Task force shows short of fuel, but it really isn't

[JohnDillworth]

I have the Queen Elizabeth at Nouema. Her home port is Aden. I want to send troops to Brisbane. I add 2 DD's to her to form a task force. The DD's assume that their home port is Aden, and therefore there fuel shows red. The whole task force proceeds and 1 hex at a time, even though it has plenty of fuel to get to Brisbane. How to fix?

[davidjruss]

John ,

Just set the TF 's Home Port to Brisbane (or Noumea if the TF is making a round trip and the DD's have enough endurance ).

The Home port is just for setting the final destination of the TF after it completes its task. So if Brisbane is shown as the Home Port the vessels will remain in Brisbane , if another Port is shown as the Home port then the TF will sail for this port after unloading ( always assuming they have enough endurance )

Section 6.2 of the manual states that a TF's home base defaults to where it was created - John if you created the TF in Noumea then the QE should have shown its Home Base as Noumea and any DD's attched to the QE would calculate their fuel / endurance from this base.

DavidR

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

I have the Queen Elizabeth at Nouema. Her home port is Aden. I want to send troops to Brisbane. I add 2 DD's to her to form a task force. The DD's assume that their home port is Aden, and therefore there fuel shows red. The whole task force proceeds and 1 hex at a time, even though it has plenty of fuel to get to Brisbane. How to fix?

Don't escort her. The Queens were fast enough that the chance of a successful submarine torpedo attack was about nil.

[John Lansford]

I've had several Jap subs take a shot at QEII and miss every time, especially along the WC as she heads for Seattle or SF.  While I realize the chance of her getting hit is very low, I still panic and wait anxiously for the "torpedoes miss" announcement every time one of them gets her in the periscope sights...
 
Escorting QEII with DD's is a waste of fuel; they have to travel at full speed to keep up with her so their range is very limited.  QEII ferried thousands of men to England in the war without ever getting hit even though she was never escorted.

[Gilbert]

ORIGINAL: herwin

Don't escort her. The Queens were fast enough that the chance of a successful submarine torpedo attack was about nil.

[&:]Not really. There was an exception with Barham's sinking by U-331 on 25 Nov.1941 in the Med.[;)]

Gilbert

[John Lansford]

Gilbert,
 
He's talking about the QEII, not the battleships.  QEII has a cruising speed of around 30 knots, Barham not so fast.

[Gilbert]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Gilbert,

He's talking about the QEII, not the battleships.  QEII has a cruising speed of around 30 knots, Barham not so fast.

Oops. Sorry, I stand corrected and fully agree with his opinion. Liners were just too fast for WW2 subs[:D]. However, in WW1 Lusitania...[;)]

Gilbert

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Gilbert

ORIGINAL: herwin

Don't escort her. The Queens were fast enough that the chance of a successful submarine torpedo attack was about nil.

[&:]Not really. There was an exception with Barham's sinking by U-331 on 25 Nov.1941 in the Med.[;)]

Gilbert

The Barham was a QE class BB, making about 15 knots at the time of the attack. I was writing about the MS QE and QM, which cruised at 28 knots.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Gilbert,

He's talking about the QEII, not the battleships.  QEII has a cruising speed of around 30 knots, Barham not so fast.

QE, not QEII.

[JohnDillworth]

Folks,
Your missing the point.  It doesn not have to be the QE.  Any task force is goingto calculate it's fuel usage behavior on it's hom port.  So if my home port is San Diego, and I am going from Brisbane to Sydney the task force acts as it is converving fuel to get back to San diego.  In the example above I know I would lose the DD's at Brisbane whilst the QE would go on to Aden, but the task force tokk like 14 turns to get from Noumea to Brisbane just because it's home port was Aden.  It never assumed the DD's might drop of or refule

[John Lansford]

The value is based on a return trip to the home port; if the ship doesn't have endurance to return without refueling, it will be red.  I've sent many ships from Seattle or SF to Pearl with red endurance values, I just set them to stay on station when they reach Pearl and had no trouble at all.  As long as the smallest ship has enough endurance to make the first leg of the trip I don't really worry about it.

[Justascratch]

Just as a side on this issue.

If the task force has a ship capable of refueling other ships at sea, will this capability be factored in by the program when it determines duration for the task force?

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Justascratch

Just as a side on this issue.

If the task force has a ship capable of refueling other ships at sea, will this capability be factored in by the program when it determines duration for the task force?

No Sir.

[John Lansford]

It appears that the routine calculates each ship's ability to reach the destination and return to home port individually, regardless of whether they are to stay on station at the destinaton or not.  For most ships that's not a problem, but when you've got some short range minesweepers or Allied DD's in the TF you've got to go to the individual ship screen to see if they can get to the destination without refueling or not.  I think WitP was the same way.