Chapter 45: The Photo Tour Begins
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
By: Dreadnought & AP
Chapter 45:
THE PHOTO TOUR
BEGINS
01
The previous chapters have been narrowly focused on the evolution of battlecruisers in the Kaiserliche Marine. The sheer length of the text precluded any serious investigation of the map tile on which the warships were displayed, so I thought it was time we checked out the Imperial Dockyard: Cuxhaven – all by itself. I hoped you would find the history of the warships of interest – but I have the feeling you may find the in-game pictures of the actual harbor more interesting. Unlike the text-rich environment of the historical background for the warships, “The Photo Tour” will be mostly photos – with as little text as I can get away with. I would rather you enjoy the pictures, and explore each one for the mass of details I have built into the scenes. It also allows me to demonstrate my original objective – to use the many existing lots, models, and props, to create a new and entirely unique “world” within the framework of a 21-year-old game. I had to stretch the limits of the gaming system and find loopholes and discover “work-arounds” I never knew were possible. It reaffirmed my belief in an old saying we had in the Army…...”There are only eight or nine ways to skin a cat!” A little preliminary background should help you understand where everything is, and how the harbor has been organized.
Overall Map
Just for gaming purposes, I chose “Cuxhaven” as “home port” to the scouting forces of the Hochseeflotte -- four scouting groups made up of a variety of cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats.
This map shot gives you a pretty good idea of how it fits together, and the “geographical” pictures have been oriented along a north-south axis. On the west (left side) of the map is the original small anchorage that was in use when ships were smaller and less numerous – the West Loch. Along the north edge is the main anchorage.
West Loch
This is an overview of the West Loch. Imperial warships first used it as an anchorage in 1881 – when it was not much more than a small inlet surrounded by marshes, with a tiny offshore island. At the time, it sported a couple of run down fishing piers used by nearby villagers. Wilhelm II took the throne in 1888, and he had great plans to increase the size of his Navy. The inlet was on the opposite side of the Jade from Wilhelmshaven, with direct access to the deep water channel, and was an ideal anchorage from which to operate the fleet’s scouting force. Work began immediately on a new main anchorage, around the headland to the east, while the small inlet was expanded and modernized – with proper docks and minimal repair facilities. The dredging and construction work was pushed ahead with great vigor and by 1897, both the small inlet and the new harbor were sufficiently advanced to begin operations. When the battleship HMS Dreadnought and the large dreadnought cruiser HMS Invincible appeared, it was apparent Germany’s battleships and armored cruisers were obsolete and would have to be replaced with larger and more powerful German warships. To make room for the new Grosse Kreuzer in the main anchorage, the old armored cruisers were reorganized into the 3rd Scouting Group and transferred to the small inlet – renamed the West Loch. Though a bit crowded, the Scouting Group is composed of 12 destroyers, 5 protected cruisers, 6 light cruisers, and 11 armored cruisers built between 1895 and 1909.
Main Anchorage
This is the “Neu Hafen” (New Harbor) – otherwise referred to as the Main Anchorage – located on the north shore of the headland. Most of the harbor area was dredged out of a shallow bay and surrounding wetlands, with the “spoil” used to build up or fill in quay and docking areas. The harbor, itself, is divided into five primary areas: (1) The Roadsted, (2) The Coaling and Fuel Oil Replenishment docks, (3) The Repair and Replenishment docks, (4) The Inner Harbor, (5) The East Berthing Basin, and (6) The Munitions Complex. The work on the Neu Hafen was far more extensive than that in the West Loch, and even with a much larger work force, it was not completed until 1900. Now let us examine the principle areas in a little more detail.
