Convoys: Noob Question

[BillSirKill]

I have just spent ~8 hours setting up Allied Turn 1. I've read the manual and searched the forums for auto-convoy strategies. I am convinced not to use Auto-convoys.

Can someone explain how to set up manual convoys or lay out a strategy as to setting up TFs. It seems such a daunting task that I don't really know where to start.

Do you concentrate on the orange and red numbers that appear for supplies? How do you know what to set up for which size base?

any ideas of clarifiaction would be appreciated.

Thanks,..Bill

[Numdydar]

The auto convoy system works great for behind the lines bases. Unless you really like mirco managing everything you really need to use the AC system. If you think the US has a lot of transports in '41 wait until '43-'44 [X(]. Trust me it is much easier to just pile the slower ships in SF and the the system handle the behind the scenes action.
 
Also rememeber, you can turn on and off what bases will use the AC sytem individually. So you can easily control what bases you want the AC system to go to and which ones to avoid. So you have a lot more control over what goes where than you might think.

[Alfred]

Search for epistles from Bullwinkle58 who is the great apostle on this subject.  In the interim this thread is a good start.
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3310799&mpage=1&key=auto%2Cconvoys&#3311184
 
1.  Be clear on the difference between auto convoys (AC) and continuous supply (CS) convoys.
 
2.  Paying attention only to the coloured numbers means you are only reacting.  You need to both ensure that bases have the logistics to support current ongoing activities and appropriate depots are built up in advance to support offensive operations.
 
3.  Consider setting up on map a spoke and wheels hub distribution network.
 
4.  Don't overlook using the various off map bases as direct distribution sources.
 
5.  The Allied player will never run short of producing supply and fuel.  The problem is in distributing it forward to where it needs to be.
 
6.  Pay close attention to the size of the receiving ports, particularly in terms of the maximum ship tonnage which can dock to unload cargos.
 
7.  Any cargo/transport TF which has no embedded combat ships is particularly vulnerable to enemy subs.  In early 1942 the Allies will lack suitable escort vessels.
 
8.  Always try to place in a TF only ships with a similar cruise speed.  Tfs move at the speed of the slowest ship in the TF.
 
Alfred
 

[Yaab]

Some ideas for Allied CS (continuous supply) convoys:

San Francisco > Pearl Harbor ( supply in xAKs - pick 10 xAKs of the same capacity for easier supply count ie. 10 x 4800 capacity xAKs = 48,000 supplies delivered to PH by one CS TF)

Los Angeles > Pearl Harbor (fuel in TKs)

East Coast > Cape Town (supply and fuel)

Abadan > Bombay (fuel in TKs, also supply in xAKLs)


Others:

Cochin > Colombo (supply and fuel produced in India is shipped to Ceylon)

Chittagong > Rangoon (supply in single xAKLs , return cargo is fuel)

[richlove]

Interesting, Yaab. I have most of those going myself.

Why Abadan to Bombay and not to Karachi?

How do other AFBs use their TKs? Keep them on the 'safer' routes, or push them to forward bases for fewer but bigger convoys?

[Yaab]

I used to haul supply and fuel to Karachi, but not any more. Bombay is closer to Cochin, so the cargo dumped in Bombay moves to Cochin faster by rail. Plus, Bombay-Calcutta route is all major rail line, and I need the fuel dumped in Bombay to move towards Calcutta basin's Heavy Industry ( I turn off heavy industry in "northern" India in order to produce more supply closer to Ledo/Burma). I don't know exactly how fuel moves on the major rail line, but if you press "5" and examine each base along he Bombay-Calcutta route, the supply value between all these bases is at least 91, which means they should push supply and fuel daily, though it seems fuel is pushed at longer intervals. I do not trust Karachi minor rail line (the one that starts in Hyderabad) to push fuel/supply fast enough within India.

PS. Come to think of it, it is probably better to ship Abadan fuel and supply to Mangalore than Bombay. Shipping directly to Cochin is out of the question, since it would clog the port there.

[richlove]

Interesting. Karachi to Calcutta has a distance of 61 vs. a 78 for Bombay to Calcutta. I'd been worried about the sub risk, and hadn't considered the flow issue.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

I used to haul supply and fuel to Karachi, but not any more. Bombay is closer to Cochin, so the cargo dumped in Bombay moves to Cochin faster by rail. Plus, Bombay-Calcutta route is all major rail line, and I need the fuel dumped in Bombay to move towards Calcutta basin's Heavy Industry ( I turn off heavy industry in "northern" India in order to produce more supply closer to Ledo/Burma). I don't know exactly how fuel moves on the major rail line, but if you press "5" and examine each base along he Bombay-Calcutta route, the supply value between all these bases is at least 91, which means they should push supply and fuel daily, though it seems fuel is pushed at longer intervals. I do not trust Karachi minor rail line (the one that starts in Hyderabad) to push fuel/supply fast enough within India.

