The Forgotten Battle-Attu

[tgycgijoes]

In January 1942 St. Louis formed part of Task Fore 17, based around the carrier USS Yorktown. This force escorted the Marine Expeditionary Force to Samao, and then carried out a raid into the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. My wife and I visited the Gilbert Islands in 2005, now known as the Republic of Kiribati. The capital of Kiribati which is Gilbert in their language, is Tarawa. We sunned on a beach and swam in the ocean which was a lot different in 1944.
St. Louis then performed convoy duty between Hawaii and San Francisco. On one of these trips she escorted the ship carrying the exiled President Quezon of
the Philippines to the United States.
In Mid-May she escorted a convoy moving Marine aircraft and reinforcements to Midway Island, but she then moved north to join the defence force in the Aleutian Islands, so missed the battle of Midway.
The St Louis was based in the Aleutians from 31 May, when she reached Kodiak, to 25 October when she departed for an overhaul in California. During that period she spent most of her time on patrols, but she also took part in shore-bombardments of Kiska in August and the US occupation of Adak.

While researching about what ships besides USS St. Louis CL49 were in the Aleutians I found a really well written and documented history of this forgotten battle. Here is the link for anyone interested. https://www.nps.gov/aleu/planyourvisit/upload/Attu-Forgotten-Battle-Optimized-508.pdf

The CATAPULTING of the St. Louis aircraft was accomplished through the use of the 5-inch powder charges rigged to accelerate the launching cart down the greased track. The catapult officers were instructed to launch the plane on an up-roll of that side of the ship. The aviators sometimes complained that for perversity they would launch on the down-roll instead. The launching itself was a sudden and violent affair. The airplane engine was revved to full power upon signal of the launching officer. The pilot locked the throttle quadrant tight, gave a "launch ok" signal, and rested his head against a cushioned back rest. Shortly thereafter, there was a muffled boom and a rapid acceleration from zero to sixty knots in the sixty feet of catapult run. When the plane got to the end of the catapult, two hydraulic bumpers stopped the cart and the pontoon, airplane, pilot, radioman, and assorted equipment was now flying over the sea.

When I was reading about the SOC Seagulls aboard USS St. Louis, I came across this and added it into my SOC model with the aid of MDCx.

"We in the aviation unit used the interval to install the latest invention of Ray Moore, the unit's gunnery officer. He had discovered that the fixed firepower of our seaplanes could be doubled by installing an extra 30-caliber machine gun on the top wing. The "hold down" bolts of the gun just fit the holes in the wing designed for a camera gun installation. By running a lanyard from the gun to the cockpit, the pilot could give a yank and start firing. Best of all, the bullet path cleared the arc of the propeller by a couple of inches. The result of firing them both together was startling. One gun let go with a fast and furious rat-tat-tat; the other seemingly much slower and more sedate.
The effect on our morale of putting the extra gun on our old seaplanes was immediate and favorable. It gave us just the lift we needed to get out of the doldrums and on with the war. We felt sure we could fix those Kiska Japs now, in spite of the weather and the "zero" fighters on floats which the reconnaissance pilots had told us the Japs had now. We decided to keep our Moore machine gun installation to ourselves. The Bureau of Aeronautics might not look favorable upon our modification."

Here is a screenshot of the Seagull in the new 1942 Navy blue-gray and light gray livery specified by the Bureau of Aeronautics at the end of 1941 doing away with all the bright colors of the Pre-War years. The national insignia was also changed because the red dot looked like "rising sun" of Japanese aircraft.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78769&stc=1

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78770&stc=1

The USS St. Louis is created from the US Cruisers Helena from a download from the SOH Warbirds Library with the aid again of MDCx and Sketchup 2016 and much effort and trial and error testing. klnowak who uploaded the cruisers gave me permission to modify these as I wanted. Paul Clawson permission was given a long time ago when I first started work on the SOC Seagull back in the FS9 days. I also added the pilot's machine gun into the model that was never there for whatever reason. All the panel lines and wing, rudder and elevator detail lines are all hand drawn as are the pilot and gunner's steps from photos in Steve Ginter's excellent book SOC Seagull. I have had a lot of fun with this so far. I am going to do a new repaint also for a Seagull in a December 1941 scheme that was assigned to USS Helena, CL-50 in my next installment. Before you ask, I will be sharing my work in the Warbird Library at the end of this thread. After looking at the screenshots, this is the first time since Photoshop and MDCx that I have seen this in FSX...I will be doing some "dirtying-up" with grime and salt to make it look used. It is too pristine. Looks like it came right out of the paintshop. Speaking of which, if you look at that raised hatch below the catapult, that is the cover to the aircraft hanger below deck. All 4 Seagulls could be stowed down there with folded wings. There was an elevator which took them down and raised them up to deck level on dollies.