The Roadsted
The “Roadsted” is the large body of water behind the breakwater and fronting the other areas of the Neu Hafen. It is large enough to accommodate up to 30 capital ships without causing undue congestion. The mooring points along the breakwater were added in 1906, and are reserved for berthing the large Panzerkreuzer. Their location against the breakwater makes the arrival and departure of the big cruisers much quicker and easier. It is normal for them to depart through the south entrance and return through the north entrance. Only the East Berthing Basin and the mooring points along the breakwater are used as permanent berths, while the piers, quays, and wharves of the Neu Hafen are kept open for maintenance, repair, and replenishment.
Coaling & Fuel Oil Docks
The Coaling and Fuel Oil Replenishment docks are located just inside the south entrance to the Neu Hafen as a matter of convenience. Warships, tankers, and colliers can move directly from the south entrance, or from the Roadsted, to these docks without interfering with traffic in other parts of the harbor. The coaling docks are capable of handling up to four ships at a time. The original plan for the New Hafen called for two coaling docks – but that changed around 1900. The installation of supplemental fuel oil sprayers to coal-fired boilers became a standard practice – so the second coaling dock was replaced with a fuel oil replenishment dock.
Repair & Replenishment Docks
The Repair and Replenishment Docks were built as the north boundary of the Inner Harbor, separating it from the ongoing traffic of the Roadsted. The docks can resupply warships with everything necessary for their daily operation – from machine parts and equipment, to clerical supplies, foodstuffs, uniforms, and even the dreaded brass polish. If you could requisition it, these docks would supply it. Their other function was to make repairs to ships that could not be handled by the onboard machine shops. They can handle up to six large warships at a time.
Inner Harbor
The Inner Harbor is host to several specialized services for the Scouting Group and was deliberately planned to remain separate from the Group’s daily “operational” aspects. Inside the Inner Harbor you will find a minesweeper detachment, the ammunition supply pier, a dry dock, a warehouse receiving dock, and berthing for the Group’s destroyer escorts.
East Berthing Basin
The East Berthing Basin is a series of six long quays providing permanent berth assignments for the light cruisers of the various Scouting Groups. Due to the continued expansion of the torpedo boat flotillas, it became necessary to “nest” some of them in the East Basin, as well.
Munitions Complex
Here is an overview of the Munitions Complex. On the left, along the main rail line into the harbor, is the loading dock – shells and powder charges can be brought in for storage, or can be disbursed to the warships at this dock. Separated from the loading dock, to the east, is the “hardened bunker” storage facilities. Inside the concrete bunkers, covered by earth, thousands of shells and powder charges are stored for use by the fleet. On the east end of the complex are the smaller torpedo storage bunkers with their own loading dock. The Munitions Complex is separated from the harbor area by a range of hills intended to shield the main anchorage from the effects of an accidental explosion.
Now that I have explained the basic composition of the map tile, we can take a closer look at the principle locations.
THE WEST LOCH
Here, the West Lock is seen from the west, and the picture pretty much includes the whole area. To seaward is the breakwater with mooring points for the armored cruisers. Across the Loch are the Repair Docks, backed with warehouses, and machine shops and foundries just across the rail line from those. To the right of the picture are the Replenishment Docks, and across from them are the “nesting” berths for the destroyers assigned to the 3rd Scouting Group.
Just beyond the south entrance to the harbor is South End Light. The scene is composed of the Fischerhaven Lighthouse on a custom lot, seawalls and small boats by NBVC, the Paeng “grunge concrete” roadways, and a variety of modular 1x1 and 1x2 custom-made lots. (I could be more specific about the props, but I’ve got 9.73gb in my Plugins folder and it would take months to track it all down – and endless text to tell you about it.)
Using the PEG “Brigantine” Water MOD, the closer to the surface, the more transparent the water becomes. Having fiddled with “Maxis” water for a few years, I had become bored with water that was the same color right along the beach as it was far out to sea. I was pleasantly surprised by Brigantine’s flexibility – allowing me to make deep water, small streams, marshes, and small sea islands.