PS. Come to think of it, it is probably better to ship Abadan fuel and supply to Mangalore than Bombay. Shipping directly to Cochin is out of the question, since it would clog the port there.

You're needlessly risking subs on the Bombay run. Karachi works fine and gets more "work" out of your tankers since Abadan can load faster than the tankers can move to Bombay and back. Get the fuel on the Asian landmass and all is well.

In summer of 1942, using only Karachi and only a small portion of Allied tankers, I have 730,000 fuel in Bombay plus 13,000 supply (spinners set to lowest to force supplies east). I have 50,000 fuel and 93,000 supply at Calcutta, despite roughly five decent-sized TFs hauling supplies to Burma. I have so much fuel in Bombay from Karachi that I've hauled a bunch of it back to CT to then go east again to Oz, once again minimizing sub risk.

Edit: all HI in all of India is "on" as well. India is producing every bit of supply it's capable of producing and not breaking a sweat on fuel. It's awash in fuel.

[Yaab]

Forgot to add that my convoy set-ups are for DaBigBabes A scenario.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Forgot to add that my convoy set-ups are for DaBigBabes A scenario.

From what I know of DBB it shouldn't matter. There are no refineries in Bombay or Calcutta to make supply in either case.

I should also add that my Ledo has 29.2k supply despite being the airhead for the whole China air transport operation and despite non-stopped infrastructure building since the beginning.

I think it's possible to get too cute with logistics in the game. Sometimes the old way is the best way. Just ram it through.

[Yaab]

The fuel goes to 500 Heavy Industry in Calcutta and 200 Heavy Industry at Asansol. The HI in Calcutta fails to produce on many turns, but it probably lacks resources (needs 10,000 daily) more than fuel (needs 1000 daily).

[jmalter]

my own personal ya-ya is getting fuel to Cape Town, using CS convoys from EC & Cristobal starting on turn 2. I was 'orrid uncomfortable 'til I had one million fuel at CT. Fuel from CT gets transhipped in 12-knot half-ful xAKs to Perth, b/c I lost too many TKs early in my game & decided to keep the remaining ones safely off-map.

I'll add that mid-May '43 is important, b/c the Mediterranean route opens up.

Keep an eye on your reinforcements queue, many off-map bases receive an 'Independent Sailings Convoy' at the end of each month. Most bring supply, some also bring fuel, the best ones bring LCU devices that get added to the pools.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

The fuel goes to 500 Heavy Industry in Calcutta and 200 Heavy Industry at Asansol. The HI in Calcutta fails to produce on many turns, but it probably lacks resources (needs 10,000 daily) more than fuel (needs 1000 daily).

I've got 355.3k Resources in Calcutta and 88k in Asansol. I'm not aware that DBB changes Resources in any severe way, or any way at all, but I'm not an expert. I doubt there should be that big a difference. I have stockpiling of Resources turned on at Calcutta on off at Asansol. Are you doing odd things with stockpiling across India?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

my own personal ya-ya is getting fuel to Cape Town, using CS convoys from EC & Cristobal starting on turn 2. I was 'orrid uncomfortable 'til I had one million fuel at CT. Fuel from CT gets transhipped in 12-knot half-ful xAKs to Perth, b/c I lost too many TKs early in my game & decided to keep the remaining ones safely off-map.

I'll add that mid-May '43 is important, b/c the Mediterranean route opens up.

Keep an eye on your reinforcements queue, many off-map bases receive an 'Independent Sailings Convoy' at the end of each month. Most bring supply, some also bring fuel, the best ones bring LCU devices that get added to the pools.

I've had up to 70 xAPs hauling fuel from EC to CT in 1942. Whatever can move, moves. Fuel at EC is "free" and off-map accumulates no damage. If an xAP could move 500 a trip I'd still use them. Fortunately they can move more. I don't have troops to fill all the transports I've got, so they haul fuel.

[wdolson]

A lot depends on what your major base of operations is. If your running the Pacific Fleet out of Pearl, you will need more fuel there. However, if you base a significant portion of the fleet in Australia, you will need more fuel there. Australia can produce a lot of supply if it has the fuel to run the Hi there. The trick is getting enough fuel to Oz to do both.

I usually run tankers out of Palambang until it gets too dangerous. The primary route is to Darwin until the port gets backed up with tankers waiting to unload, then I switch some to Perth. Once Palembang gets too hot, a few tankers get transferred to the Darwin/Perth route to move the excess fuel from Darwin.

