We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

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hanswittman
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We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by hanswittman »

Hi everyone,

We are currently making a new sim call ATWAR (Atlantic Warfare) in team we have former artists an animators from the classic SH3 and we face a big challenge currently concerning the layout of the Bismarck conning tower interior.

We already know that no pictures of the inside exist for this part of the ship but we need to come up with a generic realistic interior where the player will take control of the ship in game so we need help to make this interior and anyone who can seriously help us with this will get a free copy of the game + VIP forum access.

Thing we need to know is like were they 1 telegraph or more, was there a steering wheel,other instruments so we can managed to model something that will still have realism for the player.

I search Google the last week just to find a German telegraph from any battleship and i found nothing except in a YouTube movie but the video does not have enough resolution to read the marking on it.

So any help will be greatly appreciated from the team

Regards Hans
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by hanswittman »

Also if someone have information about the electrical steering switch look please shared with us.

Regards Hans
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

Conning tower interior with helm console, periscope, and rudder position indicator on extreme left. Tube is a voice pipe going out through the forward vision slit.

Image

Exterior shot showing temporary voice pipe exiting the vision slit on the combat bridge gallery

Image

Foretop fire control post starboard side. on Bismarck, the conning tower fire control post would have been similar although a little roomier and more heavily armoured. To right of door is the secondary battery ready and fire command board. Next to it the main battery ready board (SFS Anzieger) plus auxiliary fire control instruments.

Image

Foretop firecontrol post port side, showing port rear director, rangefinder cupola, telephones, observation periscope, and forward director.

Image

Foretop forward director and periscope

Image

access ladder to rangefinder cupola, telephones and gundirector in back ground

Image

Hope these are of some help.

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

The helm console used a push button arrangement instead of a ship's wheel--very similar to rudder controls on a U boat. The helmsman gripped a horizontal bar with his hands and used the ball of his palm to push down on the right or left buttons. He had a rudder indicator to show how much rudder was applied.

The engine control console was to the left of the helm console and had a dial for each engine room with matching dials for rpms. The dials would read,

Voraus: Auss. Kraft
Grosse Fahrt
Halbe Fahrt
Langs. Fahrt
Kleine Fahrt

Achtung

Zuruck Grosse Fahrt
halbe Fahrt
Langs. Fahrt
Kleine Fahrt

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

The main conning tower was a split level structure with the actual fire control tower slightly higher than the roof of the conning position. The fire control space was roughly a triangle with rounded corners, while the conning position with helm and ship controls was a sort of horse shoe shape wrapped around the front.

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by frontkampfer »

Tommy's post was superb. You might want to check out Historic Film Classics "Die Kriegsmarine". The first film is about life aboard Scharnhosrt & Gneisenau and shows the conning tower and helm. It was similar to Bismarck.
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by hanswittman »

Hi Tommy,

Wow that what i call a very professional and detailed explanation and this will help us tremendously to make the control room believable for players.

Frankly i am without word for the detailed post you did, your copy of the game and VIP forum access is already granted of course only if you like simulator if not i will send you personalize pictures of the Bismarck.

Regarding the the steering column do you know if they had marking on them or name?

We are currently not sure what we should model for the rest of the ship in term of 3d locations the player will have access to.
In order i think we should come with : armored control room, radio room, admiral cabin, and each main gun turrets since if the control room and other firing system are destroy then the player should be able to get inside a turret because they had range finder for manual operations.

And the player will be able to get around anywhere on the ship deck and superstructure and manually manning the flak guns.

Of course we will model damage for compartments like ammo storage, engine and critical system and the armor thickness on the hull and citadel.

For the main control room i think we will make the player firing the guns from the periscope and the main guns will have realistic rotation speed.

Fell free to give us your opinion on the way we are planning the Bismarck controls for the player since we know ships but we are not experts in the matter.

We are aiming at the most realistic possible simulation within today hardware limit.

Best regards Hans
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

The helm console had some markings, such as the switch-over dial on the side which can be seen in the conning picture. On the whole, though, that can be ignored perhaps. It was marked 'aus' and 'ab' for off and on. There were a number of helm consoles with four in the forward bridge superstructure--one in the peace-time navigation wheel house (normally used at sea when not at battle stations), one in front of the wheel house in the open gallery (used for docking and maneuvering in harbors and canals), one in the armoured conning tower (primary control during battle), and one on the open gallery in front of the conning tower (used during defence against air attack when rapid orders for change of course would be necessary). One could only have a single one on line at a time lest there be a false feed back in the electrical steering which could disable the rudders until one or the other helms were turned off.

The dial with the rudder position numbers in degrees was usually divided in a light green semi circle for starboard helm and red for port helm. On some ships, and perhaps Bismarck too, the hand grip bar was painted so that the right half was green and the left red.

