Combined Historical Scenario - Ship Data

[Don Bowen]

Several Forum members are combining their efforts to produce a new scenario for War In the Pacific. This will be a full war scenario, based on the standard Scenario 15, with a possible extension into 1946. Attention will be paid to historical accuracy and detail. It has previously been referred to as “Ron Saueracker/Tankerace/Don Bowen's Mod“.

The scenario will be based on two “released” modified scenarios (Lemurs, Andrew Brown) and several others that have been completed for earlier WITP versions. It will feature a new map (Andrew Brown), tons of new artwork, many new ship classes and aircraft types, expanded Orders of Battle, and adjusted land unit Table of Organizations.
We hope to merge the best of everyone’s work to produce an accurate and playable scenario.

A number of threads are being opened to group comments in different areas (devices, aircraft, artwork, etc). Please post in the most applicable one.

Please post comments concerning Allied and Japanese Ship Classes in this thread.

[Don Bowen]

Does anyone have any reasonable idea how to calculate "fuel" for a coal-fired ship. I'm speaking of the "Fuel" parameter in the class section - usually fuel oil. I have the bunker capacities of the coal burners but no good idea of how to equate to oil. One ton of coal to one "unit" of fuel, 2 to 1, 4 to 1 ????

Is it even important??

Don

[2ndACR]

I would say 2 or 3-1. Coal is not the most effiecent fuel source.

[Tankerace]

For War Plan Orange, I have been using (depend upon the tyupe of ship) a 1.5 or 2 ratio, i.e if a ship has 500 tons of coal, then its in game fuel is 750 to 1000.

Also, I sometimes make their range a little shorter, to accomidate that coal burner rarely permormed up to specs.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

Does anyone have any reasonable idea how to calculate "fuel" for a coal-fired ship. I'm speaking of the "Fuel" parameter in the class section - usually fuel oil. I have the bunker capacities of the coal burners but no good idea of how to equate to oil. One ton of coal to one "unit" of fuel, 2 to 1, 4 to 1 ????

Is it even important??

Don

Given the rather rough calculation here given the variances in coal etc,what about simply comparing the ranges of the various USN BBs which converted from coal to oil.

[Tankerace]

In essence, the New Yorks and Arkansas are EXTREMELY short legged.

[Don Bowen]

Here is the first group of Japanese Merchant ships. Total of eight classes that represent a large number of ships built prior to 1930 and were still in service in World War II. Many of these ships are in the base scenario and will be re-classed. Others are new and will be added with priority going to biggest and most interesting.

Most of these ships were coal fired (notice the tall stacks for improved updraft). They will give the Japanese player a large number of choices for cargo carrying - lots of capacity, speed, endurance variations (and many more in the next group). There were large numbers of the smaller classes but we will only include a small sample.

I have the "side" icons done for all of these but have not yet done the "shil". EVERYTHING is open for discussion and comment.

[Don Bowen]

These are the Japanese Merchant ships build during the 1930s - the ones that were modern as of the start of the war. Some excellent ships here - note the high speeds. The very high endurance of some of these ships is correct - they were diesels.

Bangkok Maru and a few similiar ships were AMCs with minelaying capability and will be included as MLs - others as freighters using the same icon.

In addition, while working up this set of data I noticed that many of the large merchant ships converted into Seaplane Carriers were also diesel with very large endurance figures.

[Don Bowen]

Here are some assorted Japanese transports. This group does not include the large ex-liners (they're next) but has some very interesting ships. Very little data on endurance and did some estimating (all marked with * are estimates) - may need more work here. Also have no idea how to figure out capacity - something for later. There are also some obvious scaling problems with these icons (whoops) - I'll have to got back and fix them later or maybe a little after later.

Some of these ships will be very useful - good sized fast transports and small, medium ranged ones with decent speed.

I'd appreciate any information anyone might have on capacity of these ships!

See fixed display below

[Herrbear]

Great job.

[Don Bowen]

OK - here they are with the scaling problems fixed. Nothing else to do on a cold, rainy night.

[bstarr]

The early war US merchant fleet is too well armed. Due to neutrality laws at the beginning of the war only 14 US merchant vessels and 41 US owned but flying another flag (usually Panama) were armed. Needless to say, most (if not all) of these would be in the Atlantic. The ships were armed as quickly as possible, with close to half recieving arms by mid-42, but, there again, most of these were in the Atlantic. Also, many of the ships which were armed weren't up to WITP standards.

