Chapter 56: The Photo Tour 12
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
By: Dreadnought & AP
Chapter 56:
THE PHOTO TOUR
12
THE DRY DOCK
Not all harbors have dry docks. There are large and busy harbors around the world that are strictly dedicated to commerce -- but well established ports are usually found with a government naval installation, and possibly a private maritime construction yard. Either of them will almost always have one or more reasonably modern dry docks and possibly more than one floating dry dock of medium to large size. Permanent in-ground dry docks are traditionally built by digging a hole along the shore line to a desired depth below sea level. The bottom and sides of the hole are usually lined and sealed with a suitably erosion resistant stone (often granite), with the seaward end closed off by swinging steel lock gates. (Think of it as a large bath tub with a door at one end.) A pumping system is used to either fill or empty the dock of seawater. Once the dock is full, the gates may be opened, and a ship can be brought into the dock. The pumping system then removes the water and repairs or maintenance may be preformed on the lower hull. When the work is done, the dock is again flooded and the ship can be returned to the sea.
The concept behind the dry dock is quite simple and makes difficult work much easier. But permanent dry docks take up a lot of space, obviously cannot be moved, and are very expensive to build and properly equip. Sometime in the late 18th Century, the idea of a “floating dry dock” was proven to be feasible and by the mid-1800’s had come into common use. A floating dock was much cheaper to build than a permanent dry dock, and often cheaper than building a ship. The dock was built as a double-hull (similar to the double bottom on a ship) and had a flat bottom with high sides – but no ends. The double-hull construction allowed for tanks that could be flooded to submerge the dock. A ship was moved inside the submerged dock, the tanks were pumped dry, and the ship and dock were lifted above sea level. Repairs or maintenance was carried out, the dock was submerged again, and the ship floated out. Floating docks could be very elaborate, with machine shops, boilers to provide steam for pumping, and electric dynamos. The floating dock could be placed at any convenient location in the harbor, and had the advantage of being able to be towed from harbor to harbor as needed. The Imperial Navy considered them quite “hi-tech” for their day and built numbers of them to service their growing battle fleet.
This is an overview of Cuxhaven’s single dry dock. This dock was capable of serious repair when necessary, but complicated or large repair jobs were meant to be carried out at either the builder’s yard, or the extensive specialist docks in Wilhelmshaven. Cuxhaven’s dock was largely for temporary emergency repairs, light modifications to onboard equipment, or simple bottom cleaning and painting. The latter job, alone, would considerably relieve the congestion in the Wilhelmshaven docks. As you can see, the dry dock basin has the lock gates in place – but it is full of water. At the time this part of the harbor was laid-out, we had not yet solved the conundrum of how to make a dry dock without water. We did eventually resolve that issue, but for the time being, you’ll have to let your imagination remove the water.
Anyone following the various chapters already knows how my landscape is “painted’ and which props I use. And anyone who knows the German North Sea Coast is well aware there are some fair-sized sand dunes, very few hills to speak of, and absolutely no mountains. But mountains and low hills extend across the rear of the Cuxhaven naval base – as clearly seen on the right of this picture. I had been wanting to try my hand at mountain landscapes for some time – and watching the positive mastery of @The British Sausage encouraged me to go ahead. There are not a lot of mountains on the Cuxhaven map – just enough to satisfy myself that I could “pull it off”. Once again, my THANKS to “The British Sausage” for his inspiration and encouragement.
Looking at the above picture -- rail lines on the right side of the basin bring in parts, supplies, and large pieces of equipment. The cranes are set up in two lines on either side of the basin. On the right hand quay, 150-ton cranes unload trains and move the cargo/parts dockside, where the larger 250 ton-cranes pick them up and move them onto the ship as needed. On the left hand quay, the inboard crane line has one 250-ton crane to do heavy-lift work over the ship. The outboard crane line consists of one 150-ton crane and one 250-ton crane. The smaller crane lifts light cargo – pipe bundles, boxes, crates, etc, etc, while the larger crane can lift heavy sections of armor plate, gun tubes, and even pre-assembled steam turbine sets. Note the quay on the right has only rail access and the left quay receives all equipment and cargo via ship or barge (usually only the large objects that cannot be transported any other way). The 150-ton cranes are from the “PEG” SNM Dry Dock Series, while the impressive 250-ton cranes are by @AP.
