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wdolson -> RE: IF it is Spring 42, and you are the Allies, you are out of fuel! (8/21/2009 12:43:46 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
There needs to be some way for the allies to respond to difficult situations that develop in game. The ridiculously low replacement pools and under-represented tanker and AK fleets are just too damned restrictive if they suffer high losses. In reality it would have been easy to order more tankers, airframes, tanks, guns, etc. produced if they were needed. But because they weren't needed historically, the allies don't get the capacity to build them that they historically had and easily could have used if needed.
If you do some reading about the war, the Allies had a tanker shortage until 1944 and even then supply just kept up with demand. Tankers are usually larger than regular merchant ships and require larger shipyards. The number of ship yards in the US which could build tankers were limited and many were building higher priority ships like cruisers and carriers.
At the start of the war, the Germans recognized the tanker shortage and sent their u-boats to the East Coast of the US in an attempt to force Britain out of the war by strangling the fuel supply. The u-boats focused on tankers moving from Texas on up to form up into convoys in Canada. The campaign was very successful, but Doenitz, fearing losing a significant number of u-boats far from home pulled back his boats before finishing the job.
The CVEs Sangomon, Santee, Chenago, and Suwanee were converted from Cimarron class AOs. They were much better CVEs than later built CVEs, but the shortage of AOs and TKs prevented any more being converted. The subsequent CVEs all had to be built on much smaller AK hulls. If the US had the capacity to build as many TK hulls as it wanted, all CVEs would have been built on tanker hulls.
So the tanker shortage is realistic. With some practice, you can get enough fuel to Oz to keep the war going.
A couple of things to keep in mind if you are doing a fuel relay. Make sure the intermediary ports are large enough. Fuel and supplies spoil if the levels are over the limit for the port size. Dumping large amounts of fuel in small ports will probably result in fuel loss due to spoilage.
Another thing to keep in mind is the time trade off between sending the tankers on one long trip vs the time taken to load and unload at intermediary ports. Some ships don't have the fuel capacity for long trips, so shorter trips, or mid-point refueling are necessary, but thinking through the logistics can be important.
Making sure the destination doesn't get too crowded is also a factor. If you have too many ships trying to unload at one port, a lot of ships will sit there waiting to unload which could be time spent moving to the next port. Sometimes congestion may be inevitable. Historically Noumea had some huge back logs before they got the port facilities running right.
Bill
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