[REL] ComSubPac & ComSubSoWesPac Letterheads Mod

[Sea Otter]

Greetings, Subsimmer's!

I learned a great deal by making this simple mod. Now I understand why modder's use a [WIP] (Work in Progress) announcement when they do a mod. I posted my mod and within hours members of SUBSIM were sending me some great suggestions and information. Donner, one of our moderators, even sent me images of actual documents with the admirals' signatures on them!

I'm pretty sure this will be my last version. If you downloaded one of the earlier ones and have to download again, I am sorry. I know now that I am a "rivet counter" and could spend hours researching. Thanks to the community, I'm satisfied with this mod's latest release.

This mod was inspired by Kapt.Klaus's Orders Document mod and GREATLY improved by info provided by Donner. Also, thanks to Bosn for telling me the Navy uses "CAPT" for captain instead of "CPT".

In fact, when I began playing SH4, I was looking to add little touches of realism to the game. His was one of the first mods I downloaded. Thanks KPT.Klaus for allowing me to use your work as an inspiration!

This mod comes in two versions. The first is for Subsimmer's who play a lot out of Pearl, Midway, etc.






I chose RADM Lockwood to be the ComSubPac represented here. The ComSubPac at the begining of the war in the PTO was RADM T.T. Withers. He is noted for loading his sub commanders up in an airplane and showing them how visible their submerged subs were even at deeper depths. He was followed by RADM Robert English who was tragically killed in a plane crash. The last ComSubPac during the war was RADM Lockwood who served the longest in this capacity. Lockwood also wrote the book, Sink 'em All! For these reasons, I chose him to be the ComSubPac represented on the letterhead. I was reading ADM I. J. Galantin's book, Taker Her Deep and found that the distinguished Sub Commander, Richard G. Voge, served as Lockwood's Operations Officer, so I chose him to be the Ops Officer represented in the mod.

Here's the FileFront link:
http://files.filefront.com/Pacific+L.../fileinfo.html

The second version is for Subsimmer's who play a lot out of Australia.






I chose RADM Christie to be the ComSubSoWesPac represented here. RADM Lockwood was also a good candidate due to his fame, but he got bumped to be ComSubPac after RADM English was killed in a plane crash. Since I was using Lockwood in my mod for ComSubPac, I went with Christie.

Christie wasn't without his controversies (he helped design and develope the MK VI Magnetic Detonator as well as the MK XIV Torpedo and got into it pretty heavily with his boss Admiral Thomas Kincaid over a lot of issues), but you gotta love an admiral who went out on a real patrol or two! I did a little digging on the internet and found that CPT Murray T. Tichenor served as Christie's Operations Officer, so I chose him to be the Ops Officer in the mod. There is an interesting bit about him in the book, Australian Commandos by A.B. Feuer. Evidently Tichenor went along for the ride when the USS Harder was sent on a rescue mission to retrieve a commando unit.

Here's the FileFront Link:
http://files.filefront.com/Southwest.../fileinfo.html

Historical Tidbit

In digging around, I found that the Commanders, Submarine Force, Pacific and Southwest Pacific (ComSubPac & ComSubSoWesPac) were rear admirals. It was interesting to note that at the time, there was no "one star" admiral's rank. You went from Captain to Rear Admiral (2 star at the time). As more joint staffs became a way of life, the other branches of service began to whine - I mean opine as to the unfairness of this promotional jump. You could be a Navy Captain (O-6) working for an Army Brigadier General (O-7 one star) and your orders came down promoting you to the first admiral rank (the 2 star Rear Admiral) and whahla - you now outrank your boss! The positions of Rear Admiral Lower Half (1 star) and Rear Admiral Upper Half (2 star) were enacted to correct this inequality.

Technical Stuff

JSGME ready. No known issues. Some mods change letterhead, so you might want to install this mod on top of those.

I used Times New Roman for the Font. On most military letterheads I've run across, the complete mailing address was included. Anyone know ComSubPac's or ComSubSoWesPac's World War II mailing address in Pearl/Fremantle?

I chose to leave that off so that the lines could have a larger font and be easier to read as the game blurs it somewhat to give it an aged look. Any thoughts?

At the bottom, I used the Courier Font to give it that typewriter look and did it in bold because the game blurs it for an aged look.

Donner provided me with actual signatures for Lockwood & Christie, so I used PhotoShop to incorporate them onto the documents.

I used the notion of the commander's operations officer signing the patrol orders. In order to get a handwritten look to his signature, I used a program called Signature Creator from erstenware.com. It's freeware and was intended to let you make signatures for your e-mail. Since none of my Fonts looked like handwriting, I dug around on the internet and found some free ones that looked like handwriting. I used a blue ink color to make it show up a little better, did the old cut and paste with PhotoShop and I had a fairly realistic looking signature.

I used the Admiral himself for the orders giving you the boat and then the operations officer for the more routine orders.

Or we could use US Navy HQ in the Pentagon giving command of a boat and then ComSubPac for your operations orders. Any thoughts?

Feel free to alter this mod. Just give credit where it is due. Not to be used for any website that charges a fee. This mod is free for everyone.

I hope you enjoy this simple mod and learned a little about history as well. I encourage you to try and come up with your own. I had zero experience with modding and did a lot of trial and error. Start out with the simple stuff.