Japanese Tsukushi-class Survey Ship

[FDRLincoln]

Has anyone added this ship to their mod, or is it in the standard game and I just don't see it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukushi_class_survey_ship

This is an historical ship that could be a nice little escort/scout....carried a floatplane, some armanent, not bad speed at 21 knts.

[Terminus]

I seem to recall having put it into my stock mod oooooodles of years ago. She's a good little tub, which could conceivably have been turned into an ASW escort.

[Shark7]

I've actually added it into the DB and made an upgrade for it post the historical sinking date.

IIRC, I removed the aft 120mm gun and added a DC rack or two for the upgrade. I'd have to look it back up in my editor to remember exactly what I did to it. I do know I tried to keep it some what realistic/believable.

[Terminus]

She was originally left out because there was no way to show her role correctly. I could conceivably see her coming in as an ASW escort somewhat later in the game, sans her airplane (which was not for offensive patrolling anyway).

[FDRLincoln]

Yeah it seems that if she had survived long enough, she could have made a decent ASW platform....not too slow, long range. I will put her in my personal mod

[Terminus]

Take the aircraft facilities off and replace with a couple of DC throwers. She had no catapult, so would have been less than useful with a plane in an ASW convoy escort role.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Take the aircraft facilities off and replace with a couple of DC throwers. She had no catapult, so would have been less than useful with a plane in an ASW convoy escort role.

So trade the A/C facilities for DC throwers. Would you do like I did and also remove the aft 120mm for DC racks or additional throwers?

[Terminus]

Probably not. I can see two DCT's and two DCR's, along with the original 12cm weapons fit.

[Shark7]

Here is my take on it. Comments welcome.





PS, looks like I messed up my MVR rating, seems a bit high. Probably typo'ed it. [:-]

[Terminus]

Are you sure about the range? I read 8K NM at 16 knots, but thought it a bit high. Also, the displacement is too high; 1575 is full displacement, and you go into dock at normal displacement (in this case ~1400 tons). Docking calculations are what tonnage is used for.

[Shark7]

Well the info did come from Wikipedia...its great for some things, but always prone to innacuracies.

I'm thinking maybe 3k-4.5k range is more appropriate?

[Terminus]

I don't know. She was built to have a very economical power plant, and had three screws (rare for a ship this small) to aid in low-speed cruising. On the other hand, 8000 miles at 16 knots on 266 tons of diesel... Seems wrong somehow. Split the difference? 5K at 14 knots with 20 knots max speed.

[Dili]

Compare with Kaibokan ranges/fuel

[Terminus]

Solid point. She WAS basically one, after all. Just use the diesel-powered Kaibokans as reference.

[Shark7]

Well Kaikoban Type C is 6500 nm range at 15 knts on 200 fuel. Shimushu, which is of the same time period is 6000 nm on 150 tons of fuel at 16 knts by some online sources and in the editor as the team put it in, 8000 nm on 300 tons of fuel.

The difference was that Tsukushi was designed to 'cruise' on one shaft at 2.2 knts in order to actually carry out here survey functions.

From the sounds of it, 6500 to 8000nm on 250 tons of fuel at 15-16 knts is not all that unreasonable. Unless someone can come up with a more accurate set of stats?

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

She was originally left out because there was no way to show her role correctly.

This is one of the aspects which (sadly but understandably) has not been modelled in AE (or any other game of that kind). Many areas of the AE map were poorly charted, which affected operations. The lack of naval support and seaborne resupply during the Buna campaign for fear of risking ships in reef-infested and little-known waters comes to mind. It would be a nice addition to enforce some caution when planning bomardments and invasions and may slow-down operations a bit.

I was briefly toying with the idea to create a "reefs" mine device and poorly charted areas in form of minefields, with survey vessels modelled as MSW classes sweeping the minefields corresponding to surveying and charting. But then I figured this would not work in face of "minefield decay", the fact that any ship capable of minesweeping could do the "surveying", that small shallow-draft vessels like barges which would be able to operate in reef-infested areas would nevertheless be affected by those "reef mines", and the inability to modd proper in-game messages like "ship xy struck reef" and "charted channel through reef" instead of "hit mine" and "cleared path".

[Dili]

Note also this survey ship is a bit bigger 79x10.6x3.65 vs 77x9.1x3.05 so that should penalize its range. 1422t vs 955t http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikura_class_escort_ship for example.

Shark7 Note that type C have a much less powerful engine and also is tinier at 757t displacement.
From the data you posted i would doubt the values for Shimushu vs Type C. Type C should be more economical to operate of the two. The game data seems to be more logical. Shimishu was bigger ship. At 8000nm/300t makes 26.6nm/t while Type C at 6500nm/200t makes a 32.5nm/t . 6000nm/150 would make a way out of line at 40nm/t for Shimishu. For the survey ship i would put the consumption maybe at in low 20nm/t. More data about other ships will be helpful too. At 255t and say 23nm/t makes 5610nm.

[Shark7]

Aren't SWAG fun?

OK, I'll go with a close to 23nm/t by simply making it 550nm at 255 tons. Seems best at this point.

[Dili]

Scientific Wild Ass Guess? took me a while to found out [:D]

Btw i am sure a look at nm/t in ships and km/kg ranges of some airplanes will show some crazy impossible things. One of worse are the submarines and their capability to put fuel in ballast tanks making almost impossible to know how much fuel they really have to go range xxxxxx.

And there is also the fuel consumption while in harbor reducing the range maybe 5% ...

[Don Bowen]

So, anyone got any artwork.