[Mario Donadon]

I have a question, do they work with AI carrier?

[tgycgijoes]

The short answer is YES but this model is designed to work with CCP. I have three other models in AI Carriers that I will preview here in this thread shortly. I have real life stuff tomorrow Thursday and also Friday, not all day so if I get a chance to open FSX and AI Carriers I will take some more screen shots.

[tgycgijoes]

The Saint Louis class light cruiser, USS Helena (CL-50), was commissioned in September 1939 at New York Navy Yard, New York. Initially assigned to the Atlantic, she transferred to Pearl Harbor and was at the Navy Yard during the Japanese Attack (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/us-entry-into-wwii-japanese-offensive/1941-december-7-japanese-attack-on-pearl-harbor.html) on December 7, 1941. Damaged by a single torpedo, Helena would be repaired and return to the Pacific by joining the Guadalcanal Campaign (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal.html) in the summer of 1942, where she rescued survivors from USS Wasp (CV-7) (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/loss-uss-wasp-cv7.html) and took part in protecting Henderson Field during the Battle of Cape Esperance (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/naval-battles/cape-esperance.html) in October and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/naval-battles/naval-battle-guadalcanal.html) in November. After an overhaul, Helena returned to combat in March 1943 providing gunfire support during the landings at New Georgia (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign.html) and Rendova (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign/rendova-island-invasion.html). In the early morning during the Battle of Kula Gulf (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign/battle-kula-gulf.html) on July 6, 1943, she fought Japanese destroyers and was hit by three enemy torpedoes that broke the cruiser in three parts, resulting in the loss of 168 crewmen.

Here are screenshots taken of USS Helela CL-50 the class ship for the models, with a SOC3 Seagull on the port catapult in the Pacific off of Hawaii. This ship was the basis for the four models I did like the one above with the catapult trained outboard to launch. This shot is also done with CCP. Notice also that I have faded the blue on the aircraft which I read is what happened soon after it was exposed to the tropical sun. I added some "chips" in the paint and wear areas on the float as I saw in a few of the photos.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78799&stc=1 anchored off the coast to service a generator.

In the training video for Carrier Convoy Planner by Blue, he shows where the aircraft sits at the airport until the time in the sim equals the time in CCP. Instead, MY CCP goes out immediately to the catapult and the aircraft in place but the ship is not underway yet, so today, I waited for the clocks to sinc at 1800Z and the ship got underway getting rev's up for 35 knots on 4 boilers, full speed ahead. You can see the difference in the water behind the ship in the photo above and the one below, really cool!!!

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78800&stc=1

In my next sequence I am going to merge CCP and AICarrier ops with new models I have in my Boats folder of the Helena class of Cruiser Division 9.

[gray eagle]

The Saint Louis class light cruiser, USS Helena (CL-50), was commissioned in September 1939 at New York Navy Yard, New York. Initially assigned to the Atlantic, she transferred to Pearl Harbor and was at the Navy Yard during the Japanese Attack (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/us-entry-into-wwii-japanese-offensive/1941-december-7-japanese-attack-on-pearl-harbor.html) on December 7, 1941. Damaged by a single torpedo, Helena would be repaired and return to the Pacific by joining the Guadalcanal Campaign (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal.html) in the summer of 1942, where she rescued survivors from USS Wasp (CV-7) (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/loss-uss-wasp-cv7.html) and took part in protecting Henderson Field during the Battle of Cape Esperance (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/naval-battles/cape-esperance.html) in October and the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/wwii-pacific-guadalancanal/naval-battles/naval-battle-guadalcanal.html) in November. After an overhaul, Helena returned to combat in March 1943 providing gunfire support during the landings at New Georgia (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign.html) and Rendova (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign/rendova-island-invasion.html). In the early morning during the Battle of Kula Gulf (https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwii/wwii-pacific/south-southwestern-pacific/new-georgia-campaign/battle-kula-gulf.html) on July 6, 1943, she fought Japanese destroyers and was hit by three enemy torpedoes that broke the cruiser in three parts, resulting in the loss of 168 crewmen.