I think of tankers in two classes, short haul (around 8000 endurance) and long haul (around 12000 endurance). There are some around 10000 and a small handful of really short haul tankers, but the bulk are 8000 or 12000.

After Palembang becomes untenable and the fuel is shifted from Darwin, I focus on my two safe fuel centers: Adaban and Los Angeles. The bulk of the short haulers go to Adaban with a handful of long haulers that will be based in Columbo. Most of the long haulers are based in Los Angeles with a few short haulers. A couple of short haulers stay in Australia to move fuel to front line bases that need it like Port Morseby.

From Adaban, I find I usually need to move a couple of tanker fulls to Aden in the early going because a lot of units are arriving at Aden and even if you don't load supply/fuel at Aden, the traffic sucks down Aden's fuel reserves to critical. As the traffic at Aden dies down, I find I don't need to send fuel there anymore. I also leave all industry turned on, so I need fuel in India and Australia.

About half of the remaining short haul tankers from Adaban move fuel to Karachi. There may be a day or two delay getting to the rest of India, but it doesn't matter if the flow in is relatively constant. It piles up at Bombay anyway. The other half move fuel to Columbo. Because Columbo is on an island, I can be sure it won't go anywhere on me. The handful of long haul tankers then load the fuel in Columbo and move it to Perth.

On the other side of the world, I use the short haul Los Angeles tankers to move fuel to Pearl Harbor and occasionally some other outposts like Pago Pago, Dutch Harbor, and Midway. The long haul tankers send fuel to Australia. Early on their destination is Brisbane, but later I switch to Townsend when the waters are safe and that port maxes out in size. In the early going I usually find I need to move a convoy or two of AKs with fuel to Oz. Very inefficient, but it gets the job done.

I base a lot of the US fleet in Australia, so the demand for fuel is high. If I was using PH as a base of operations, I would concentrate on moving more fuel there.

My experience in India is similar to Bullwinkle's. In my last game I had around 700,000 fuel in Bombay by late summer 42. I also had about 500,000 fuel in Australia by that time with a lot of fleet ops. About that time I let a lot of my tankers rest and refit before moving more fuel on these routes.

I keep Rangoon alive by moving a sea of single ship AKLs from Calcutta/Diamond Harbour to Rangoon moving supply. I don't bother to load the fuel at Rangoon because India has enough and it minimizes their exposure in the danger zone. I lose some to various means, but enough gets through to keep Rangoon in good shape and even move enough into China to meet their needs until the Monsoon season shuts down supply movement.

I play against the AI. A human Japanese player can do all sorts of things to disrupt these routes if they want to. Against a human you probably have to be less predictable, but against the AI you can do all sorts of routine routes behind the lines and the only thing to worry about is the occasional long range sub. I put a lot of effort into ASW trying to blunt IJN subs in the first year. It's usually quite frustrating until the ASW ships upgrade and Allies ASW doctrine improves. However, winging a sub is good enough in the early going. It it has to limp home for repair, that's a month or two you won't see it and it gives your ASW guys time to learn their trade. The experience level of some of the smaller ASW ships is abysmal at start. I also train lots of planes for ASW, PBYs have the best range for this work, but all my Australian Hudsons end up doing ASW too.

You can train them with Wirraways and switch to Hudsons once they get trained (is you have player defined upgrades on).

Bill

[BillSirKill]

WOW..GUYS...great input.. Will study and give it a go!!
Love the support with this massive undertaking of a Sim/Game
bill

[pontiouspilot]

As usual the load of Bull prevails. Don't argue with a bull moose in heat! You guys that are worrying about these points need another game on the side!! PM me...but don't tell your wife!

[richlove]

Interesting writeup - thank you!

[jmalter]

good post, wdolson.

It seems to me v. inefficient to ship fuel from LA to Oz - I prefer to ship fuel from EC to Cape Town, then trans-ship it to Perth, tho' it takes awhile for Perth fuel to get to Sydney.

My exception is, after I was no longer able to ship Oil from the DEI to Oz, I turned off the LA Refineries for a week, & LA accumulated enough Oil to load tankers for the long cross-Pacific run to Oz. This Oil kept the Oz industry running, I never had to turn off Oz's HI.

We play a bit differently - I haven't been using Oz as a base for USN TFs.

[MSUjohn]

12 years later,

hello everyone! i have been playing the game for about three weeks now (or attempting to play) and this is my first post on this site.

to set up an auto convoy, i just dump a ton of cargo and tankers into San Fransisco and Colombo, right?
what about dumping unused destroyers as escorts?