More Merchie Fun Facts

[JWE]

More “merchie fun facts”, dealing with what was produced in the war period, both in terms of tonnage and what that meant in terms of individual ship capability. Data from Kindai Nihon yuso shi, Sempaku kenzoryo; MITI, IEA – ILE, Ueda, 71-Chome, Nagano.

1942 – 81 ships totaling 242,700 grt: 3,000 gross register tons per ship average.
1943 – 238 ships totaling 664,000 grt: 2,790 gross register tons per ship average.
1944 – 675 ships totaling 1,632,400 grt: 2,420 gross register tons per ship average.
1945 – 187 ships totaling 555,200 grt: 2,970 gross register tons per ship average.

1942 – 73 cargo ships totaling 222,400 grt: 3,050 gross register tons per ship average.
1942 – 8 tankers totaling 20,300 grt: 2,500 gross register tons per ship average.

1943 – 178 cargo ships totaling 397,900 grt: 2,240 gross register tons per ship average.
1943 – 58 tankers totaling 266,100 grt: 4,590 gross register tons per ship average.

1944 – 463 cargo ships totaling 958,500 grt: 2,070 gross register tons per ship average.
1944 – 211 tankers totaling 673,900 grt: 3,190 gross register tons per ship average.

1945 – 156 cargo ships totaling 455,800 grt: 2,920 gross register tons per ship average.
1945 – 30 tankers totaling 99,400 grt: 3,310 gross register tons per ship average.

As a means of dialing it in, a 3,000 gross ton average can be viewed as one 6,000 GrT ship and three 2,000 GrT ships. To put it in perspective, a fast/large pre-war Japanese merchant ship, measured out at 9,000 – 10,200 GrT, a pre-war (1920) US Hog Islander or Harriman measured out at 7,500 – 8,200 GrT, a Liberty (EC2) ship measured out at 10,000 GrT, and a typical US C2 Cargo vessel measured out at 9,700 GrT. A C3 AKA measured out at 12,000 GrT.

Another way of dialing it in is to consider that a 2,000 GrT ship could carry about 1,250 metric tons of cargo (overloaded). A 10,000 GrT ship could carry about 8,000 metric tons (overloaded). For 5 of smaller vessels, that’s 6250 tons vs 8000 tons for 1 of the larger: there is definitely an economy of scale.

This was not choice on the part of the Japanese. They simply did not have the yard space available to construct the larger ship types in the quantities required.

So, for you modders, what you get is a few (a very few) capable vessels, and a whole lot of ‘dinkies’ that were basically sub-bait.

[el cid again]

Tonnage is quite a tricky idea. See AKWarriors comments on the matter. A merchant sailor, he collects and analyses data on it. If you count deck cargo, and want (as Joe Wilkerson, a mathmetician, recommends) to convert everything to weight (vice space), because we basically use weight type tons for everything else, you need to calculate using a conversion from grt. This turns out to be different for each class, and generally different for different types of ships. But - if memory serves - a typical AK comes in around 80-85% of the grt in terms of actual weight of cargo it can carry. That isn't apparent in your comments above.

Japan does have the yard space to build numbers of larger merchant ships than it did. Further, JF Dunnigan thinks gamers are wise to use it that way - but it is not popular advice. What I (and he) are talking about is using the big naval and commercial yards that built major warships. Lots of vessels took huge amounts of time (and steel) - and many were not even completed. Building simpler merchants faster would be a much wiser investment. So far the focus of WITP has been on representing what was built - but ideally players (and modders already) can build alternate scenarios. As long as you LOSE major warships you can have more merchant ships. And if you want Japan to do better - you better do that. Dunnigan is right - what Japan needs is more transport and minor escorts for it - not glamorous battleships (especially), cruisers, carriers, etc. Lift (and protecting lift) is a fundamental componant of increasing production itself - because if you don't lift resources and oil - industry won't run. But so far most mods are not really interested in the unglamorous logistical side of the war.

