Australian Industry

[EUBanana]

...

So thats where all my fuel in Brisbane went. Convicts putting it in their getaway cars. [:(] [;)]

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
I've started running my fuel TF's to Adelaide rather than Perth, due to the inefficient transportation network that Perth has connecting it to everyone else. 

The other problem with running routine convoys into Perth instead of Adelaide is a PBEM opponent is likely to invade there knowing he may bag a large stockpile. Even a hit and run operation to grab the base and then simply pack up and leave would be enough to possibly cripple the allies for months.

Never develop bad habits in AI games that can get you mauled in PBEM if you can help it. Ship to Adelaide, the extra week or two is worth the added safety it provides for your main stockpiles.

Also tankers in AE are more valuable than CVs for the allies, don’t ever risk them trying to get a few drops of fuel out of the DEI. Even if you drained every DEI base dry, Japan would still be unable to ship out all the fuel/oil the DEI bases produce after that, so you aren’t really denying Japan anything and a lost tanker is a critical loss for the allies between 42-44.

This is an a-historic aspect of the AE design just like the ridiculously limited reinforcement pools are, but it’s something the allies have to live with in game, so guard your tankers at all costs.

Jim

[moonraker65]

Thanks I'll switch all my CS convoys to Adelaide from now on. To make sure that I've got adequate ASW cover along the Australian coast I've got a lot of Hudson squadrons at key points (Perth, Kangaroo Island, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Bundaburg, Rockhampton, Bowen, Townsville & Cairns). Once the Radar equipped III LR comes along I havent had too many problems with Jap subs with many being detected and attacked even if they don't get sunk. That I believe is the key to keeping the Sea Lanes open especially around the Melbourne area (Bass Straight) where the naughty Japs decided to sneek a couple of I Class subs and an RO Class, sinking a couple of my AK's.

[John Lansford]

The extra distance to Adelaide means I have to choose carefully which ships go on that run; plus, if they're running from Columbo there's a point along the route where they are in range of Bettys out of Java and Timor, so waypoints are critical to keep them out of detection range.

[wwengr]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns


Never develop bad habits in AI games that can get you mauled in PBEM if you can help it. Ship to Adelaide, the extra week or two is worth the added safety it provides for your main stockpiles.

Also tankers in AE are more valuable than CVs for the allies, don’t ever risk them trying to get a few drops of fuel out of the DEI. Even if you drained every DEI base dry, Japan would still be unable to ship out all the fuel/oil the DEI bases produce after that, so you aren’t really denying Japan anything and a lost tanker is a critical loss for the allies between 42-44.

I have played some head-to-head games in WITP, mostly with my brother and my son. What I learned very quickly, when playing against a human is that any predictable behavior can be fatal. I found that I had to micromanage convoys extensively, shipping from different locations, delivering to different locations, and varying routings extensively. When I attempted to set up an LA to Melbourne convoy pipeline by running far southwest, then redirectingwestbound to OZ, my son quickly figured it out and picked off tankers & cargo ships with subs near the southeast of OZ and ran raiders deep into my territory and seriously trashed a few convoys. (Note: I love the waypoint feature in AE!).

[moonraker65]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

The extra distance to Adelaide means I have to choose carefully which ships go on that run; plus, if they're running from Columbo there's a point along the route where they are in range of Bettys out of Java and Timor, so waypoints are critical to keep them out of detection range.

I don't run anything from Colombo to Oz except the odd Auto Convoy to Darwin and the Northern bases. Everything goes direct from Cape Town. Obviously as you say you have to be careful which ships you use. I get the Max Endurance AK's (12,000 +) for these runs and they usually do it ok. Now that there's an extra bit of mileage involved to Adelaide I have made Perth a refuelling waypoint en route.

[khyberbill]

The net result of this thread is that we each are feeding OZ based on our habits and what are opponents force us to do. My most recent PBEM is in 12/11/42. We are doing two day turns. I am allies. There are Japanese CV TFs Southwest of Sydney, East of Batavia, West of Soerabaja and South of Soerabaja. Guess how much oil and fuel I am getting out of SRA? ymmv

[moonraker65]

I haven't played PBEM yet so my experiences are all against the AI. But by the sound of it you really need to be alert against a human opponent

[Astarix]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Astarix

I use a mix of large xAK's and TK's to keep Oz fueled up. The allies may be short of TK's for the first 6-12 months, but they have hundreds of xAK's floating around.

