CHAPTER 04 -- DOCKYARD INDUSTRY
Chapter 04: DOCKYARD INDUSTRY
Any place you can berth a warship, you will find some sort of industrial plant. A small port would have only one or two sheds, and perhaps, a warehouse – while large military harbors might even have their own shipbuilding slips. But all of the major naval bases were literal hives of industrial activity. Any and every science known to mankind – from chemistry and metallurgy, to carpentry, plumbing, and even optical instruments. All of Man’s accumulated skill and knowledge was gathered together in one place for the building, maintenance, and repair of the battleship.
The industrial shops of naval dockyards were jammed together in a jumbled mass, often thrown up with no particular order and no standard shape or size. Built of wood, brick, or corrugated sheet metal, they stank of damp wood, salt air, solvents, and the pervasive odor of machine oil. They were a veritable “rabbit’s warren” of smoke, and dust, and noise.
When I originally set out the shoreline of the harbor, I would have preferred a large, gentle curve. But the only thing I could use to make a curved seawall would have been tetrahedrons. And no mater how carefully I placed them – and replaced them – they just didn’t look right. So I reluctantly settled for a long section of diagonal “JS Concrete Seawalls”.
The diagonal section of the “East Mole” left me with a problem. The section was too long to leave empty, and diagonal lots in SC4 are few and far between – certainly no diagonal docks or large ships. So it seemed natural that the industry should be placed there.
The shot below is a more detailed view of the heavy industry. Clockwise from the left; the Gun Foundry, where the inner core of the naval cannon are cast and forged. Next, the Hydraulic Press Works where the inner core is finished, wrapped, and cased. Then the Turret Assembly Shed where the guns and armored turret pieces are put together to make sure they fit properly. And the long building with the three stacks is the Gun Tube Lining Shop where the inner lining is fitted prior to rifling. The freight depot on the left is SM2’s “Global Freight”, and was necessary to generate freight train traffic.
At this point it is worth looking inside the cavernous Turret Assembly Shed to see how it is done.
At the back of the shop you see the beginning of the process. The heavily armored barbette ring for a turret is being assembled to provide the walls surrounding the turret workings and ammunition hoists -- and the top of which will carry the roller path for the heavy revolving gun housing. This is the “base” of the assembly.
In the middle, you see a pair of 14 inch rifles already mounted inside a second barbette ring. Beneath the gun tubes, on the shop floor, you see the heavy armored pieces of the turret housing being assembled. Once they have been properly fitted to one another, they will be disassembled and then reassembled around the rifles atop the barbette ring.
This is the finished assembly of the barbette ring, rifles, and armored housing for a 14 inch twin gun turret bound for use in one of the U.S. Pennsylvania Class battleships.
Here, you see a British 13.5 inch twin turret already assembled. Note the thick balk timbers holding everything in place. The assembly test of the heavy guns and armored housing was often done in large pieces with minimal use of rivets or welding. Once the assembly has been inspected and approved, the whole thing is disassembled, transported to the “Fitting-Out Basin”, and installed in a ship under construction. Note the size of the men on the scaffolding to the left of the barbette.
Top left, you see the Rolling Mill that produces the steel plating and thick armor belts for the warships. Next to it is the Barrel Rifling Shop where gun tubes go for grooving. And below them is the Steam Turbine Assembly shed.
You will also see quite a few railroad spur lines run in to serve the various "heavy industry" lots. I tried my best to use the NAM Single Track Rail -- but it just proved to be positively unworkable ! In the pre-construction phase of this map tile, I tested each type of lot and installation to find the optimal layout design, as well as to test the size. The "smooth curve" qualities of the more advanced NAM rail was highly desirable -- but "whoofed-down" vast areas of space I simply did not have. In the end -- to get everything to fit -- I was forced (mostly) to use the old maxis Double track rail. My apologies, but the rail layout for the "Coaling Station" was critical to concept -- and could not be achieved with NAM rail.
In the center is the Marine Engine Works, where Triple Expansion Engines the size of small houses are cast, machined, and assembled. The long factory building on the left is the Shaft Hammer & Assembly Works. Propeller shafts are cast here, hammer-forged, and machined.
Many of these industrial lots were re-lotted from the Maxis original. They were cut down to the minimum space required for the building and “dressed out” with @T-Wrecks industrial filler lots and my own custom filler lots. The “Grunge” concrete is Paeng’s.
