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Chapter 59: The Photo Tour 15
Dreadnought posted a City Journal entry in IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN
IMPERIAL DOCKYARDS: CUXHAVEN By: Dreadnought & AP Chapter 59: THE PHOTO TOUR 15 The first requirement of any naval base is a good, safe anchorage – strategically well placed. The British were blessed with Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands north of Scotland. While breathtakingly spacious, “Scapa” was extremely remote, the weather was atrocious, and the new anchorage had no facilities worth mentioning. Parliament had authorized money to build a small naval establishment before The Great War, but it was not a large amount and very little work had been done. With the sudden outbreak of war in 1914, the decision to station the battle fleet in the far north was made on the spur of the moment. For the duration of the war, everything the fleet needed to operate had to be shipped in by steamer, and repairs and maintenance work was done at the Royal Dockyards in Rosyth, Scotland. (A large floating dock was eventually towed to Scapa Flow and machine shops were set up – but the big jobs still had to be done elsewhere.) By contrast, the Kaiserliche Marine was based in Wilhelmshaven, on the west side of the Jade Bight. The naval base and construction yards were well equipped and could provide any services required by the battle fleet. Unfortunately, the dockyards had been established some sixty years earlier, and were cramped and barely able to handle the expanding German battle feet. I could have tried to duplicate the cramped conditions found in Wilhelmshaven, but in “Cuxhaven”, I opted instead to show the various forms of moorings found in many different naval bases the world over. There are offshore mooring points, mooring buoys, “nested” moorings, piers, docks, and quays – and there is always the ship that simply drops a bow and stern anchor and calls it “Home”. In this chapter, we will be examining the “East Basin” of the Cuxhaven dockyards. This is an overview of the “East Basin”. These three long mooring basins are assigned to the cruisers of the 6th Scouting Group. The two basins on the left handle the light cruisers, while the basin on the right handles heavy cruisers. The 6th Scouting Group is entirely fictional, and the ships themselves are selected from the foreign navies of WWI and WWII, rather than just the German Imperial Navy. (I had a large number of very interesting cruiser models that simply begged to be included in this CJ – somewhere.) These long piers are based on similarly arranged piers found in the Brooklyn and Philadelphia Navy Yards in the late 1940’s – and especially in the Bremerton Navy Yard (Washington State) where the US Navy’s “Mothball Fleet” is laid-up. My piers are a bit longer because I had a lot of cruisers to squeeze in. For reference purposes the piers are – from left to right – “Pier 6” – “Pier 5” – “Pier 4” – “Pier 3” – “Pier 2” – and “Pier 1”. The “Pier 1” installations are actually composed of individual “quayside docks”. At the end of “pier 6” (next to the Admiral’s quarters), a small receiving pier was built. This pier could service government vessels as well as the odd commercial freighter. Since Cuxhaven was a small anchorage it was deemed sufficient to build a pier just large enough to unload two freighters at a time. Major repair work was to be carried out in Wilhelmshaven, so cargoes of large equipment or bulk construction materials would not be necessary. This pier was designed to handle large quantities of smaller goods – clerical supplies, foodstuffs, uniform supplies, small items of military equipment – etc, etc. With commercial freighters in short supply, I again used the excellent model of the Liberty Ship SS Red Oak Victory – generously provided by “Barroco Hispano”. The commercial wharf is composed of “PEG Pier One Seaport” segments – modified with changes to the dock cargoes. The various parts of the pier were plopped in sequence to make a berth just big enough for a freighter, then the ships were plopped alongside. In this view, you see tugs nudging another Liberty Ship into position alongside the pier. The two harbor tugs on the left are Midgard Class, while the one on the right is a diagonal Asgard Class – courtesy of @AP. This is an overview of “Pier 6”. This picture has many points of interest, but I would like you to focus on the VERY long pier to which the “nested” cruisers are moored. The method by which this pier was fashioned is an excellent example of what can be achieved with the lots and props already in the game, and the old-fashioned – but very versatile – Maxis Lot Editor. Of course, a bit of experimentation and some “lateral thinking” is required. This is the “PEG SNM Pier 02 Destroyer Reserve Base”. The original lot is an 8x4 with the actual piers as overhanging props. The overhanging piers are 8 tiles in length. You will Also note the way the lot, when plopped, lowers the land level down to sea level – basically creating a real pain in the backside. This phenomenon is endemic to all PEG maritime lots -- marinas, docks, fire boats, etc, etc. But in the process of creating a new lot, I managed to find a way to cure that problem without going back into the Editor. The object was to create a long lateral pier instead of the one sticking out into the water at a right angle. I cut the old 8x4 lot down to an 8x1 and rotated the pier to run parallel to the lot. I then duplicated the pier and joined the two together, making a modular pier 16 tiles in length. I placed it on the front of the 8x1 lot and juggled the two pier halves until the lot would save properly. I allowed the front of this long pier to overhang the front of the 8x1 lot so the pier pilings would be in the water when plopped. As you