1 option is to load fuel in the East Coast, ship it to Capetown then to Perth and from Perth distribute it around Oz. Lots of low capacity tankers in the SRA and OZ that aren't very suited to long range supply runs anyway. For that matter there are hundreds of low capacity xAKL's that make good fuel haulers too, for distributing the fuel from your supply hub.

Historically the allies faced the same problem and their solution was to haul the fuel in 47 gallon barrels. Not a very efficient solution.... but sometimes a big enough hammer can make a square peg fit in a round hole.

how do you use the small AKs to haul fuel? Thought only AK capable of carrying fuel can be used to do so in AE. No more everything can carry fuel like in WITP. [&:] The problem with the fuel carrying AKs is that they probably suck up way more fuel to go from the WC to OZ and back than they can carry themselve. Nice when you ship supplies and have some fuel to but I doubt it´s efficient at all to use them for fuel only.

Everything is capable of hauling fuel.

You may not think that it's reasonable that you have to feed Australia's HI with fuel, however you have to remember that every point of fuel is turned into supply. More importantly the HI represents the supply surplus that OZ generates. It takes far fewer tankers to haul fuel to OZ than it does xAK's to haul supplies. Plus all your large tankers move faster than the vast majority of you large AK's.

There are several methods you can use to handle the distribution of fuel and supply. The one I am currently using is Basing a large number of slow xAK's on the U.S. East Coast. About 60 of these and a convoy of 7 of the 14k Tankers are able to move about 100k fuel to Capetown a week. From there I send at least one convoy every 2 weeks to OZ, using a combination of large AK's the 9.4 and 10k tankers. At Perth I base 10 or 15 of the 6.5 and 8k tankers and some moderate size AK's and move the fuel to Melbourne as needed. I use the 5.2k and some more 6.5 tankers and moderate size AK's to haul the fuel to other smaller ports as needed from Melbourne or Sydney.

I do something similar from LA -> PH -> Pago Pago/Noumea/Sydney/NZ, etc.

I use ASW assets to guard these convoys and I will use as many as I think necessary to sufficiently protect them from Jap subs. Early that may mean as many as a dozen escorts. Sometimes that may mean distant cover from a CVTF or SCTF. I've had a surplus of fuel as large as 500k in OZ, even in 1942, by religiously shipping fuel.

The allies have hundreds of AK's and small tankers that are going to just sit in port anyway. You have plenty of ASW assets. All those AM's that start in the SRA and OZ have 4 ASW rating. Their range doesn't matter as they will refuel from the tankers and xAK's every few days so don't worry about that issue. Assign a TF commander to your Convoys' what else are you going to use the cautious ones for? I often stick a CL with a float plan in my convoys to spot enemy TF's and Subs. Your convoy commanders will do everything they can to avoid known threats, if you supply them with the assets to spot the threats in the first place you will lose fewer ships. You start getting a bunch of CVE's in mid to late '42 if you are really cautious you can use them to escort the fuel. (Something the allies did in the real war). And finally I don't use the exact same route on every convoy I send. Even the AI can and will figure this out, and raid your shipping lanes. Escorting your convoys is a must.

Jason

[wwengr]

Astarix (Jason). I like your approach to moving materials to OZ. There are good Scenarios for people that want to have carrier slug fests and do invasions. The campaign game is all about planning and logistics. Battle is necessary and fun, but it is Logistics that win the war. For the Japanese, that means managing their industry and getting raw materials there. For the Allies that means moving materials to where is matters.

The Allied player that begins the game against a human opponent looking for a fight is destined to do poorly. Exist is what his carriers do best, not fight. If they KB finds and destroys the US CV's, the Japanese player becomes unconstrained. So, raids are good, but no decisive engagement.

The early game is about defend, delay, and move materials. That means move materials to OZ, particularly fuel and oil to make supplies. As you say, fuel to HI is the most efficient way to get supplies to OZ.

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
I've started running my fuel TF's to Adelaide rather than Perth, due to the inefficient transportation network that Perth has connecting it to everyone else. 

The other problem with running routine convoys into Perth instead of Adelaide is a PBEM opponent is likely to invade there knowing he may bag a large stockpile. Even a hit and run operation to grab the base and then simply pack up and leave would be enough to possibly cripple the allies for months.

