After on-board repairs, the engines could only be run at full speed or not at all and Kplt. von Eichain requested permission to pass through the waterway at top speed instead of keeping to the usual speed limit. The authorities refused, thinking it was a crew trying it on to get ashore as soon as possible, so the commander immediately requested a tug to tow him through the canal. After further radio discussions, U-13 was finally allowed to proceed unaided at full speed through the '99-kilometre canal' and the 'remarkable sight of a small boat hurtling to her mooring against Tirpitz Pier in a flurry of spray was long remembered by onlookers on shore.'
(The book states '99-kilometre canal' but the one I pass through is nearer 150km, speaking from memory?):hmm:

[bigboywooly]

Originally Posted by irish1958

The NYGM Tonnage War 2.0 mod has a feature to set the patrol course through the Keil Canal. If one uses this and sets the time compression via SH3CMDR to a reasonable level, the canal is a godsend as it adds a week to your patrol in a type II.
I would hope the GW team comes up with some sort of auto-plot for the canal.
When did the canal become unsafe for travel during WW2? And is there any records available that show it was used by U-Boats? After the French bases became available why would it be used?
irish1958

Even after the French bases were open new boats would have still had to shipped out from Kiel to operational flotillas

Deutsche Werke, Kiel (69)
Germaniawerft, Kiel (131)
Howaldtswerke, Kiel (31)

Even the Bismark used the canal on its way from Hamburg to Kiel and back



15 September 1940: The Bismarck leaves Hamburg for the first time. At 1658 hours, while steaming down the Elbe, collides with the bow tug Atlantik but neither ship is damaged, and at 1902, the Bismarck anchors in Brunsbüttel roads. During the night of 15/16 September, while anchored, there is an air raid alarm in which the anti-aircraft battery expends 13 x 10.5 cm, 136 x 3.7 cm, and 191 x 2 cm projectiles. No success observed. 16-17 September 1940: The battleship passes through the Kiel Canal assisted by tugboats. At 1448 on the 17th, the Bismarck enters the Kiel-Holtenau sluice, leaves the Kiel Canal, and then comes alongside Scheerhafen, Kiel.

Makes you wonder why my poor uboot has to go at T\C 4 because land is so close when that great big fat battleship made it
More than once

I completely agree with Fab (and others): the Canal is one of the best features of the game. If you live to play games and kill things, sure it's a waste of time; but if you sometimes wish you were a real sub commander, and leave the harbors in real time looking at the ships, then the Canal is lots of fun.

No, I don't do it in real time, I use 64x, but I come back to real time to look around at almost every town along the way. I love the Kiel Canal-I just wish it had the locks I saw in the photographs of the real thing.

And the Brunsbuttel docks properly located inside the locks.

[irish1958]

Vely intelesting!
Thanks for the info all
irish1958