Another issue we have no good way to address is captured tonnage. This was significant in the expansion phase of the war, and code does not let us get those ships. It seems wrong to put in a ship twice - and it is equally as wrong not to put in a ship that really did change sides. We have a few of them - Aramis - just sitting in Saigon - turns up in all forms of WITP under her Japanese name. In RHS we have ships like Scharnhorst as well. [No - not the battlecruiser - the liner]
But how to fix this problem no one has yet figured out. Best would be code allowing capture in some conditions.

Finally, allow me to say that a small ship is not a bad thing. In particular, for Japan, with short range applications, including crossing the Sea of Japan, and running to Shanghai, Tientsin, Dairen, Formosa - and all those islands of SE Asia - small ships are BETTER than big ones. It is UNWISE to run big ships IF you can get equal tonnage on small ones - over any short distance. It makes the job of stopping the cargo much harder if it is in more packages. Similarly, more smaller ships are better OFFENSIVELY - and it is at the heart of WWII era amphibious doctrine in all countries - provided you have a short enough run. "Dinky" is not a bad thing. And - note - the US built LOTS of "dinky" AKs, TKs, etc. [A famous movie - Mr Roberts - is set on a very tiny USN AK - much smaller than your average small Japanese AK - because they ARE useful] Far from being "sub bait" - the smaller a ship is - the harder it is to hit it with a torpedo. And if you have more small targets for any given lift quantity, it is HARDER for the subs (or planes or PT boats) to stop them all. You have this more or less backwards. Instead of being "sub bait" small ships are a good deal BETTER in contested waters - and Japan deliberately used very small vessels forward - including those too small to show - because we could not (and did not) stop them all.

I am a loggie doggie (US Army slang for logistics type person) at heart. I particularly like getting ships right. I went to a lot of trouble to address both "AKs to burn" and "no need to ship oil/resources/fuel/supplies" in WITP. But lets not misunderstand what is good and what is bad. A wartime Japan SHOULD use its 1200 tiny boatyards to build smaller vessels in addition to its 120 shipyards - most of which don't build big ships either. And the bigger yards SHOULD build more transports than they did.

A problem in the game is that we don't let players choose - except this way: you may suspend construction of this and you will get more of unsuspended ships if you do. Modders should put in "too many" ships and let players who do not suspend construction NEVER GET the later ships (a lot like IRL - take a look at Unryu class carriers - not one entered service - only three completed - in spite of being a large class - things will stack up at the end if you don't suspend things - and suspending a battleship is a way to get a lot of points into smaller ships - IF they are in the mod).

FYI Japan made too many auxiliaries from merchant ships - some historians say they were amazingly willing to requisition transport - and it probably would be smarter to have fewer auxiliaries and more working transports.

[JWE]

This is raw data developed for the general modding community. If it doesn't fit into your RHS philosophy, then too bad; go elsewhere.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Tonnage is quite a tricky idea. See AKWarriors comments on the matter. A merchant sailor, he collects and analyses data on it. If you count deck cargo, and want (as Joe Wilkerson, a mathmetician, recommends) to convert everything to weight (vice space), because we basically use weight type tons for everything else, you need to calculate using a conversion from grt. This turns out to be different for each class, and generally different for different types of ships. But - if memory serves - a typical AK comes in around 80-85% of the grt in terms of actual weight of cargo it can carry. That isn't apparent in your comments above.

Tonnage is not tricky: if all you do is look at the internet, then maybe you are correct. But if you understand shipping, it is relatively easy to get “real” cargo deadweight figures from the shipping companies and the building yards. The GrT vs CDwT figures are quite accurate averages across thousands of vessels, utilizing 1943 MIT Marine Architectural standards, as well as US Maritime Commission Specifications and the building records of Mutsubishi Jokisen Kaisha.

Japan does have the yard space to build numbers of larger merchant ships than it did. Further, JF Dunnigan thinks gamers are wise to use it that way - but it is not popular advice. What I (and he) are talking about is using the big naval and commercial yards that built major warships. Lots of vessels took huge amounts of time (and steel) - and many were not even completed. Building simpler merchants faster would be a much wiser investment. So far the focus of WITP has been on representing what was built - but ideally players (and modders already) can build alternate scenarios. As long as you LOSE major warships you can have more merchant ships. And if you want Japan to do better - you better do that. Dunnigan is right - what Japan needs is more transport and minor escorts for it - not glamorous battleships (especially), cruisers, carriers, etc. Lift (and protecting lift) is a fundamental componant of increasing production itself - because if you don't lift resources and oil - industry won't run. But so far most mods are not really interested in the unglamorous logistical side of the war.