Never develop bad habits in AI games that can get you mauled in PBEM if you can help it. Ship to Adelaide, the extra week or two is worth the added safety it provides for your main stockpiles.

Also tankers in AE are more valuable than CVs for the allies, don’t ever risk them trying to get a few drops of fuel out of the DEI. Even if you drained every DEI base dry, Japan would still be unable to ship out all the fuel/oil the DEI bases produce after that, so you aren’t really denying Japan anything and a lost tanker is a critical loss for the allies between 42-44.

This is an a-historic aspect of the AE design just like the ridiculously limited reinforcement pools are, but it’s something the allies have to live with in game, so guard your tankers at all costs.

Jim

I will file that away for future reference. It's hard to stop a determined opponent from taking whatever he wants in the early days if he is willing to make a major effort. But it would not be too hard to make a raid on Perth a losing proposition for Japan.

I've been thinking more about Oz after reading some of the AARs. Albany is an obvious candidate for development into a larger port.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Astarix

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Astarix

I use a mix of large xAK's and TK's to keep Oz fueled up. The allies may be short of TK's for the first 6-12 months, but they have hundreds of xAK's floating around.

1 option is to load fuel in the East Coast, ship it to Capetown then to Perth and from Perth distribute it around Oz. Lots of low capacity tankers in the SRA and OZ that aren't very suited to long range supply runs anyway. For that matter there are hundreds of low capacity xAKL's that make good fuel haulers too, for distributing the fuel from your supply hub.

Historically the allies faced the same problem and their solution was to haul the fuel in 47 gallon barrels. Not a very efficient solution.... but sometimes a big enough hammer can make a square peg fit in a round hole.

how do you use the small AKs to haul fuel? Thought only AK capable of carrying fuel can be used to do so in AE. No more everything can carry fuel like in WITP. [&:] The problem with the fuel carrying AKs is that they probably suck up way more fuel to go from the WC to OZ and back than they can carry themselve. Nice when you ship supplies and have some fuel to but I doubt it´s efficient at all to use them for fuel only.

Everything is capable of hauling fuel.

You may not think that it's reasonable that you have to feed Australia's HI with fuel, however you have to remember that every point of fuel is turned into supply. More importantly the HI represents the supply surplus that OZ generates. It takes far fewer tankers to haul fuel to OZ than it does xAK's to haul supplies. Plus all your large tankers move faster than the vast majority of you large AK's.

There are several methods you can use to handle the distribution of fuel and supply. The one I am currently using is Basing a large number of slow xAK's on the U.S. East Coast. About 60 of these and a convoy of 7 of the 14k Tankers are able to move about 100k fuel to Capetown a week. From there I send at least one convoy every 2 weeks to OZ, using a combination of large AK's the 9.4 and 10k tankers. At Perth I base 10 or 15 of the 6.5 and 8k tankers and some moderate size AK's and move the fuel to Melbourne as needed. I use the 5.2k and some more 6.5 tankers and moderate size AK's to haul the fuel to other smaller ports as needed from Melbourne or Sydney.

I do something similar from LA -> PH -> Pago Pago/Noumea/Sydney/NZ, etc.

I use ASW assets to guard these convoys and I will use as many as I think necessary to sufficiently protect them from Jap subs. Early that may mean as many as a dozen escorts. Sometimes that may mean distant cover from a CVTF or SCTF. I've had a surplus of fuel as large as 500k in OZ, even in 1942, by religiously shipping fuel.

The allies have hundreds of AK's and small tankers that are going to just sit in port anyway. You have plenty of ASW assets. All those AM's that start in the SRA and OZ have 4 ASW rating. Their range doesn't matter as they will refuel from the tankers and xAK's every few days so don't worry about that issue. Assign a TF commander to your Convoys' what else are you going to use the cautious ones for? I often stick a CL with a float plan in my convoys to spot enemy TF's and Subs. Your convoy commanders will do everything they can to avoid known threats, if you supply them with the assets to spot the threats in the first place you will lose fewer ships. You start getting a bunch of CVE's in mid to late '42 if you are really cautious you can use them to escort the fuel. (Something the allies did in the real war). And finally I don't use the exact same route on every convoy I send. Even the AI can and will figure this out, and raid your shipping lanes. Escorting your convoys is a must.