Another view. On the left of the picture, you can see the mountain looming over the dry dock area. At the bottom of the picture you can see a “half flotilla” of Italian Leone Class destroyers graciously provided by @Barroco Hispano.
This is a closer view of the “crane lines” on either side of the dry dock. Each of the “crane lines” are set up with one line working inside the basin and the other line working outside the basin. The dual crane line in the foreground is designed to bring in large prefabricated items – such as machinery or gun tubes. The large crane immediately behind it is positioned to take those items and work them onto the ship. The crane line on the opposite side is serviced by a rail line. The crane lines were assembled from a wide variety of props on a 12x2 lot. The concrete surfaces of the dry dock area are composed of textures from the “Paeng Grunge Concrete” lots, “PEG SNM Series”, and the “NBVC Container Port”. “NBVC Marinas” provided the seawalls, and the suitably weathered lock gates are, of course, by @AP.
This is a close-up of the barges delivering their loads. I have placed several sets of steam turbines in the shot so you can get a good look at them. There are ships in SC4 – but not very many. And there is a “boiler works” lot in the game. But very little attention has been paid to the propulsion plants of ships. “AP” has very skillfully created a set of high-pressure steam turbines (left on the barge) and low-pressure turbines (on the right). Each turbine has a cylindrical gearing unit on the end. A 250-ton crane is lifting a small auxiliary engine from the barge. It is to be installed up forward in the Capstan Flat to replace an engine with too little horsepower. This scene is “busy” and cluttered – many sailors and workmen running about in a maze of barrels, crates, cases, rope coils, hoppers, boxes, anchors, and winches. To the right of the steam turbines on the quay, you see a detail of sailors performing winch maintenance. Notice the detail on the back of the crane...”CUX 4 – 250t”. That is but one example of the degree of historical detail “AP” has researched and incorporated into his models. The barge, turbines, engine, gangway, rope coils, sailors, anchors (on the quay), cranes, Atlantic fenders, and winches – all by “AP”. The cargo barge on the right is from the “PEG Pier One Seaport”. The two white harbor steam tugs were “gifted” by “WolfZe”.
Here is a view of the head of the Dry Dock Basin. The basin pumping station is in the center (a “borrowed” Maxis pump house). The powerful pumps housed underground are responsible for emptying the dry dock basin. The water towers were taken from the old “Maxis Reward Movie Studio”. The four water towers in the dry dock area actually have nothing to do with the operation of the dry dock -- they supply running water to the buildings and docks and are primarily for fire-fighting. To the left of that is a fenced area where old anchors are refurbished (30-ton crane by “AP”). To the right of the picture is a group of small lighters, loaded with boxes and barrels, tied-up at “mooring dolphins (by “AP”). The old barge crane on the left is also by “AP”.
Here you see boilers (by AP) being unloaded from rail flat cars onto the port side quay. These are being readied for the next warship to enter the dock. Note the sailors on the flat cars preparing to hook up the crane hoist. To the left are other sailors inspecting and preparing auxiliary engines – two of them to replace under-powered steering motors. It was not uncommon for naval architects to specify certain auxiliary engines (capstan engines, steering engines, ventilator fan motors) that proved to be under-powered and had to be replaced with engines/motors of greater horsepower.
This is a close-up of the area where they are unloading the boilers. If you examine the picture closely, you will find a number of individual vignettes being acted out. There are sailors working on auxiliary engines, preforming winch maintenance, refurbishing anchors and, of course, unloading boilers from the train. These are the more common cylindrical-type boilers, rather than the angular, custom-made boilers used by the Kaiserliche Marine. (“AP” also included the angular version boilers in the prop pack.) When making the cylindrical boilers, we thought it would be interesting to include a bit or history. Everyone who has seen the movie, or seen any of the picture books, will be familiar with these boilers. You will notice there are three circular coaling doors on the front of the boiler, with detailed gauges – just like those on the RMS Titanic.
This scene shows one of many small landings found scattered around harbors and naval bases. Here you see small boats coming and going from the nearby destroyer flotillas -- odd bits of cargo and equipment laying around the landing – even a motor launch that brought senior engineers to hurry along Goeben’s repairs. The landing, small boats, motor launch, and the bulk of the odd bits on the landing are all by “AP”.