Japan does not have the yard space. Period. Mitsubishi was so concerned, that it attempted to purchase the equivalent of 17 acres adjacent to its Kobe yard for Yen 7.3B. The offer was rejected by the inhabitants and the rejection was confirmed by the Imperial Transport and Economics Ministry. Mitsubishi was constrained to convert three 500’ slipways into five 300’ slipways in order to meet the quantity requirements of ITEM; making the construction of large merchant vessels problematic. FYI, Kaiser, Richmond was 344 acres.

Another issue we have no good way to address is captured tonnage. This was significant in the expansion phase of the war, and code does not let us get those ships. It seems wrong to put in a ship twice - and it is equally as wrong not to put in a ship that really did change sides. We have a few of them - Aramis - just sitting in Saigon - turns up in all forms of WITP under her Japanese name. In RHS we have ships like Scharnhorst as well. [No - not the battlecruiser - the liner]
But how to fix this problem no one has yet figured out. Best would be code allowing capture in some conditions.

I’m not interested in your code. This is for modders, and it is directed to Japanese merchant ship construction in 1942 – 1945.

Finally, allow me to say that a small ship is not a bad thing. In particular, for Japan, with short range applications, including crossing the Sea of Japan, and running to Shanghai, Tientsin, Dairen, Formosa - and all those islands of SE Asia - small ships are BETTER than big ones. It is UNWISE to run big ships IF you can get equal tonnage on small ones - over any short distance. It makes the job of stopping the cargo much harder if it is in more packages. Similarly, more smaller ships are better OFFENSIVELY - and it is at the heart of WWII era amphibious doctrine in all countries - provided you have a short enough run. "Dinky" is not a bad thing. And - note - the US built LOTS of "dinky" AKs, TKs, etc. [A famous movie - Mr Roberts - is set on a very tiny USN AK - much smaller than your average small Japanese AK - because they ARE useful] Far from being "sub bait" - the smaller a ship is - the harder it is to hit it with a torpedo. And if you have more small targets for any given lift quantity, it is HARDER for the subs (or planes or PT boats) to stop them all. You have this more or less backwards. Instead of being "sub bait" small ships are a good deal BETTER in contested waters - and Japan deliberately used very small vessels forward - including those too small to show - because we could not (and did not) stop them all.

If you think small ships are better than larger ones, you have a very different understanding of shipping imperatives than me, or any US, Brit, Dutch, Japanese, ... , ... , ... , shipping executive.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

"Dinky" is not a bad thing. And - note - the US built LOTS of "dinky" AKs, TKs, etc. [A famous movie - Mr Roberts - is set on a very tiny USN AK - much smaller than your average small Japanese AK - because they ARE useful] Far from being "sub bait" - the smaller a ship is - the harder it is to hit it with a torpedo.

Mister Roberts was a Hollywood movie. The ship depicted therein was a USMC C1-M type. The C1-M was constrained, by regulation, to operate in Zone-3, or below, areas, because of their inherent lack of capability.

Your C1-M was half again larger than the average of the entire Japanese merchant construction from 1942 through 1945.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

This is raw data developed for the general modding community. If it doesn't fit into your RHS philosophy, then too bad; go elsewhere.

EDIT: I don't want people misled.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Tonnage is quite a tricky idea. See AKWarriors comments on the matter. A merchant sailor, he collects and analyses data on it. If you count deck cargo, and want (as Joe Wilkerson, a mathmetician, recommends) to convert everything to weight (vice space), because we basically use weight type tons for everything else, you need to calculate using a conversion from grt. This turns out to be different for each class, and generally different for different types of ships. But - if memory serves - a typical AK comes in around 80-85% of the grt in terms of actual weight of cargo it can carry. That isn't apparent in your comments above.