Jason

While I know that AKs historically had the capacity to haul fuel in drums and using them for short trips to supply the smaller bases for this purpose is fine, however, I think using them for the long trips such as you described is a bit gamey for me IMHO.

Also I am also not sure that the AKs had the ability to unrep (refuel) accompanying smaller vessels nor am I sure that the TKs were equipped for this purpose. I could be dead wrong but sure would like some historical reference where this was a practice used. Maybe off topic here but I would like to get the DEVs and other experts opinions of this subject/issue.

[wwengr]

AO's are the only ships that can perform underway replenishment. All ships will refuel each other from their own fuel bunkers while underway, but this slows them down alot. It is important to note that many tankers have fairly low endurance. the round trip to OZ from off-map or the West Coast will use 12,000 to 20,000 endurance.

[moonraker65]

Well from a purely "safety first" point of view, I've found the Cape Town - Oz route to be fairly robust so far.

[Astarix]

ORIGINAL: wwengr

AO's are the only ships that can perform underway replenishment. All ships will refuel each other from their own fuel bunkers while underway, but this slows them down alot. It is important to note that many tankers have fairly low endurance. the round trip to OZ from off-map or the West Coast will use 12,000 to 20,000 endurance.

Exactly.

I find staging my supplies/fuel transport to intermediate bases fairly effective. I've only sent large tanker convoys directly to OZ a couple of times. Just about any convoy with at least a 9k endurance can make the trip one way, but those ships are basically out of the picture for 2months. Plus some time in the repair yard after they get back. Also, the longer the ships are at sea the greater the chance for collisions. I've lost more escorts to collisions with my tankers than I have tankers and escorts to Japanese subs.

None of the allied escorts have the range to make it directly to OZ w/o refueling from the bunker supply of the large cargo/tankers they are escorting. Since the main risk is sub's I tend to stick the smaller SC/PG/PC/AM's in my "rear area" convoys. I save my DD/DE/KV escorts for running smaller supply runs to front line bases. Often escorting these with SCTF's, as you never know when the Japanese will decide on an SCTF raid. Also, PTTF's make for nice Point defense at bases where you are worried about raids.

A large number of the xAK's have 200-500 ton tanks on board. Combined with bulk barrel hauling and their large range they can actually haul quite a bit of fuel. Historically the allies had a critical shortage of tankers until late '42. They pretty well HAD to use cargo haulers loaded with barrels to move distillates. And this wasn't because of losses in the Pacific. The 2nd happy time on the Atlantic Seaboard after the American entrance to the war resulted in huge losses. The U.S. didn't enforce convoys on the East Coast until June of '42, I believe.

Jason

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Astarix

ORIGINAL: wwengr

AO's are the only ships that can perform underway replenishment. All ships will refuel each other from their own fuel bunkers while underway, but this slows them down alot. It is important to note that many tankers have fairly low endurance. the round trip to OZ from off-map or the West Coast will use 12,000 to 20,000 endurance.

Exactly.

I find staging my supplies/fuel transport to intermediate bases fairly effective. I've only sent large tanker convoys directly to OZ a couple of times. Just about any convoy with at least a 9k endurance can make the trip one way, but those ships are basically out of the picture for 2months. Plus some time in the repair yard after they get back. Also, the longer the ships are at sea the greater the chance for collisions. I've lost more escorts to collisions with my tankers than I have tankers and escorts to Japanese subs.

None of the allied escorts have the range to make it directly to OZ w/o refueling from the bunker supply of the large cargo/tankers they are escorting. Since the main risk is sub's I tend to stick the smaller SC/PG/PC/AM's in my "rear area" convoys. I save my DD/DE/KV escorts for running smaller supply runs to front line bases. Often escorting these with SCTF's, as you never know when the Japanese will decide on an SCTF raid. Also, PTTF's make for nice Point defense at bases where you are worried about raids.

A large number of the xAK's have 200-500 ton tanks on board. Combined with bulk barrel hauling and their large range they can actually haul quite a bit of fuel. Historically the allies had a critical shortage of tankers until late '42. They pretty well HAD to use cargo haulers loaded with barrels to move distillates. And this wasn't because of losses in the Pacific. The 2nd happy time on the Atlantic Seaboard after the American entrance to the war resulted in huge losses. The U.S. didn't enforce convoys on the East Coast until June of '42, I believe.