Of course, this isn't a huge issue, but seeing how much work is going into the Japanese Merchant fleet I figured I'd toss it y'alls way. I don't have any hard data on what the armaments were, but I do have a month by month listing of how many US merchant ships were armed.
bs

ps. My grandfather was a merchant marine and he once told me the about when his ship was finally fitted out. The navy came on board, installed one .50 cal on a walkway near the bridge, then left without giving anyone instructions on how to use it. Two weeks later Papa was in a life raft. This was the 1st of two he had sunk out from under him.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: bstarr

The early war US merchant fleet is too well armed. Due to neutrality laws at the beginning of the war only 14 US merchant vessels and 41 US owned but flying another flag (usually Panama) were armed. Needless to say, most (if not all) of these would be in the Atlantic. The ships were armed as quickly as possible, with close to half recieving arms by mid-42, but, there again, most of these were in the Atlantic. Also, many of the ships which were armed weren't up to WITP standards.

Of course, this isn't a huge issue, but seeing how much work is going into the Japanese Merchant fleet I figured I'd toss it y'alls way. I don't have any hard data on what the armaments were, but I do have a month by month listing of how many US merchant ships were armed.
bs

ps. My grandfather was a merchant marine and he once told me the about when his ship was finally fitted out. The navy came on board, installed one .50 cal on a walkway near the bridge, then left without giving anyone instructions on how to use it. Two weeks later Papa was in a life raft. This was the 1st of two he had sunk out from under him.

I have little information on the armament of merchant ships (of any nation) and would appreciate anything that you might have. Right now just planning on an original "lightly" armed version and a mid-war AA upgrade.

Don

[Tankerace]

As I understood it (from reading, not second hand experience like bstarr), Merchies were armed with whatever weapons were available at the time. So, if a Merchie was in a West Coast dockyard, or was being refitted, it would have say 3"/50 Mk 10, or 4"/50 Mk 9s. However, if It was at a quick stopover, it would have a 20mm or worse case a couple of ma-deuces bolted on.

So, transfer to a battleship! Course, I understand your pain though, my grandads ship (Mississippi) fought off Okinawa with the same style 5"/25 Mk 10s used at Pearl Harbor. If director controlled 5"/38s couldn't stop kamikazes, what the Hell is a 5"/25 supposed to do.

On that same note, I want to share this picture of the Mississippi with you.



During WW2, my grandfather was stationed in Turret II (B Turret). As he told me also, during an air attack he commanded a 20mm Gun Mount. I January 1945, off Lingayen, the Mississippi was hit by a kamikaze, which hit where the steel is bent above. My grandfather told me about that once, and he told me that he was 5 feet away when it hit, so my guess (assuming his story is correct), the 20mm mount I circled, or the one just below it was his. Freaky stuff.

[bstarr]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

As I understood it (from reading, not second hand experience like bstarr), Merchies were armed with whatever weapons were available at the time. So, if a Merchie was in a West Coast dockyard, or was being refitted, it would have say 3"/50 Mk 10, or 4"/50 Mk 9s. However, if It was at a quick stopover, it would have a 20mm or worse case a couple of ma-deuces bolted on.

So, transfer to a battleship! Course, I understand your pain though, my grandads ship (Mississippi) fought off Okinawa with the same style 5"/25 Mk 10s used at Pearl Harbor. If director controlled 5"/38s couldn't stop kamikazes, what the Hell is a 5"/25 supposed to do.

On that same note, I want to share this picture of the Mississippi with you.



During WW2, my grandfather was stationed in Turret II (B Turret). As he told me also, during an air attack he commanded a 20mm Gun Mount. I January 1945, off Lingayen, the Mississippi was hit by a kamikaze, which hit where the steel is bent above. My grandfather told me about that once, and he told me that he was 5 feet away when it hit, so my guess (assuming his story is correct), the 20mm mount I circled, or the one just below it was his. Freaky stuff.

VERY interesting. I've always wanted to research my grandfather's wartime career, but there's not much material on Merch Marines. Hell, I don't even know the names of the three ships he was on. According to my father one was sunk inside the Suez Canal, so I would think that one would be easy to find (it certainly couldn't have been a common occurance). But I've been unable to find anything.

Funny note - since they were unarmed, Papa said the crew used to wave at the enemy planes as they passed over after releasing their bombs (by the way, he served in the Med). Kinda along the lines of, "If we act friendly they won't come back and strafe us." The funny thing was, the Germans always waved back, or at least wagged their wings. And they never once strafed (not that he saw; historically it did happen occassionally).

[bstarr]

I'm at work; sources are at the house. I only have a month to month total of the ships that were armed by the navy. It's a start though.

Anyway, I've been itching to research the Merchant Marines. Kind of a family interst thing. I'll see if I can find anything else. It might be worth the effort to create several merchs that upgrade at different times, kinda like what the current scenario 15 does with US APDs.