can see, the lot is placed on land and does not require any modifications for use on water. I then “dressed-out” the 8x1 portion with various props – all of which should be familiar to you by now. Notice, I kept the ramp and two sections of dock from the old lot. Once the lot was created, I used a little trick to plop it without fowling-up the ground level. I used the game’s “dialogue box” to set the sea level to “0” and removed the water. Then I extended a portion of land -- big enough for the 8x1 base lot – two tiles out into the harbor using the road plop method (quick and easy). The lot was then plopped along the old edge of the harbor (you can see the actual harbor side on both ends of the pier). The 8x1 lot is the only thing resting on land. On the left side, you can see how the land was extended out beyond the lot and overhanging pier. On the right side, you can see how the land was removed (road plop method) – after the lot was plopped -- to match the original harbor wall. Once the excess land has been removed, and the road pieces bulldozed, you can “save” the game and exit. When you reopen this map, the lot will be there, the land will be at the right level, and the water will return automatically. The finished result is a small lot with a very long overhanging pier. The lot can be plopped many times, end to end, to create any length pier you wish. The vacant areas on either side of the 8x1 lot can be filled with anything you like. In my case, I used a wide variety of 1x1, 1x2, and 1x3 custom-made modular lots to fill in the open spaces between the base lots. This also provides an ever-changing degree of variety to reduce the repetitive nature of the 8x1 base lot. In this shot you get a closer view of the variety of lots used to fill in the open spaces between the pier lots, and between those and the rail line. The whole puzzle blends together seamlessly to present the scene of a busy and crowded dock area. Now let us turn our attention to the purpose of “Pier 6” – a berth for several Omaha Class Scout Cruisers. The United States Navy had known since the Spanish-American War their fleet had insufficient cruisers to preform scouting duties. As usual, Congress was in no hurry to spend money on ships, so the situation remained in “limbo”. With the outbreak of war in Europe, the Navy got busy and began designing a “fleet scout cruiser”. The idea was very much similar to those of the European navies – a small cruiser scouting ahead of armored cruisers, which were followed by the dreadnoughts of the battle fleet. But the US Navy, far removed from the threatening situation across the Atlantic, did not think in tactical terms – such as gun turrets or shields, rather than open gun mounts – nor did they have any sense of urgency. The initial 1914 design went through several iterations before they were finally ordered in 1916. The model shown is of the “third” design from April 1915. This is a close-up of the USS Marblehead -- one of the Omaha Class ships. The picture shows the original gun armament of six 6-inch guns placed on pedestal mounts without shields – two forward of the bridge – two amidships, and two on the fantail. The cruiser displaced approximately 7,000 tons with a speed of 35 knots. She was also armed with 4x21-inch torpedo tubes and was capable of carrying 224 mines (notice the mine rails on the fantail). Early versions of the design also carried two Curtis floatplanes. And quite unusual for this period – USS Marblehead was designed with a 3-inch armor belt. Marblehead was among the first ships laid down, but in later versions the armament and it’s placement was completely altered – to include twin 6-inch turrets fore and aft. But this is a classic example of the original concept of a “scout cruiser” – long, narrow-hulled, four funnels, and shockingly fast for a WW I era cruiser. This beautifully detailed model is courtesy of @Barroco Hispano. (BTW -- all the cruiser models were graciously provided by Barroco Hispano.) At the end of the basin, we have some old sailing craft tied up at the mooring dolphins. The large one is the schooner Larkwind. She unloaded a cargo two days ago and is standing by while the freighting agent finds her another one. This out of the way mooring was just the place for a little rest. A small boat has returned with some fresh provisions, which will be welcome after a day of maintenance and generally tidying-up the little vessel. Schooners were intermediate sized vessels with small crews, reasonably fast, and shallow draft – good for the inshore trade. The three smaller boats are sloops -- much smaller, much faster, and very maneuverable in small inlets and shallow waters. A very small crew could easily handle a sloop which, along with schooners, made them very profitable to operate. This sort of ship was much prized by buccaneers during the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. The small ships looked relatively harmless to a Spanish galleon, but the agile sloops could sneak up after dark and thirty or forty cutthroat devils could swarm aboard the bigger ship and take her. Same scene – different angle. The sailing craft, mooring dolphins, and small boat are all the splendidly detailed work of “AP”. This is a tug station tucked into the lower birth of “Pier 5”. With the growing number of warships assigned to Cuxhaven, it was decided to bring in more tugs to handle them, but there was no room – so a new tug station was improvised. Here you see two older Nordwind tugs in the first row, with five Passat Class making up the balance. The Nordwind’s were originally designed by the Norddeutscher Line to handle large ocean liners and, at the Kaiser’s request, were also leased to the Kaiserliche Marine to handle dreadnought warships. (Later, new Passat tugs were built specifically for the Imperial Navy.) As warships