EDIT: See AKWarrior. You are confused here. Deadweight is NOT cargo weight. And a dwt rating from a shipping company does NOT include deck cargo. If you don't get technical about this stuff, you won't get it right.

Tonnage is not tricky: if all you do is look at the internet, then maybe you are correct. But if you understand shipping, it is relatively easy to get “real” cargo deadweight figures from the shipping companies and the building yards. The GrT vs CDwT figures are quite accurate averages across thousands of vessels, utilizing 1943 MIT Marine Architectural standards, as well as US Maritime Commission Specifications and the building records of Mutsubishi Jokisen Kaisha.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Japan does have the yard space to build numbers of larger merchant ships than it did. Further, JF Dunnigan thinks gamers are wise to use it that way - but it is not popular advice. What I (and he) are talking about is using the big naval and commercial yards that built major warships. Lots of vessels took huge amounts of time (and steel) - and many were not even completed. Building simpler merchants faster would be a much wiser investment. So far the focus of WITP has been on representing what was built - but ideally players (and modders already) can build alternate scenarios. As long as you LOSE major warships you can have more merchant ships. And if you want Japan to do better - you better do that. Dunnigan is right - what Japan needs is more transport and minor escorts for it - not glamorous battleships (especially), cruisers, carriers, etc. Lift (and protecting lift) is a fundamental componant of increasing production itself - because if you don't lift resources and oil - industry won't run. But so far most mods are not really interested in the unglamorous logistical side of the war.

In a sense, you are quite right: Japan is almost all mountains; Japan has a big population. There is very little suitable space for industrial activities and almost all of it was already utilized: not all of it because yards were both built and expanded, but most of it. But what you have got wrong is that the yards that exist (or are built and/or expand) cannot build something different than they did. You also have got wrong that they could not have spent less time idle - or almost idle - due to lack of funding or materials or power. Use the space more of the time, you get more ships. Use it for merchants instead of something like Ibuki - which never did sail - and you get something you can use.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Another issue we have no good way to address is captured tonnage. This was significant in the expansion phase of the war, and code does not let us get those ships. It seems wrong to put in a ship twice - and it is equally as wrong not to put in a ship that really did change sides. We have a few of them - Aramis - just sitting in Saigon - turns up in all forms of WITP under her Japanese name. In RHS we have ships like Scharnhorst as well. [No - not the battlecruiser - the liner]
But how to fix this problem no one has yet figured out. Best would be code allowing capture in some conditions.

I’m not interested in your code. This is for modders, and it is directed to Japanese merchant ship construction in 1942 – 1945.

It is not MY code. It is the game code. And if you have no interest in it, you cannot model accurately - which I thought was your intent. It is certainly what modders are interested in.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Finally, allow me to say that a small ship is not a bad thing. In particular, for Japan, with short range applications, including crossing the Sea of Japan, and running to Shanghai, Tientsin, Dairen, Formosa - and all those islands of SE Asia - small ships are BETTER than big ones. It is UNWISE to run big ships IF you can get equal tonnage on small ones - over any short distance. It makes the job of stopping the cargo much harder if it is in more packages. Similarly, more smaller ships are better OFFENSIVELY - and it is at the heart of WWII era amphibious doctrine in all countries - provided you have a short enough run. "Dinky" is not a bad thing. And - note - the US built LOTS of "dinky" AKs, TKs, etc. [A famous movie - Mr Roberts - is set on a very tiny USN AK - much smaller than your average small Japanese AK - because they ARE useful] Far from being "sub bait" - the smaller a ship is - the harder it is to hit it with a torpedo. And if you have more small targets for any given lift quantity, it is HARDER for the subs (or planes or PT boats) to stop them all. You have this more or less backwards. Instead of being "sub bait" small ships are a good deal BETTER in contested waters - and Japan deliberately used very small vessels forward - including those too small to show - because we could not (and did not) stop them all.

If you think small ships are better than larger ones, you have a very different understanding of shipping imperatives than me, or any US, Brit, Dutch, Japanese, ... , ... , ... , shipping executive.