This is a look at the rear areas of the dry dock facility. It is, appropriately, a small area, since the main work is done around the basin. The two warehouses were re-lotted from one of the “PEG Seaports. The fenced roadway along the rail line is from the “NBVC Container Port” kit. The remainder of the paved areas are “Paeng Grunge Concrete”. With the exception of the two warehouses and the Pumping Station”, the entire area was created using custom-made 1x1 and 1x2 modular lots – almost all of which are “standardized” and can be used in many other locations and scenes.
Just to the right of the Dry Dock area, there is a Passat Class tug tied-up at “mooring dolphins” with an Asgard Class and Odin Class tug “nested” along the diagonal section of the seawall. (Note: diagonal models!) This green storage shed is just one of the “perfect” storage buildings I stumbled across after a good deal of searching. This allowed me to seriously curtail the continued use of the “IRM” filler lots with shipping containers. (Since I found these sheds rather late in the map building process, you will still see the “IRM Shipping Containers”, but they were eventually phased out in all new “mapping”.) The storage shed and “balk” timber are from “SimCoug’s Historic Harbors”. The large warehouse on the left is from a “PEG” seaport. The concrete areas are Paeng Grunge lots modified with a variety of props. The sailors, small boats, rope coils, Atlantic fenders, “dolphins”, and beautiful little tugs are by “AP”.
Here we have a close-up view of the back of the warehouses. This is a classic example of how much activity can be added to a scene by using custom-made modular lots. The warehouse sits on a 3x2 lot and has limited space for additional props, and hardly any room for vehicles. You could make the lot bigger and add all sorts of activity to it – but that would limit its usefulness, or it would become repetitive. By leaving the warehouse on the smaller lot with limited props, you can then use any number of different 1x1 lots to create scenes tied to the building.
And here we have the masterpiece of the whole dry dock scene – repairs to Goeben’s turbines – in progress. (For background details, see Chapter 19.) The work gangs and cranes have already removed the steel plates of the Upper Deck, Battery Deck, and the layer of armor pate over the machinery, to create a sufficient opening down to the starboard engine room. The heavy locking bolts have been removed from the massive mountings securing the turbines to the “Hold Deck” in the bottom of the ship. And the ship’s boat boom has lifted out one of a series of steam transfer pipes running above the turbines. Only five sections remain to be removed. The way will then be clear for the 250-ton crane on the quay side to lift out the damaged high-pressure turbine.
SMS Goeben had two steel decks above the engine rooms, while the height of the engine room extended down four more decks. In effect, in this shot, you can see six decks down – into the very bottom of the warship. You can see workmen on the inner deck levels – if you look carefully. (These are Hi-res pictures. If you download the image, you can enlarge it and see much more detail.) From this angle you can see the five remaining sections of steam transfer pipes that have to be removed. The workmen have been augmented by technicians specially sent down by Blohm & Voss to supervise the work. Three work gangs have been organized and will work round the clock.
Admittedly – not a good angle, but there are many points of interest in the picture. You will notice there are sailors and workmen – both above deck and below. I firmly believe the scenes we create in SC4 are more realistic when “peopled”. I go to great lengths to put figures in every conceivable location – doing things sailors and workmen would do. Dockyards are busy places – and work is done by gangs or “details” – not by individuals. Building a warship at the turn of the century might employ up to 3,000 men. “Fitting-out” a launched hull could require 2,000 men. And repairs were handled on an “as needed” basis. If the repairs were extensive – a large work force would be used. If the repairs were minor – perhaps only 50 men. My philosophy is to bring realism and life to the scenes by including the people. Show me a picture of a 1910 dockyard without workmen – and I’ll show you a dockyard on a Sunday morning, during peacetime, when Congress or the Parliament failed to appropriate sufficient funds!
Now – I cannot possibly compliment @AP highly enough for this ground-breaking modeling effort. His first-hand knowledge of ships and the sea – and his tireless quest for authenticity has made it possible to create models representing history/ real-life at a level yet unseen in SC4. I can research it – and write about it – and explain it – but “AP” can bring it to life. I can create the game lots and make scenes like this. But my talent at “showcasing” this ship pales in comparison to his “landmark” work. This has to be a “first” for SC4 – and if anyone deserves a “medal” – it is “AP”. He skillfully crafted this battlecruiser – then disassembled it and created this view down into the bowels of the ship. A truly commendable achievement.
NEXT TIME……
CUXHAVEN:
THE PHOTO TOUR
13
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
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