Here are screenshots taken of USS Helela CL-50 the class ship for the models, with a SOC3 Seagull on the port catapult in the Pacific off of Hawaii. This ship was the basis for the four models I did like the one above with the catapult trained outboard to launch. This shot is also done with CCP. Notice also that I have faded the blue on the aircraft which I read is what happened soon after it was exposed to the tropical sun. I added some "chips" in the paint and wear areas on the float as I saw in a few of the photos.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78799&stc=1 anchored off the coast to service a generator.

In the training video for Carrier Convoy Planner by Blue, he shows where the aircraft sits at the airport until the time in the sim equals the time in CCP. Instead, MY CCP goes out immediately to the catapult and the aircraft in place but the ship is not underway yet, so today, I waited for the clocks to sinc at 1800Z and the ship got underway getting rev's up for 35 knots on 4 boilers, full speed ahead. You can see the difference in the water behind the ship in the photo above and the one below, really cool!!!

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78800&stc=1

In my next sequence I am going to merge CCP and AICarrier ops with new models I have in my Boats folder of the Helena class of Cruiser Division 9.


Richard,

This all sounds good however, I prefer not to use the CCP program and wanted to know if this battle ship you are working on will have it's cats aimed outward?
I'm not knocking the CCP, I'm sure it is a great program however, I'm just as happy using the BB's in AI carriers with the seaplanes.

As of late, I've learned a little using the MCX program adding exhaust smoke to ships that need it and a adding control points + what you showed me with adding hard points to those BB's.

[tgycgijoes]

There are quite a few of the battleships that have the catapults aimed outboard to launch though none of the cruisers do. All their catapults are fore and aft whether they are on the stern or amidships. I don't know if I am going to do any more of them than I have done with the USS Helena model which I will share here so that everyone has one of the cruisers. There are four of them you can use Helena for: Honolulu, Phoenix, St. Louis and Helena. The textures are not marked with either hull numbers or names on the stern.

From the battleships group that can be downloaded from the SOH Warbirds Library, all are able to be used in AICarriers, they are part of the download of the SimOuthouse_USS_Yorktown_Class download. As I checked out each one by Google search to see what seaplanes they carried and where they fought in WWII, I was able to also find a few that had the actual Genl Booklet Of plans general arrangements. One such was the USS New York BB-34. It was the sister ship of the USS Texas which is still around as a museum ship in Texas. You can find this out by opening up each model in MDCx to see how the catapults are positioned. Then you can attach a platform to the catapult and you can position the seaplane on the catapult. If you want to use FSX or P3D to fire the catapult you also have to attach the start_cat and end_cat points. As you know from above, I use Rob's RCBCO to fire my catapult successfully as mentioned in the previous post. Klnowak was kind enough to add the catapult in the athwartship launch position for me from a catapult I created for him in Sketchup and then produced an mdl of. Here is the download link to the USS New York as it appeared in 1941. https://www.mediafire.com/file/ojldn41hiec81zu/file The furnished model of the USS Texas/USS New York did not have a catapult though the real ship did. Now this model does. Does that give you what you need?

[tgycgijoes]

Today after I programmed my Christian Radio Station for next week, I had the rest of the day to spend with the SOC3 Seagull in a new repaint from a photo in Ginter's book. I also setup a sequence of events between Carrier Convoy Planner and AICarriers in FSX off the coast of Lanai HI in 1941 aboard USS Helena in the launch sequence with the trained outboard catapult. I made a PDF Slideshow of the 10 photos I took with Rapidshot from launch to recovery with a pass over the USS St Louis we did by mistake realizing this when we saw the 2 Seaplanes already on the catapults. Ooops! We found the Helena about 10 miles ahead of the St. Louis. with her plane guard USS Cole DD155. The 2 DDs with St Louis are also "four-pipers" from Pearl Harbor but were too far away to see their hull numbers. I didn't want to post 10 photos here so click below the photo below to download and go watch the slide show in PDf format.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78825&stc=1