Jason

I would imagine that if these were these type of AK fuel ship/convoys, they would have been for the type of distillates represented in the game as supplies eg gasoline, av-gas, lubricating oil, and the like. Draining oil drums to fuel your ships just doesn't seem reasonable.

I am not being argumentative here because I will use this strategy if you can and will give me some sources for these type of fuel convoys. I really am looking to be educated.

I would really like Don and JWE to weight in here with their expertise.

[wwengr]

POINTLESS MINUTAE WARNING[&:]

A fairly long legged destroyer has fuel bunkers of about 600 tons of fuel. Fuel oil weighs about 950 kg/m^3, so it would take about 2,750 55-gallon drums of fuel oil to fill up a destroyer of that size.

[oldman45]

Last night I was watching one of the military history channels and they had fighter fuselage's strapped on to a tanker. Goes to show that in a pinch the military will use anything to haul anything when its needed. I don't find it gamey to use an AK to haul fuel, if the military needs fuel somewhere and all they have is AK's then they will use an AK. If the game allowed emergency R&D I would bet the allies would invent a bladder to fit into cargo holds to more efficiently haul fuel

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Buck Beach

ORIGINAL: Astarix

ORIGINAL: wwengr
AO's are the only ships that can perform underway replenishment. All ships will refuel each other from their own fuel bunkers while underway, but this slows them down alot. It is important to note that many tankers have fairly low endurance. the round trip to OZ from off-map or the West Coast will use 12,000 to 20,000 endurance.

Exactly.

I find staging my supplies/fuel transport to intermediate bases fairly effective. I've only sent large tanker convoys directly to OZ a couple of times. Just about any convoy with at least a 9k endurance can make the trip one way, but those ships are basically out of the picture for 2months. Plus some time in the repair yard after they get back. Also, the longer the ships are at sea the greater the chance for collisions. I've lost more escorts to collisions with my tankers than I have tankers and escorts to Japanese subs.

None of the allied escorts have the range to make it directly to OZ w/o refueling from the bunker supply of the large cargo/tankers they are escorting. Since the main risk is sub's I tend to stick the smaller SC/PG/PC/AM's in my "rear area" convoys. I save my DD/DE/KV escorts for running smaller supply runs to front line bases. Often escorting these with SCTF's, as you never know when the Japanese will decide on an SCTF raid. Also, PTTF's make for nice Point defense at bases where you are worried about raids.

A large number of the xAK's have 200-500 ton tanks on board. Combined with bulk barrel hauling and their large range they can actually haul quite a bit of fuel. Historically the allies had a critical shortage of tankers until late '42. They pretty well HAD to use cargo haulers loaded with barrels to move distillates. And this wasn't because of losses in the Pacific. The 2nd happy time on the Atlantic Seaboard after the American entrance to the war resulted in huge losses. The U.S. didn't enforce convoys on the East Coast until June of '42, I believe.

Jason

I would imagine that if these were these type of AK fuel ship/convoys, they would have been for the type of distillates represented in the game as supplies eg gasoline, av-gas, lubricating oil, and the like. Draining oil drums to fuel your ships just doesn't seem reasonable.

I am not being argumentative here because I will use this strategy if you can and will give me some sources for these type of fuel convoys. I really am looking to be educated.

I would really like Don and JWE to weight in here with their expertise.

Hi Buck. Pm sent.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: wwengr

<snip>

Industry Components in OZ –

Manpower – 79 (395 Manpower Points per day)
Oil – 10 (100 Oil Points per day)
Resources – 3190 (63,800 Resource Points per day)
Refinery – 55 (Converts 550 Oil Points per day into 495 Fuel Points and 55 Supply Points)
Light Industry – 2750 (Converts 41,250 Resource Points per day into 2,750 Supply Points)
Heavy Industry – 1120 (Converts 22,400 Resource Points plus 2,240 Fuel Points per day into 2,240 Heavy Industry Points and 2,240 Supply Points)
Repair Shipyard – 53 (Uses nothing, but can cause accelerated use of supply for ship repair)

<snip>

You need to update the regions file in your WitP Tracker system. It's not a huge issue, but the resources and light industry numbers are understated by 20 points each (because Maryborough (Light Industry 20) and Portsea (Resources 20) are both incorrectly listed in the "Soviet Union" region), and that throws off your calculations a bit.