South End Light, viewed from a different angle. This was the first area of the map to actually be built, and my landscape style was purely experimental, at this point. The use of the semi-transparent “Brigantine” water MOD actually allowed me to “landscape” the sea floor in the shallow areas. My particular landscape style is heavily influenced by the fine creations of "Girafe". I have used, somewhere on this map tile, almost every single landscaping tool available on the STEX: Heblem Sands, NBVC Rocks, NBVC Corals, RRP Pasture Flora, the Paeng Forest Park Tweaks, and – the Meadowshire Tree Controller. (There may even be some tools linked to other MMP functions I simply can’t identify.) In this picture, I got a little carried-away landscaping the shallow sea areas with: Girafe Cattails and Feather Grass, some NBVC rocks around the sea wall bases, and some Heblem light Gray sand – which actually looks like “gravel”. Over time, I was able to thin-out the underwater vegetation as my “style” matured.
In this view, you get a good look at the Light Keeper’s compound. There are two small service buildings at the base of the lighthouse, a storage shed on the lighthouse quay, a Light Keeper’s house, and a heavy equipment shed adjacent to that. Along the shore line, I tried to create a beach-effect with Heblem brown sand – but it did not work very well. I also used it to try and highlight the slopes on hills behind the lighthouse compound – and that did not work well, either. This picture also shows a wide variety of trees – everything from dead trees right up to the mighty Redwoods. Some of them are individually-plopped MMP work – while others are 1x1 custom made Tree Filler lots. The Filler lots were created in EDITOR from all sorts of props, then plopped at random to simulate forested areas, and blended in using MMP bushes and ground cover. Example: the Redwoods in this picture are a 1x1 lot – but you can’t see where it blends into the forest.
This is where the south end of the breakwater goes ashore. I have used ”Uki” breakwaters, exclusively, because they were the most realistic I could find – and they are, for the most part, the easiest to work with. There is, however, a major difficulty in linking them to the shallow shorelines I created with the “Brigantine” MOD. I managed, by “crooking” the joiner piece (an overhanging prop) into an NBVC seawall, to make a reasonably realistic joint. (I covered the actual joint with overhanging MMP trees.) Anchored offshore, the gunboat USS Erie is guarding the entrance through the breakwater. Just inside the breakwater, a motor launch (by @AP) is preparing to exit the harbor to begin an anti-submarine patrol in the sea approaches to the West Loch. Two other motor launches are anchored as back-up, should they be needed. In the landscape ashore, you can see tiny white “Girafe” Narcissus and Daisies – both seasonal and evergreen versions – used extensively for “ground cover”. They are particularly good for blending different types of landscape together. The “Girafe” Berry Bushes are another excellent form of ground cover. (I would be totally lost for landscape tools without @Girafe wonderfully, and laboriously, constructed flora – and his body of work is quite extensive.)
Briefly – this is the gunboat USS Erie – 2,000 tons – 20 knots – 4x6-inch guns – 10 anti-aircraft weapons – depth charges. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limited the type (battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers, etc, etc.) and number of warships that could be built by the various signatories. During the London Naval Conference of 1930, it was agreed a new class of ships – “sloops” by definition -- would be restricted in size and armament, but could be built in unlimited numbers. The Erie Class was the result. It was planned as a cheap alternative to the restrictions on the number of destroyers and light cruisers allowed under the Washington Treaty. The ships could be used for fleet screening and scouting duties, anti-submarine warfare, as destroyer leaders, anti-aircraft escorts, minelayers, convoy escort, and even bombardment support for amphibious operations. USS Erie was torpedoed by U-163 in November 1942 and eventually scrapped in 1943. Her sister ship, USS Charleston, survived WW II to serve as a training ship for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy before being scrapped in 1960. Ultimately, the scarcity of funds during the Depression Era leading up to WW II put an end to this idea. (Oddly enough, the idea of masses of US gunboats was only tried once before, during Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency. He loathed the idea of building expensive ships-of-the-line and frigates – but was quite happy to build swarms of useless little gunboats.) This ship, of course, has nothing to do with the Kaiserliche Marine or The Great War. But @Barroco Hispano provided a beautifully detailed model – and I needed something to act as a guard/picket boat for the harbors.