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cxjc8evtmfu3s7a/USS_Helena_Seaplane_Launch_and_Landing.pdf/file

I thought that I could do this and it worked. Once you have launched off the catapult in CCP, get airborne and stable; pause FSX and close CCP but be sure to leave FSX open so there are not dup's of the ship in FSX and then open AICarriers. You can fly around as long as you want and then put your ship into FSX with AICarriers 10 miles ahead started forward. Put the ship into a 10 degree right turn so you have a smooth landing area like real life. Worked quite realistically. Enjoy the slideshow. The St. Louis with 2 seaplanes on the catapults was created by converting the SOC Seagulls in MDCx removing the pilots from the aircraft mdl. They were then merged onto the catapults with MDCx which was a few hours work to accomplish it. The recovery sled was created in Sketchup from downloaded videos I watched and watched. It was then exported first as a dae into MDCx and then into an mdl so it could be merged with the cruiser. The hardest part was making it look like it was tied up and the depth along side. Quite a few hours but I think it was worth it. I attempted all this to help teach me how to use the different capabilities of MDCx. I want to thank Tom Gibson of Cal Classics who tutored me on putting a prop on an aircraft that was missing one, the Vought Corsair but in the end the model was too old to use in FSX. When HE opened it up after I was tired of :banghead: being frustrated he said it was not oriented for us to use so I scrapped that idea but learned a lot in the meantime that I have been using to good advantage and a lot of fun.

[gray eagle]

Today after I programmed my Christian Radio Station for next week, I had the rest of the day to spend with the SOC3 Seagull in a new repaint from a photo in Ginter's book. I also setup a sequence of events between Carrier Convoy Planner and AICarriers in FSX off the coast of Lanai HI in 1941 aboard USS Helena in the launch sequence with the trained outboard catapult. I made a PDF Slideshow of the 10 photos I took with Rapidshot from launch to recovery with a pass over the USS St Louis we did by mistake realizing this when we saw the 2 Seaplanes already on the catapults. Ooops! We found the Helena about 10 miles ahead of the St. Louis. with her plane guard USS Cole DD155. The 2 DDs with St Louis are also "four-pipers" from Pearl Harbor but were too far away to see their hull numbers. I didn't want to post 10 photos here so click below the photo below to download and go watch the slide show in PDf format.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/attachment.php?attachmentid=78825&stc=1

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cxjc8evtmfu3s7a/USS_Helena_Seaplane_Launch_and_Landing.pdf/file

I thought that I could do this and it worked. Once you have launched off the catapult in CCP, get airborne and stable; pause FSX and close CCP but be sure to leave FSX open so there are not dup's of the ship in FSX and then open AICarriers. You can fly around as long as you want and then put your ship into FSX with AICarriers 10 miles ahead started forward. Put the ship into a 10 degree right turn so you have a smooth landing area like real life. Worked quite realistically. Enjoy the slideshow. The St. Louis with 2 seaplanes on the catapults was created by converting the SOC Seagulls in MDCx removing the pilots from the aircraft mdl. They were then merged onto the catapults with MDCx which was a few hours work to accomplish it. The recovery sled was created in Sketchup from downloaded videos I watched and watched. It was then exported first as a dae into MDCx and then into an mdl so it could be merged with the cruiser. The hardest part was making it look like it was tied up and the depth along side. Quite a few hours but I think it was worth it. I attempted all this to help teach me how to use the different capabilities of MDCx. I want to thank Tom Gibson of Cal Classics who tutored me on putting a prop on an aircraft that was missing one, the Vought Corsair but in the end the model was too old to use in FSX. When HE opened it up after I was tired of :banghead: being frustrated he said it was not oriented for us to use so I scrapped that idea but learned a lot in the meantime that I have been using to good advantage and a lot of fun.




I did look at your PDF adventure and enjoyed the sequence of events. I liked seeing the sparks fly during the cat launch.
Good show... :encouragement:

[tgycgijoes]

Having accomplished all this, I am going to finish up this thread by adding the USS Helena launch model and the recovery model with the sled in the Warbirds Library along with the CCP PA.cfg and the AICarriers.cfg entries that can be copied and pasted by everyone. Now to move onto something else, what to do??? :wavey:like "Sound of Music".. a-dieux, so-long, auf wiedersein good bye