I grant you MY experience is as an amphib sailor. And it is quite different to worry about wartime shipping than about corporate profits. If you don't have to worry about sub or air attack, bigger ships are more efficient. If you do have to worry about them - or if you must assault in range of defended enemy shores - then you do not want bigger ships. I am sorry if you lack the ability to respect this information - but it doesn't make you right to denegrate little ships. IF they were of no use, why all the WARTIME production (of tiny transports and tankers) for USN???

[el cid again]

There were large numbers of very small vessels built for wartime use - and they would not have done if they had no value. It does not matter what the mission is - it is still contributing to the war effort. And if you think about it - you have to admit that vast numbers of amphibious craft were built for very forward use indeed. If big ships were all that were needed, APAs and LSDs and such would be all we made.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

EDIT: See AKWarrior. You are confused here. Deadweight is NOT cargo weight. And a dwt rating from a shipping company does NOT include deck cargo. If you don't get technical about this stuff, you won't get it right.

I am not confused. You are.

I did not say deadweight (DwT), I said CDwT. Net Cargo Deadweight is a quantity known to Naval Architects; it is that quantity that can be loaded onto a vessel to "summer, salt, NA Plimsol" before she sinks. That obviously includes hold cargo, deep tank cargo, deck cargo and the Captain's kitty litter. Any sophmore naval architecture student can calculate the overload parameters with a pencil and paper (don't even need a calculator) for sea state, salinity, temperature and range for any overload conditions.

A CDwT from a shipping company is what the ship will carry; no matter where you want to stick it. It very definitely does include deck cargo. It is much more technical than even this, but it involves math and a degree of prior technical education.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

There were large numbers of very small vessels built for wartime use - and they would not have done if they had no value. It does not matter what the mission is - it is still contributing to the war effort. And if you think about it - you have to admit that vast numbers of amphibious craft were built for very forward use indeed. If big ships were all that were needed, APAs and LSDs and such would be all we made.

This is a thread of raw data for modders, so that they may develop their own scenarios in conformance with what was done.

This is not a thread for development of sydneys views on small vs large ships, nor is it a thread for development of sydneys views on the applicability of his rhs.

If this is not conducive to sydney, I invite him to butt out.

[JWE]

As is your wont, you confuse and obfuscate issues by inserting your peculiarities into anything that appears in this sub forum. If you can't understand and keep to the original premis, then start your own GD thread, and keep the hell out of someone elses.

ORIGINAL: el cid again
I grant you MY experience is as an amphib sailor.

Well bully for you.

And it is quite different to worry about wartime shipping than about corporate profits. If you don't have to worry about sub or air attack, bigger ships are more efficient. If you do have to worry about them - or if you must assault in range of defended enemy shores - then you do not want bigger ships.

Tell that to the shipping/military sealift community.

I am sorry if you lack the ability to respect this information - but it doesn't make you right to denegrate little ships. IF they were of no use, why all the WARTIME production (of tiny transports and tankers) for USN???

What are you, some TV junkie - expect me to what? "Respect the Bing"?. This has nothing to do with respect. It has to do with capability and appreciation. I am sorry if you don't get it.

Best thing you can do is move this discussion elsewhere because it has no place here.

[JWE]

I'll accept and respond to this on its merits because it is, in a sense, on point.

ORIGINAL: el cid again
In a sense, you are quite right: Japan is almost all mountains; Japan has a big population. There is very little suitable space for industrial activities and almost all of it was already utilized: not all of it because yards were both built and expanded, but most of it. But what you have got wrong is that the yards that exist (or are built and/or expand) cannot build something different than they did. You also have got wrong that they could not have spent less time idle - or almost idle - due to lack of funding or materials or power. Use the space more of the time, you get more ships. Use it for merchants instead of something like Ibuki - which never did sail - and you get something you can use.

Nobody ever said anything about idle percentages. Once again, you put words in peoples mouths to fit your pathology.