This Midgard Class tugboat is tied-up alongside three lighters moored to “Dolphins”. As soon as one of the adjacent Replenishment Docks comes open, the lighters will be moved in to discharge their cargo of casks and barrels.
Notice the superb level of detail worked into “AP’s” tugboat and lighter models. Even his Mooring Dolphins – just simple, utilitarian features of any harbor – are highly detailed, weathered, and possessed of the rough, timbered appearance one might expect from the early 1900’s. I’m sure you all noticed the little patch of Autumn leaves in the woodland. This is one of my personal “idiosyncrasies”. Though I enjoy watching the leaves turn orange and scarlet in the Fall – my “soul” craves the bright and rich greens of Spring. So I have chosen not to play the “seasonal” versions of SC4. Instead, I drop the occasional clump of Fall MMP Maples at random in my forested areas – it breaks up the monotony of the solid green canopy.
This angle provides an excellent view of the detailing on the Mooring Dolphins, and you will note two of the lighters have barrels stacked so high, the hatch covers could not be used – while the third lighter’s hatch covers are in place. You will also note the difference between the individual trees in the forested area. I made sure there were differences between the leaf and limb structure of the trees, as well as showing the difference in the height of the trees. Nothing looks worse than a mass of trees – all the same color, shape, and height. It might as well be “Astro-Turf”.
These are the Replenishment Docks on the south end of the West Loch. Pretty much anything the ship needs to operate and provide for the welfare of the crew can be obtained here – uniforms, boots, bedding, foodstuffs, medical supplies, toiletries, and a wide range of day-to-day items loosely classified as “ship’s stores”. In a “rush situation”, supplies may be brought alongside a warship in lighters, but for large replenishment jobs, the ship is moved to the dock. In the West Loch, there are no coal, oil fuel, or munitions facilities, so those functions have to be carried out around the headland, in the Neu Hafen.
The Replenishment Docks are repurposed from “PEG’s Pier One Series” seaport. I modified the lots by removing some of the “timed” cargo props that were a little too modern for the early 1900’s – but still had to use “modern” props that were less obvious. There was nothing else available and I wanted some variety. So – “spoiler alert” – you will find modern props mixed into the whole series. The only other choice was either boring and repetitive, or empty lots.
In the foreground is the Armored Cruiser Prinz Adalbert (See Chapter 05 for details of the cruiser.) In the background is a Protected Cruiser of the Victoria Louise Class (See Chapter 02 for details.) Both warships are taking on supplies. This close-up gives you an excellent view of the detail “AP” has built into his models. Each one is historically accurate and thoroughly researched and will teach far more about the ships than all the words written about them. If you look closely, you will see a work detail going about their business on the fantail of Victoria Louise. Looking for all of “AP’s” crewmen is a bit like doing a “Where’s Waldo?” puzzle.
All four of the berths at the Replenishment Docks are full, which is in keeping with our theory of the “busy harbor”. Any harbor worth the name is crowded with shipping and bustling with a thousand different things going on in sight of one another.
Another view of the Replenishment Docks. You will note they are served by a double track rail line with two large trains parked beside the cargo handling line. The nearest train will unload first, then the rear train will be shuttled into place to unload. The area behind the main tracks is a rail yard built to handle the overflow. The back rail line next to the Dispatcher’s Office has a water tank and coaling tower. Locomotives can drop their freight cars for unloading and shuttle up to refill their water tank and top off their coal.
Two tugboats, one Nordwind Class (left) and one Passat Class (right) have just nudged a Roon Class Armored Cruiser against the dock (See Chapter 06 for cruiser details.) Again, this gives you an excellent, close-up view of a beautifully modeled warship. This shot also shows some of the “timed prop” cargo that I left on the Replenishment Docks.