As far as directing the gunfire, you should model that as the foretop where most of the gunnery was conducted. The gun directors had a three man crew, a control officer and a petty officer director layer and a PO director trainer. You need only model the control officer's optics since he would be giving the orders to fire. There was an SFS board for main guns which showed status--fired, loading, ready to fire, and controls to group turrets for salvos. Normally the two forward turrets fired together in one salvo and the board operator then switched over to the after turret group for the next, thus alternating between them. So for the control officers window, perhaps a simplified version of the board in the corner.

Rangefinders are difficult to model, particularly the German stereo type. Normally the operator saw the target in 3D and used a fixed diamond to center on the target and a shadow diamond to move around (the wandermark). When it was centered on the fixed diamond the range could be read off a dial. The merged diamonds should also appear to be at the same distance as the target. I should add that the radar units were in the rangefinder cupolas, so you could easily switch between radar and optical ranging.

Anyways, I would be very interested in the simulation.

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

I think instead of the admirals cabin, perhaps the admirals bridge might be a better choice. The admiral had his own bridge part way up the tower mast.

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

This is the gallery in front of the conning tower. In the middle is a helm console and just to left of it is the engine room control console.

Image

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by tommy303 »

I was giving a little more thought to your requests. As far as the main and secondary battery positions go, there were three--conning tower , foretop, and after command post. The lay out was similar for all three, except the after post had only two directors while the others had three, and all three had a rangefinder cupola on the roof housing the stereo optical RF and the radar. The directors could be switched between main and secondary armament, although the forward post in the conning tower was usually for the secondary guns.

Positions I would like to see for a player would be, admirals bridge with its nice high view in almost all directions, the gunnery command posts, which as stated above were all similar, the conning tower ships control position, the main Flak control position in the foretop gallery (there were four ZAG units--a sort of high tech target selector which would direct one of the main flak rangefinders and control towers onto a target; there were four ZAGs, and four Flak control positions, although on Bismarck only the two forward ones were fully operational during the sortie. In theory up to four targets could be engaged with the central Flak fire control, i.e. four guns each with two targets to port and two to starboard). Local control was also possible at the gun positions. The medium flak was directed onto a target by the Zags as well, but fire control was local at the gun position. Light Flak was pretty much strictly local control. Finally, Command Central, which was below the armour deck. This was the battle station of the Exec Officer and his team. The monitored all ship systems and had an extensive damage control board which would show fire and flooding in compartments. They would direct the number of damage control teams to areas where needed.

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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by Dave Saxton »

tommy303 wrote:Rangefinders are difficult to model, particularly the German stereo type. Normally the operator saw the target in 3D and used a fixed diamond to center on the target and a shadow diamond to move around (the wandermark). When it was centered on the fixed diamond the range could be read off a dial. The merged diamonds should also appear to be at the same distance as the target. I should add that the radar units were in the rangefinder cupolas, so you could easily switch between radar and optical ranging.
Allow me to add, although digital read outs of the range (and also bearing) from both the optics and from the radars were available to the operators at a glance, it was not necessary to call these data in.# Both were automatically transmitted directly to the selected fire control computers by selsyn. When Bismarck was being tested by the Artillery Research Command for Ships, they found that Bismarck was not set up to transmit these data streams from the optics and the radars in parallel. It was either optics or radar. Siemens was brought in and the data transmission system was redesigned so that both data streams were automatically transmitted in parallel. The radar data was therefore automatically feed directly into the fire control computer on a continuous basis.

Using the fine range presentation the operator moved the selected target pip to the zero mark at the middle of the screen by cranking a hand wheel. This measured the range to target electronically to an accuracy tolerance of 40 meters (at the time of the Bismarck operation) and displayed the range digitally on guages. The range scale could also be set for the amount it was zoomed in or out. For example, it could be set to present say 300 meters of range short of the target pip, and 300 meters beyond the target. In practice, all the operator had to do, was hold the target pip on the zero mark by using the hand crank.

The radar presentation operation for the (separate) fine bearing console (Module P) was similar, by centering the (saddle shaped) pip/trace on a center zero mark on the bearing scope by a hand crank.

# In the case of the Hipper at Barents Sea, it was reported that the cabling connection from the aft radar set, right at the fire control computer below decks, became faulty. In this case the aft radar personal had to telephone in the targeting data to the fire control computer room during battle.
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by pgollin »

.

Very interesting pictures, thank-you.

I was surprised that there doesn't seem to be room for a plotting table so as to give a better "picture" of any action.

I GUESS that the periscope was used for general views? Or ?