Mitsu & everybody else busted their hump to build to requirements. Requirements were for large/fast vessels. Mitsu & everybody else told IJGHQ and IMTED that it just couldn't be done (you can't build a 500' ship on a 300' siding, duh). Mitsu & everybody else didn't have the space, materials, technology, organization or adminsitration, to embark on a "victory" program like we did. The point of the post was to note ... are you ready?? ... are you sure?? ... cause here it comes!!

there .. wasn't .. enuf .. space .. to .. expand .. shipyards .. without .. truncating .. sidings .. !

Wow, I hope that was clear.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again

EDIT: See AKWarrior. You are confused here. Deadweight is NOT cargo weight. And a dwt rating from a shipping company does NOT include deck cargo. If you don't get technical about this stuff, you won't get it right.

I am not confused. You are.

I did not say deadweight (DwT), I said CDwT. Net Cargo Deadweight is a quantity known to Naval Architects; it is that quantity that can be loaded onto a vessel to "summer, salt, NA Plimsol" before she sinks. That obviously includes hold cargo, deep tank cargo, deck cargo and the Captain's kitty litter. Any sophmore naval architecture student can calculate the overload parameters with a pencil and paper (don't even need a calculator) for sea state, salinity, temperature and range for any overload conditions.

A CDwT from a shipping company is what the ship will carry; no matter where you want to stick it. It very definitely does include deck cargo. It is much more technical than even this, but it involves math and a degree of prior technical education.

OK - I stand corrected. You did not mean dwt after all. So your original statement turns out to be false: CDwT is not readily available - I assumed you must be misreading it as dwt because that IS readily available. After more than 50 years - and a gigantic collection of materials on these matters - I am not misled - but rather am frustrated - by your allegation this sort of information is "easily obtainable" - and in particular from shipping companies. What shipping companies? The vast majority do not exist. Nor do the yards. And I have been to the yards. On the Japanese side very few records survive: they burned in firestorms, were destroyed by orders, or were not preserved for lack of funding to preserve them in the main.

I am the person you allege you want to help: a modder. Modders (and simulators - I am one of those too) use % from typical vessels because (a) it is the best we can do in most cases and (b) it is much more time efficient than running down the numbers for every vessel IF that was possible.

I would love you to be right however: go ahead - if you are right - do this "easy" task and post these values - instead of grt that you did post - a legal concept of space not very useful to us. And since it is so easy, do it for every class on both sides. I assure you - if you can do it - and show you didn't make up the numbers - we will use it. IRL I don't think we have enough information - even in wonderful collections of line drawings and specifications - to work this out for most of the ships of that era. And I collect them from Polish, Russian, American, Japanese and German materials.

[el cid again]

You also might want to think about ports too small for large ships. There is a reason that - in peace and war - small ships are built. In ADDITION to their military virtues - small ships can go places large ones cannot. The military virtues of small ships include

a) They are difficult (sometimes virtually impossible) to torpedo. [Consider the attack on Yorktown: total four shots fired, two shots of two torpedoes with 2 degree spreads. One went wide of both the CV and her escorting DD. Two passed under the DD and hit the CV. One hit the DD. That is SOP - a relatively small ship may not even be hit by a torpedo, and it tends to waste torpedoes to try.]

b) For any given total volume of cargo, it is safer to deliver it in many small packages than one large one, provided the smaller ship can reach the destination. The enemy must sink ALL the packages to get all the cargo in either case - but it is always harder to sink several times as many targets. [This is the reason amphibous landings wanted to have vast numbers of tiny packages like LCVP, LCM, LCanything - supplimented by large numbers of small packages like LSM, LSI, LST - it was hoped to make it impossible to get most of the cargo by putting it on too many targets to sink]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

OK - I stand corrected. You did not mean dwt after all. So your original statement turns out to be false: CDwT is not readily available - I assumed you must be misreading it as dwt because that IS readily available. After more than 50 years - and a gigantic collection of materials on these matters - I am not misled - but rather am frustrated - by your allegation this sort of information is "easily obtainable" - and in particular from shipping companies. What shipping companies? The vast majority do not exist. Nor do the yards. And I have been to the yards. On the Japanese side very few records survive: they burned in firestorms, were destroyed by orders, or were not preserved for lack of funding to preserve them in the main.

CDwT is quite readily available, if you know where, and how, to look. It’s not on the internet (but well could be, for all I know), nor is it in the glossy war-books.