This is the right end of the cargo handling pad alongside the rail line. The trackside cranes are from the “PEG SNM Dry Dock” lot. The work details are composed largely from “AP’s” sailor props. I chose to use them because of the difficulty in finding easily recognizable props of civilian workmen. Some of the cargo props were borrowed from the “IRM Filler lots”, while others were just pulled out of the EDITOR “prop box” at random. The purpose of all this activity is to remove the cargo from the rail cars as quickly as possible, then shuttle it across to the warehouses for storage and disbursement.
This is the left end of the cargo handling line. There are a wide variety of scenes along the cargo line – men throwing trash into dumpsters, others moving crates, some loading trucks, and one group trying to sort out a jumble of steel girders to load onto trucks. There are any number of small vignettes showing groups of laborers at work on a wide variety of tasks -- all in keeping with the “busy harbor” theory.
This is an overview of the cargo handling line, the trains waiting to be unloaded, and the layout of the small rail yard. Again, the back line has a Dispatcher’s Office to control the train traffic, and a water tank and coaling tower for the locomotives. The entire scene is composed of 1x1 modular pieces. Whether you are building a large business plaza, an airport, a complex industrial lot, a park, or an entire harbor -- using modular pieces (in this case 1x1’s) allows you to fit it into any size and shape space that is available – and produces far less repetition. Notice, the locomotives have been modified for steam.
Another shot of the rail yard.
This is the south tug station in the West Loch. These powerful little boats are responsible for manhandling the big warships into position at the Replenishment Docks. The docks are modified “Somy Japanese Tugboat” lots. I deleted Somy’s tugs and removed the upper prop layer of the docks because they simply did not look like “European” docks. The two steel sheds are the “base” of the Somy lot, while the dock is an overhanging prop. The tug control tower is borrowed from one of the Maxis airports, and the fire prevention water tower is from the old Maxis Movie Studio reward lot. The small white tugboat was “gifted” by “WolfZe”, while all the other tugboats in the picture are by “AP”. Note “AP’s” Mooring Dolphins along the seawall. All the tugboats were “plopped” individually. Everything here is either a 1x1 or 1x2 modular lot. This particular tug station has two docks. The dock on the left can accommodate four “harbor tugs”, while the dock on the right can berth two of the larger sea-going tugs. Using “AP’s” mooring dolphins, two more tugs could be moored along the seawall, while two more (diagonal) tugs are “nested” along the seawall. Using 1x1 and 1x2 modular lots, the basic tugboat station can be expanded to any size you would like, and can be configured to fit any space – extremely flexible when compared to larger, “set-piece” lots of 2x2, 3x3, etc, etc.
Another shot of the tug station. The “WolfZe” white tugboat is similar to tugs operating in the Port Of New York from 1910 up through the 1940’s, and was the first tug I had to work with. Clockwise – you have a Thor Class, Midgard Class, Passat Class, and Nordwind Class – all the wonderful work of “AP”. Thor and Midgard are small “harbor tugs”, while Passat and Nordwind are more powerful sea-going tugs – more suitable for shoving around heavy warships. The level of detail on each of these ships is truly amazing.
This is a “rail stop” on the west end of the line servicing the Replenishment Docks. This is basically a cheap, low-maintenance method of allowing trains to change direction. Trains come in on the access line (right of picture), then pull up into the “rail stop” before backing down to unload at the docks. This automatically orients the engine to pull out of the dock area when empty. Very inexpensive, and it does not take up large amounts of space. (Of course, I mostly use the old Maxis “Drag & Drop” rails and happily avoid the complications of the more advanced versions of “NAM”.) The entire complex, including the concrete retaining walls, is built from 1x1 modular lots surrounding a 1x5 lot for the train, itself.