and liners grew larger, the Nordwind’s were updated and modernized, resulting in the improved Passat design. Notice the control tower on the mole and the dockside activity. The amount of detail and texturing on “AP’s” tugboats is truly amazing and well worth a few minutes of close examination. The game has had a few tugboats – here and there -- but nothing of this caliber. Notice how the tugs fit snug against the “long pier”. That was one of the reasons I allowed the pier prop to overhang the front of the lot – the overhang closed the gap between the pier and the tug plopped alongside. This arrangement also allowed me the space to create an improvised tug station behind the pier. In the top left of the picture, you can see the end of the pier’s 8x1 base lot. Starting with the shipping containers, that entire row is composed of 1x1 custom-made modular lots. The control tower is a 1x2 borrowed from one of the maxis airports. The people milling about and the variety of clutter dockside lends a degree of authenticity to the scene. From left to right, you have two Town Class light cruisers – HMS Weymouth and HMS Dartmouth – and on the right, two Dresden Class light cruisers. They are also moored along “Pier 5”. This shot gives you an excellent view of how the dockside infrastructure is arranged between the neighboring basins. Just for reference – “Pier 4” is across the tracks behind the cruisers. The Dresden Class light cruisers were commissioned between 1906-1909 and were the standard pattern adopted by the Imperial Navy. With a 7-1 length to width ratio, they had an acceptable turn of speed and a respectable armament of 10x4.1 inch guns mounted in a combination of hull casemates and deck guns with open-backed shields. They would prove to be excellent for commerce raiding. The intricate detailing on these models is “First Class”. You will note they are painted in the “overseas paint scheme” – both ships spent most of their careers on foreign duty stations. (Full details on these ships can be found in Chapter 01.) Model graciously provided by “Barroco Hispano”. Moored ahead of the German light cruisers are two British cruisers -- HMS Weymouth and HMS Dartmouth (left). Weymouth was the name ship of one of the seven sub-classes of Town Class light cruisers (totaling 21 ships). I have included her here because she is the only British WWI light cruiser model I have – and – it is a very fine model and an excellent example of light cruisers of the era. (Model courtesy of “Barroco Hispano”.) The Town Class were long range cruisers designed to either scout for the fleet, or take care of business in the far flung corners of empire. These little ships were the “cavalry” of the fleet – racing ahead to investigate sighting reports from the destroyer screen, or ranging far ahead in search of the enemy. HMS Weymouth was among the most modern light cruisers in the Grand Fleet when war broke out in 1914. Commissioned in 1911, she was: 5,275 tons – 25 knots – 8x6-inch guns – 2x21-inch torpedo tubes – no belt armor. SMS Strassburg – a Magdeburg Class light cruiser – sister ships were SMS Magdeburg, Breslau, and Stralsund. This model retains the basics of the original German design, but shows the ship as modified during her later career in Italian service. (Details on this class were covered in Chapter 01.) This view also provides a good close-up of the details and activity on the docks. This is a view of the end of the mole. “Pier 5” is in the foreground – “Pier 4” is on the opposite side. The train in the center is preparing to unload cargo for “Pier 5”. The locomotive is a “Peg 4-6-4 Steam Tank Engine” and the rolling stock is also by PEG – for an obvious reason – all the models were rendered to the same scale. All “PEG” models – ships, trucks, and various props – were created slightly larger than their in-game surroundings. Back in ancient times – when @rsc204 taught me how to make lots (THANK YOU) – PEG made the only steam locomotive props available. That is why you see them so often in my harbors. The upside is that locomotives are rather big beasts and the size difference is only noticeable when they’re plopped next to buildings. (I have since acquired some beautiful steam locomotive models and rolling stock from “Barroco Hispano” – which you will see if we ever get to publish the “Bremerhaven” map tile.) You will also notice the green storage tanks on the right side of the picture (from IRM Industrials – I think). The height changes in the various pictures you have seen because they consist of four “timed props” that fill and empty on a regular basis. Be careful if you use similar timed props – to make sure they fill and empty in the proper sequence. At the end of the mole you can see a pair of “luggers” moored to dolphins. This is a close-up of the sailing brigs made fast at the end of the mole. Though brig-rigged (sometimes brigantine-rigged), these small cargo carriers are often lumped into the same category with “luggers”. The term “lugger” is often used to refer to any small sailing vessel (often smaller than a brig) specializing in short-haul coastal trading. The small ships are very handy in shallow, confined waters, and require only a small crew to sail. Brigs, though small, were specially built with more rounded underwater lines to carry additional cargo, while cleaner lines ensured their speed under sail. Sailing ships, both large and small, could still be found in harbors the world over up through the 1940’s, and turned impressive profit margins in the days before WW II. These beautiful and impressively detailed models are the flawless work of @AP. . NEXT TIME…… CUXHAVEN: THE PHOTO TOUR 16 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 https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/761469-simtropolis-shipyard/?tab=comments#comment-1766496