As of 1903, the International Maritime Convention mandated identification of ships by their gross (and net) registered tonnages, for purposes of insurance, toll regulation and convenience. Thus the universal designation of vessels by their GRT in record compilations. It has nothing to do with actual capacity planning or cargo carrying capability. This is the province of mercantile professionals.

The superficial auditor will find their information characterized in terms of the various registered tonnage values. This is sufficient for superficial evaluations of the relative capabilities of a mass of individually distinct vessels, but .

You clearly have the typical civilian understanding of merchant ship design, capacity analysis, and build-to-route imperatives, so the next couple posts will be in the form of a primer, so that you might gain a basic understanding of the concepts. In fact, since it is OT from the original premise, I think it would be fun to run it as a thread of its own, so …

Just fyi sidney, although my grad degrees in Physics are from MIT, all my off-scale courses were in the School of Naval Architecture. I am an internationally recognized sailboat racer, member of two US Olympic Teams and, imvho, recognized as a contributory consultant to high performance, monohull, planform designs. You will find me in the small print of Americas Cup designers. My student copies of Marchaj, Pincus and Talbot are at my bedside, along with my Holland and Kimura. Please don’t assume I don’t know my valuations.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: JWE
This was not choice on the part of the Japanese. They simply did not have the yard space available to construct the larger ship types in the quantities required.

Much of this was also due to the Japanese lack of capacity in marine engine construction..., especially in large marine engine construction.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: JWE
This was not choice on the part of the Japanese. They simply did not have the yard space available to construct the larger ship types in the quantities required.

Much of this was also due to the Japanese lack of capacity in marine engine construction..., especially in large marine engine construction.

Absolutely, Mike.

[JWE]

woops, bump

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again

OK - I stand corrected. You did not mean dwt after all. So your original statement turns out to be false: CDwT is not readily available - I assumed you must be misreading it as dwt because that IS readily available. After more than 50 years - and a gigantic collection of materials on these matters - I am not misled - but rather am frustrated - by your allegation this sort of information is "easily obtainable" - and in particular from shipping companies. What shipping companies? The vast majority do not exist. Nor do the yards. And I have been to the yards. On the Japanese side very few records survive: they burned in firestorms, were destroyed by orders, or were not preserved for lack of funding to preserve them in the main.

CDwT is quite readily available, if you know where, and how, to look. It’s not on the internet (but well could be, for all I know), nor is it in the glossy war-books.

As of 1903, the International Maritime Convention mandated identification of ships by their gross (and net) registered tonnages, for purposes of insurance, toll regulation and convenience. Thus the universal designation of vessels by their GRT in record compilations. It has nothing to do with actual capacity planning or cargo carrying capability. This is the province of mercantile professionals.

The superficial auditor will find their information characterized in terms of the various registered tonnage values. This is sufficient for superficial evaluations of the relative capabilities of a mass of individually distinct vessels, but .

You clearly have the typical civilian understanding of merchant ship design, capacity analysis, and build-to-route imperatives, so the next couple posts will be in the form of a primer, so that you might gain a basic understanding of the concepts. In fact, since it is OT from the original premise, I think it would be fun to run it as a thread of its own, so …

Just fyi sidney, although my grad degrees in Physics are from MIT, all my off-scale courses were in the School of Naval Architecture. I am an internationally recognized sailboat racer, member of two US Olympic Teams and, imvho, recognized as a contributory consultant to high performance, monohull, planform designs. You will find me in the small print of Americas Cup designers. My student copies of Marchaj, Pincus and Talbot are at my bedside, along with my Holland and Kimura. Please don’t assume I don’t know my valuations.

Jeez Louise, JWEly you forgot to add to your qualifications that you are also an extremely rude person. I have rarely seen Sid respond in the manner you have chosen to do so here. Is Sid an egotistical know-it-all? Well yes, but he has given countless hours to this game and I don't think its been to his own enrichment. Lighten up dude (or maybe that should be dud). You are obviously a very intelligent person BUT, it doesn't have to go to your head and make you so damn rude when you are questioned.