Was it ever envisaged that the Captain would conn the ship from here, or was this only a back-up ?
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by hanswittman »

tommy303 wrote:The helm console had some markings, such as the switch-over dial on the side which can be seen in the conning picture. On the whole, though, that can be ignored perhaps. It was marked 'aus' and 'ab' for off and on. There were a number of helm consoles with four in the forward bridge superstructure--one in the peace-time navigation wheel house (normally used at sea when not at battle stations), one in front of the wheel house in the open gallery (used for docking and maneuvering in harbors and canals), one in the armoured conning tower (primary control during battle), and one on the open gallery in front of the conning tower (used during defence against air attack when rapid orders for change of course would be necessary). One could only have a single one on line at a time lest there be a false feed back in the electrical steering which could disable the rudders until one or the other helms were turned off.

The dial with the rudder position numbers in degrees was usually divided in a light green semi circle for starboard helm and red for port helm. On some ships, and perhaps Bismarck too, the hand grip bar was painted so that the right half was green and the left red.

As far as directing the gunfire, you should model that as the foretop where most of the gunnery was conducted. The gun directors had a three man crew, a control officer and a petty officer director layer and a PO director trainer. You need only model the control officer's optics since he would be giving the orders to fire. There was an SFS board for main guns which showed status--fired, loading, ready to fire, and controls to group turrets for salvos. Normally the two forward turrets fired together in one salvo and the board operator then switched over to the after turret group for the next, thus alternating between them. So for the control officers window, perhaps a simplified version of the board in the corner.

Rangefinders are difficult to model, particularly the German stereo type. Normally the operator saw the target in 3D and used a fixed diamond to center on the target and a shadow diamond to move around (the wandermark). When it was centered on the fixed diamond the range could be read off a dial. The merged diamonds should also appear to be at the same distance as the target. I should add that the radar units were in the rangefinder cupolas, so you could easily switch between radar and optical ranging.

Anyways, I would be very interested in the simulation.
Hi Tommy,

First i want to apologize about my late reply but it is not my fault since each reply i made here take about 2 to 3 days before they get approved.

That again a wealth of info's and your knowledge of the ship is simply astounding! Regarding the firing room it is logical to do the foretop since it has the thickest armor at 350 mm. For the range finder i saw a diagram where you see top half and bottom of the ship in optic and they had to line up both ship bottom and top parts in optic to validate target, is this any relevant?

Regarding the Admiral bridge is there any similar German ship pictures of what the inside of the Admiral bridge would look like?

We will still be modeling the Admiral cabin but is is only for the player to fill in his log book and view his success and awards.

I also forgot to mention in last post that we will model a damage control room since we want repair crew to fix fire and flooding damage with monitor panels for the various area of the ship.

That is very exciting to bring back this amazing ship to life.

When we will start the modeling on it we would like to invite you in our forum developers section so you can give us your feedback while we are modeling the various areas of the ship .

Regards Hans
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Re: We are developers of a new naval sim and we need some help

Post by hanswittman »

Dave Saxton wrote:
tommy303 wrote:Rangefinders are difficult to model, particularly the German stereo type. Normally the operator saw the target in 3D and used a fixed diamond to center on the target and a shadow diamond to move around (the wandermark). When it was centered on the fixed diamond the range could be read off a dial. The merged diamonds should also appear to be at the same distance as the target. I should add that the radar units were in the rangefinder cupolas, so you could easily switch between radar and optical ranging.
Allow me to add, although digital read outs of the range (and also bearing) from both the optics and from the radars were available to the operators at a glance, it was not necessary to call these data in.# Both were automatically transmitted directly to the selected fire control computers by selsyn. When Bismarck was being tested by the Artillery Research Command for Ships, they found that Bismarck was not set up to transmit these data streams from the optics and the radars in parallel. It was either optics or radar. Siemens was brought in and the data transmission system was redesigned so that both data streams were automatically transmitted in parallel. The radar data was therefore automatically feed directly into the fire control computer on a continuous basis.

Using the fine range presentation the operator moved the selected target pip to the zero mark at the middle of the screen by cranking a hand wheel. This measured the range to target electronically to an accuracy tolerance of 40 meters (at the time of the Bismarck operation) and displayed the range digitally on guages. The range scale could also be set for the amount it was zoomed in or out. For example, it could be set to present say 300 meters of range short of the target pip, and 300 meters beyond the target. In practice, all the operator had to do, was hold the target pip on the zero mark by using the hand crank.

The radar presentation operation for the (separate) fine bearing console (Module P) was similar, by centering the (saddle shaped) pip/trace on a center zero mark on the bearing scope by a hand crank.

# In the case of the Hipper at Barents Sea, it was reported that the cabling connection from the aft radar set, right at the fire control computer below decks, became faulty. In this case the aft radar personal had to telephone in the targeting data to the fire control computer room during battle.
Hi Dave,

Thank for sharing this info with us and it would simplify the work for us since one optic would be easy to set.

Regards Hans
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