Another shot of the ”rail stop” showing the rail intersection. You can also get a good idea of what a heavily forested area looks like. I have tried to use “style” and color variations among the tree props to pick out individual trees, while making sure they are actually of different heights. Special 1x1 “Tree Filler” lots were created with overhanging trees to help fill in along the rail lines in general, and especially along diagonal sections of track.
Just to take a moment to explain the location of this picture: To the right bottom is the small “rail stop” you saw in the previous picture – and below that would be the tug station, and below that, the Replenishment Docks. At the bottom of the picture is the dockside infrastructure of the destroyer berthing area. This is a purely “landscape” shot. Having failed to create the effect of beaches or slopes with the “Heblem Sands”, I was just about to give up when @MissVanleider posted her work on sand dunes using the “Poseidon Terrain Paint MOD”. Her tutorial turned out to be just the thing I was looking for. Here you see a combination of sand dunes and sandy cliff faces. It’s not the Dutch-style shoreline Miss Vanleider was working on, but windswept dunes are prevalent along the Dutch – and especially, the Danish coast – so I decided to work it into my forested landscape. I experimented with the sand dunes at the 7.5 meter height recommended by the tutorial, but the dunes didn’t seem to have enough “definition” for me. I raised the dune height to 15 meters and suddenly they seemed to jump right out of the picture.
In this close-up, you can clearly see the dunes in the middle and a smaller hill in the foreground. They are framed by sandy cliff faces that merge into the surrounding forested areas. The “Poseidon brush” is very subtle, with a dense, sandy color in the center that fades toward the edges, allowing the underlying terrain to show through. This, alone, solves 50% of the problems of merging two distinctly different types of terrain. The texture of the “terrain brush” naturally highlights the hollows and valleys in the terrain, making the dune feature more prominent, but subtle. I have populated my dunes with trees, usually near the top, or down in the valleys between dunes. This feature is rarely seen in European settings, but is actually quite common along the inner shores of the North Carolina sounds. While it does not mesh with the low areas along the German Bight, it works wonderfully with the idea of forested shorelines I have created. The valleys and ravines between the dunes have a brownish, scrub-bush look (Girafe Seasonal Berry Bushes), with patches of small rocks and gravel to reflect washing from rainfall. There are numerous clumps of dead trees, since deep sand and trees do not mix well. You can also see small patches of dune grass sprinkled here and there. Part of the “art” of creating sand dunes is knowing when and exactly where to place brush and ground cover to accentuate the dune effect. Too much MMP-work will ruin sand dunes by blotting out the subtle shadows created by the terrain brush – leaving you with terrain that no longer looks like a sand dune – but blends together in an almost flat appearance.
In this picture, I wanted to transition from the sandy cliff face into heavily forested hilly terrain. I could have simply blended the terrain, but decided some sort of actual feature would work better. I settled on a ravine which would actually accentuate the hills on either side. I have plopped considerably more vegetation – trees and bushes – since it borders on heavy forest. The bottom of the ravine has been littered with tangled brush and strewn with rocks and gravel washed down by rainfall. When the ravine reaches the flat ground below, the rocks and gravel fan out across the low ground much as the water might.
NEXT TIME……
CUXHAVEN:
THE PHOTO TOUR
02
MANY THANKS to @Barroco Hispano for his beautiful warship models.
SPECIAL THANKS to my friend and partner, @AP, for his talents, meticulous models, colorful imagination, and extreme dedication.
If you enjoyed anything – please punch the “like” button so WE will know. A comment would be even more informative.
Comments and critiques requested and gratefully accepted. All questions answered promptly to the best of our ability.
THANK YOU for your visit!
You may wish to visit these CJ’s as well……
SERIES I:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: WILHELMSHAVEN
SERIES II:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
Appearing – Work In Publication
SERIES III:
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: BREMERHAVEN
Appearing -- ???
And please feel free to drop in at…
THE SIMTROPOLIS SHIPYARD
-
15
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