Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: rms1pa

as APDs the Soerebya,and the cargo capable CMs are the only allied ships able to work the Fast transport Mission with cargo. I convert them all as fast as possible. the increased ASW does not hurt.

there are drawbacks to this. early war aggresive Allied commanders will miss the torpedos and carefull staggering of upgrades of other DDs will be needed to have escorts for the Air combat task forces.

rms/pa

quote:

ORIGINAL: Grollub

quote:

ORIGINAL: rms1pa

as APDs the Soerebya,and the cargo capable CMs are the only allied ships able to work the Fast transport Mission with cargo. I convert them all as fast as possible. the increased ASW does not hurt.

there are drawbacks to this. early war aggresive Allied commanders will miss the torpedos and carefull staggering of upgrades of other DDs will be needed to have escorts for the Air combat task forces.

rms/pa

Agreed. In my earlier games I went for the 8 ASW DE conversions. Later in the war I found out that I hadn't nearly enough APDs for that time period operations, while at the same time I was swimming in modern high ASW auxilaries. So in my current campaign, I've converted all available four-stackers to APDs.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gridley380

In my current game I went for DMS conversion for maximum range - next time I'm going for the APD conversion. Short range sure, but good ASW ratings early on are scarce and later on APDs make good escorts for Amphib TFs.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

The DEs have the most ASW, but it is nice to have an APD around or two.

However, the difference in ASW (8 vs 6) for the DE or APD, it might not be worth it to convert to DE. In other words, anything you want to convert to DE, probably convert to APD if you feel that 8 vs 6 in ASW isn't much at all. On top of that, you have small troop carrying abilities.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ctangus

Thanks for all the responses. I've decided to convert at least 2 divisions of Clemsons to APDs & just converted the first two ships. I'll do the upgrades over time so I don't have them all off line at once.

I have @ 4 divisions of Clemsons still afloat (17 DDs to be precise). I'm still considering converting 1-2 divisions to DMS for future offensive ops. I don't see a lot of DMS in the reinforcement queue but I do see a ton of minesweepers. How is later war allied minesweeping capability in AE? I remember that in WITP mines/CD guns could be a lethal combination and DMS performed much better than minesweepers. At the very least they weren't sunk in droves.

quote:

ORIGINAL: wneumann

A word of caution for those not immediately converting Wickes or Clemson DD to another ship type (APD, DM, DMS, etc).

I'm starting 5/43 in my PBEM and did not convert any US Clemson or Wickes class DD from their DD configuration, my original plan was not converting any of these DD until such time as I determined exactly what I wanted to convert them to. In the meantime, I had been applying ship upgrades for these two classes as they became available. At this point in the game (5/43), I was beginning to consider plans for converting these DD to either APD or DMS.

While looking at displays for individual Clemson/Wickes DD’s, I noticed options for converting these ships to other configurations (APD, DM, DMS) had disappeared from the Ship Displays. I did some research using archived save files from previous game turns to determine when the conversion options disappeared and perhaps why they did.

I found type conversion options to APD, DM, DMS on Clemson/Wickes DD were no longer available after these ships completed upgrade to “LR Class” in 1942 – the “LR” upgrade for Clemson occurring in 4/42, “LR” upgrade for Wickes in 5/42. What appeared to happen is the “LR” ship upgrade for these two DD classes removes type conversions to APD, DM and DMS from the upgrade paths – once an individual Clemson or Wickes class DD passes the 1942 “LR” upgrade, you have basically committed this ship for use as a DD or DE.

The moral of the story… You can leave Clemson and Wickes class DD’s unconverted but make sure ship upgrade on individual ships is turned off (Upgrade = "No") if you're intending to convert these at any later time from DD to an APD, DM or DMS. Once these DD go through a ship upgrade after 2/42... Oops! It appears Clemson and Wickes DD can go through the 2/42 upgrade without losing the ability to convert to APD, DM, DMS, etc – after that, all bets are off.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

Something similar happens with the three (?) subs which can convert to SST. If you do you lose their ability to carry the really good mines in 1943.

"To meaningless French Idealism, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality...we answer with German Realism, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery" -Prince von Bülov, 1870-