Auxiliary Cruiser mod

[Cybermat47]

Just a small mod that gives the German Auxiliary cruisers in the game 6-inch guns.

DEVOLOPERS:
Cybermat47: Development and publishing.
V13dweller: Bug fixer.

Download link: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=3751

CHANGELOG:
v.0.0.01: First release
v.1.0.00: Fixes a bug.

[GT182]

Gun envy.

Looking forward to it Mat. Tho I've never seen a German Auxiliary cruiser ingame to notice the the difference. Tho I have seen the Brits sporting them in the Atlantic Air Gap mission.

Tell me, is there a way to have German surface ships [Q ships I think they were called] occasionally attacking with us when we go after a convoy? Or even attacking a single merchant on their own in the campaigns. You never know when they might need a bit of help. Sure would be a cool mod.

[Cybermat47]

Hmmm... I'm not sure about attacking convoys, but I might be able to edit the traffic a bit so that the cruisers go out into the Indian ocean... and, of course, destroying anything they find while en route.

[gap]

Originally Posted by GT182

Gun envy.

Looking forward to it Mat. Tho I've never seen a German Auxiliary cruiser ingame to notice the the difference. Tho I have seen the Brits sporting them in the Atlantic Air Gap mission.

Tell me, is there a way to have German surface ships [Q ships I think they were called] occasionally attacking with us when we go after a convoy? Or even attacking a single merchant on their own in the campaigns. You never know when they might need a bit of help. Sure would be a cool mod.

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

Hmmm... I'm not sure about attacking convoys, but I might be able to edit the traffic a bit so that the cruisers go out into the Indian ocean... and, of course, destroying anything they find while en route.

GT182 is right.

Increasing the frequency of those units in generic traffic, as suggested by Cybermat, is a valid method, that should be used with caution though: after all Germany had only 9 auxiliary cruisers, they were mostly active in the far waters of South Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean, and most of them were sunk before '43.

Besides that, I have got a couple of extra ideas for putting them to use in game:

1. From late 40 to late 41, Kormoran, Atlantis and Pinguin, were sporadically used for refitting U-boats in South Atlantic. I will post the details in OHII thread.

2. After reading several patrol reports, I've noticed that escorting auxiliary cruisers or supply vessels both in North and South Atlantic was rather a common task for U-boats. Afaik neither the stock campaign nor OHII do feature similar missions. If there's any interest by Trevally on adding them to the campaign, I will be glad to collect some details on common escort routes.

Hi All!
I hope that in the future will be able to fire cannons HMS Bismarck or HMS Hood! In SH4 was a mod Bismarck and I fired at the convoy! It would be great! This is just a dream.....
Thank you All for your work!

[GT182]

So the small Auxilliary ships can be used more as actual fighting ships and resupply too. That's great Gap.

Last night in the Atlantic Air Gap patrol area I did see a contact for a German ship out in the middle of the Atlantic. I didn't investigate but I now know I should have, just to see what it was.

[Cybermat47]

v.0.0.01 RELEASED!
SEE POST #1 FOR DETAILS!

[krysvonshnorke]

nice job

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by krysvonshnorke

nice job

Thanks.

[V13dweller]

The Auxiliary cruisers can be found as convoy escorts in the Mediterranean, before this mod came, they were only armed with one Flak quad mounting, making them easy targets for other ships, it may even help during "Rommel's supplies"

Thanks for the mod.

By the way, do the doors the guns hide behind open up when the ships is attacking? Or do they just clip?

[Cybermat47]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

By the way, do the doors the guns hide behind open up when the ships is attacking? Or do they just clip?

They just clip. Also, in a test I did, they only had guns on one side, but they did maneuver to get a shot.

[V13dweller]

I have noticed this, when in the game, the Auxiliary cruiser Penguin has only one gun, but in the museum it has four, same with Auxiliary cruiser Komet which only has one gun. The second one shows the same ship but in game.
It would be nice if this could be fixed, because they serve as escort ships, and there are strangely a lot of this one ship. They also see wide service in the Mediterranean, and they are very vulnerable against a destroyer what doesn't have to maneuver to make it's shots. And for ships of this size, trying to change your direction to attack is almost suicide, because mod destroyers have about 3-5 cannons, they can make short work of Merchants and others ships very quickly. Once, I saw a German Type 34 destroyer take down an armed merchant in less that a minute.
That was a C1B medium merchant, it was heading head on to the destroyer, before it could even turn to get it's stern facing gun to aim at the destroyer, it was already sinking, most merchants including Komet and Penguin have long turning times, this is usually their end, I exploit that fact with my deck gun, Merchants with a gun facing backwards you can carefully maneuver around it without it being able to get a shot on you.
An example of the missing guns.

[Cybermat47]

^^^^^
Sadly, I don't know how to fix the problem.
Damn

[V13dweller]

What a shame, but it is still not a bad mod, in most cases, the attacker of the convoy will attack the first ship it see's, so the other escorts will have a chance to move into position.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I have noticed this, when in the game, the Auxiliary cruiser Penguin has only one gun, but in the museum it has four, same with Auxiliary cruiser Komet which only has one gun.

Originally Posted by Cybermat47

^^^^^
Sadly, I don't know how to fix the problem.
Damn

Have you checked Start/End dates in NAMC_Penguin.eqp / NAMC_Komet.eqp?

Usually museum shows late war armament outfits, but in campaign/missions the current date is compared with equipments' dates, in order to determine which gun/equipment is fitted on each bone. This fact might account for the issue of some guns being shown in museum but not in game

For the sake of historical correctness it is also to be said that neither Pinguin nor Komet (nor any other WWII auxiliary cruiser/merchant raider, for that matter), was equipped with just 4 guns. This would have made them easy targets for planes and even for their own preys
Their actual outfits were:

HK Pinguin

Main Armament: 6 x 150 mm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns
Secondary Armament: 1 x 75 mm gun, 2 x 37 mm (1x2) SK C/30 Flak guns, 4 x 20mm Flak guns
Torpedo Tubes: 2 x 53.3 cm (16 torpedoes)




HK Komet

Main Armament: 6 x 150 mm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns
Secondary Armament: 1 x 60 mm gun, 2 x 37 mm (1x2) SK C/30 Flak guns, 4 x 20 mm Flak guns
Torpedo Tubes: 6 x 53.3 cm (24 torpedoes)



Most of the listed guns are already available in SH5. Ship models are probably lacking the bones required for attaching the missing guns, but adding new bones to GR2 units is no longer a problem with TDW's viewer/editor