[bstarr]

a Liberty ship weighed in at a little over 10000 tons and could carry about 7200 tons. So I reckon dividing the ship's tonnage by 70-75% should give a rough estimate of their capacity. Does that sound right?

I found a little more info, but I'm heading over to a friend's house for several beers. so the rest of my afternoon will be like this:

and then like this

and finally
[>:]

ps. One thing I did find was that WITP has Liberty ships nailed perfectly, armament and all.

try this site:
http://www.wwiitechpubs.info/dock/nv-us ... p-ftr.html

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: bstarr

a Liberty ship weighed in at a little over 10000 tons and could carry about 7200 tons. So I reckon dividing the ship's tonnage by 70-75% should give a rough estimate of their capacity. Does that sound right?

A merchant ship is rated based on two tonage figures:

Deadweight tons is the total weight of the ship with all cargo, stores, fuel, and crew. The 10,000 figure for a Liberty would be Deadweight tons (DWT).

Gross Registered Tons is a measurement of the enclosed spaces within a ship that are available for cargo, passengers, crew, stores, and fuel. Is it a space measurement, not weight, and equates to 100 cubic feet. I believe it is based on some archaic shipping container of that size and called a "tun". 7200 GRT is about right for a Liberty (USMC Type EC-2).

When assigning WITP capacity to I am currently using 90% of GRT. May have to re-think this as Matrix appears to have used straight GRT for the Libertys.

ps. One thing I did find was that WITP has Liberty ships nailed perfectly, armament and all.

Oh Yes - Matrix did an excellent job on research. Only the occasional small error is found from time to time. For me, however, they over-generalized merchant and naval auxiliary classes. The also left out whole groups of ships, possibly for lack of time or research sources. We're adjusting that!

[bstarr]

I did some research, but came up with a blank on hard data for early war US merchant ship’s armament. All I found out was that Liberty ships and other allies (already at war) are correct as far as armament is concerned. I also found classes of late are US Navy merchant and transport ships, APA Haskell Class, APA Gilliam Class, APA Bayfield Class, AKA Tolland Class, AKA Artemis Class, AKA Andromeda Class, AK Alamosa Class. I’ve got a full list of which ships belong in these classes, but I need to research a little more to see how they would translate into WITP. I also have an idea for solving the Merchant armament problem using more generic AKs, APs, etc (ex. instead of 2 types of generic merchants, there would be at least 5 or 6 and probably some that evolve into the same ship at different times, like the US APDs)

Anyway, here’s the chart I promised. I don’t know if it really helps other than to point out the fact that US Merchant ships weren’t armed at the beginning of the war, and that this armament was very gradual.

One more thing: I wonder if they fixed the glitch that prevented an undamaged ship from repairing a damaged component - you know, the Colorado radar issue. This would help a lot since the initial ship could simply have all its guns damaged.)

* * *

Merchant Ships fitted out by the U.S. navy in early WWII

As of* / U.S. Flag / U.S. Owned, foreign flag
Dec 1941 / 14 / (41)**
Jan 1942 / 71(25) / (41)
Feb / 176(44) / 8 (54)
March / 323 (74) / 43 (56)
April / 499 / 74
May / 722 / 94
June / 924 / 140
July / 1080 / 159
August / 1236 / 175
Sept / 1328 / 185
Oct / 1436 / 192
Nov / 1518 / 205
Dec / 1607 / 206
Jan 1943 / 1697 / 221
Feb / 1804 / 225
March / 1933 / 227

*The chart actually read "as of" then it had the final day of that month. So "as of Dec 1941" means they were were fitted out in December 1941, not before Dec 1941.

**Numbers in parenthesis are ships which received guns, but no naval gun crews. The merchant marines were expected to man these guns themselves.

Chart from appendices of
“History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume I”, Samuel Morison

As you can see they are fitting out about 100 to 150 ships per month (it’s a cumulative chart). Morison states that with the outbreak of the war (and therefore the relaxing of the neutrality laws prohibiting arming merchant ships) several ship owners also acquired smaller AA guns in the form of .30s and .50s. These were installed before the navy got around to fitting out the ship.

[Don Bowen]

Does anyone have any advice on the Maneuver and Durability values for merchant ship classes??

These are the values from the base scenario (15):

.........Maneuver - Durability
Large AP......50 - 25
Medium AP...60 - 20
Small AP.......70 - 10

Large AK......60 - 20
Small AK......70 - 10

I am creating some 3 dozen classes that span this range and extent above and below (from very large to very small). Other than some kind of proration, does anyone know of any formula (or min and max limits)??