A very few Maxis lots were allowed to grow so that freight truck traffic would be generated for the freight train depot. (Just as I am partial to “whales” (Moby) – I must have running freight trains. 
)
And right across the tracks from the Industrial Zone we have the “Repair Docks”.
These docks are reserved for repairs that are too complicated to do at a mooring berth, but not difficult enough to require heavy lift cranes or a dry dock. The machine shop is a custom lot, while the warehouse is the PEG SNM “Small Warehouse”.
Ships moored at these docks have access to their own machine shop, a fully stocked warehouse, and stores of balk timber, piping, and lubricants.
A rail spur with loading docks has been run into the area to bring in specialized repair parts and machinery that may be required for certain jobs – and especially for repairs that might require large quantities of parts. Again, the loading docks are the PEG CDK Industrial piers – re-purposed for use on land. The grunge concrete is Paeng’s, and the rest of the warehouse area has been dressed-out with my custom filler lots.
SMS Tegetthoff is tied up at a “standard mooring point”, or – a battleship dock. This started out as the “PEG SNM Pier One” and hosted a prop battleship that resembled a rather simplified version of the USS Missouri. I removed the battleship prop, extended the lot by two squares to a 12x2, and gave it a complete “face-lift”. There are new cargo props, containers, more trucks and jeeps, lighting, cranes, and “docking towers” at each end to coordinate the mooring process. I also added WMP Seawalls to the water side portions of the dock to act as wooden fenders to protect the dock and the warship from minor damage. (The Kaiser gets irritated when he sees scratched paint on his warships!)
SMS Tegetthoff was the second of the four ship “Viribus Unitas Class” (Prinz Eugen and Szent Istvan) of Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts. Launched in 1913 at the Trieste dockyard, she was – at 469 feet in length -- smaller than most of her contemporary cousins. But her handsome design and topside layout was compact, efficient, and produced a “streamlined” silhouette.
Despite her small size, Tegetthoff packed a powerful punch with two centerline main battery turrets superimposed fore and aft. The Skoda Armaments Works then pulled off an engineering coup by designing a spacious and smoothly functioning triple-gun-turret worthy of their superb Skoda SK10 12 inch rifle. Being able to mount twelve guns in only four turrets enabled a reduced length compared to other navies with six twin turrets on a much longer hull.
Tegetthoff is in for repair / replacement of the small water tubes in her dozen Yarrow boilers. Water tubes that have begun to leak, or have become clogged, will adversely effect the speed of the ship. Some of the water tubes may only need cleaning, but the Engineering Officer won’t know until the fire boxes are cold and the tubes can be removed and inspected in detail. Not a particularly complicated task – but tedious, time-consuming, and one that requires an experienced eye.
On this side of the Repair Docks we find SMS Rheinland – lead ship of the Westfalen Class of four (Posen and Nassau). The Westfalens were the first class of dreadnoughts built by the Kaiserliche Marine and – launched in 1908 – proved to be a somewhat "rushed" attempt at keeping pace with the British.
The hurried design was patterned, in some respects, on the large cruiser SMS Blucher, but the need for haste resulted in the magazines and handling arrangements for the “wing turrets” being cramped. It was decided to retain the excellent German 11 inch gun rather than up-gun to the 12 inch, mainly because the smaller rifle was easily procured on short notice, and Admiral Tirpitz stubbornly refused any increase due to the design and development costs. In practice, the wing turret arrangement only allowed eight of the twelve guns to bear in broadside, but the penalty was deemed acceptable.
The need to rush the warship to completion resulted in yet another drawback. The Kaiserliche Marine had not yet experimented heavily with the longer, but more powerful steam turbine, so they opted for their dependable three-shaft, vertical triple expansion engines – resulting in a more compact arrangement, but a much slower speed.
In all their haste to match the British, the Germans overlooked one simple fact; England built HMS Dreadnought – keel to commissioning – in just one year. Each of the Westfalens took 3 years to join the fleet and, in essence, were obsolete when commissioned.
And now Rheinland is laid up to have her port shaft triple expansion engine completely overhauled.
Comments and critiques requested and gratefully accepted. All questions answered promptly to the best of my ability.
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THANK YOU for your visit !
Next time…...The Naval Tank Farm.
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