Maintaining Fuel Supplies In Australia

[NAVMAN]

Hi All:
Currently playing scen 7(Quiet China w/ 12/8 start) as Allies. I am having no success at all
in maintaining fuel in Australia. Brisbane, Sidney, etc all have zero(0) fuel even though
I keep running in tankers and setting fuel stockpile to "on". No prob with supplies.
I am in 7/42.
Can anyone suggest a course of action? This has effectively immobilized my naval
units.

Thx.

[EUBanana]

It's a bleedin' nightmare. The Australian industry is sucking up all your fuel is whats happening. AFAIK you can't turn it off unless there's been a patch made. So the bottom line is, if you want to have fuel in a base connected to the Australian infrastructure network you need to keep shipping masses of the stuff over or it all gets gobbled up and turned into supply.

The easy, though inconvenient solution is to not ship fuel to Australia in the first place. Use Noumea, or Tazmania, or New Zealand, or Fiji, or something like that.

if you desperately want fuel in Sydney disband some AOs there or something, then the Aussie industrialists won't steal it all.

[Schanilec]

A true nightmare. I thought I had it licked. I'm now in the middle of May 1943. Guess what!

[AcePylut]

If I'm not mistaken, you can turn off industry in Oz like the Japanese do.  But I could be wrong.  I swear I've turned it off before.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

If I'm not mistaken, you can turn off industry in Oz like the Japanese do.  But I could be wrong.  I swear I've turned it off before.

You can turn it off. But it's likely that there isn't enough being shipped in either.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

If I'm not mistaken, you can turn off industry in Oz like the Japanese do.  But I could be wrong.  I swear I've turned it off before.

You can turn it off. But it's likely that there isn't enough being shipped in either.

Right-O! I've read estimates of around 70,000 fuel per month required on the Australian mainland. By turning off industry you are stepping on the civilian population. Ship more instead!

[Treetop64]

Plan your shipping to make sure OZ is supplied with oil, as well as fuel. Get your longest-legged tankers to LA and Abadan to ship fuel to Melbourne and Sydney. Also, if your're early in the campaign you can get some Dutch tankers to ship a lot of oil out of Palambang and the oil cities in southern and eastern Borneo. Get plenty of Oil to Melbourne and Sydney and the refineries there will refine it into fuel.

Also, in Dutch New Guinea the ports at Boelo and Babo will yield some oil and resources, but the ports are small and the services are minimal, so for those locations you'll want to use small tankers.

Port Kembla and Newcastle will need shipments of fuel also (not oil though, no refineries there).

The fuel and oil situation in OZ is something you have to plan for from the very first day of the campaign. Once you get behind there it's very difficult to catch up.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

If I'm not mistaken, you can turn off industry in Oz like the Japanese do.  But I could be wrong.  I swear I've turned it off before.

You can turn it off. But it's likely that there isn't enough being shipped in either.

Right-O! I've read estimates of around 70,000 fuel per month required on the Australian mainland. By turning off industry you are stepping on the civilian population. Ship more instead!

You should monitor your supply situation in Oz and turn off HI/supply production as you see fit. At the beginning of the war fuel will also flow to many port hexes until they are at their base level. This is affected by the size of the port and how many ships are based there. Once things steady out and you determine how many HI installations you want to keep running, if any, estimate what naval ops will need fuel in the next year or so. Then get it moving.

There are many, many old threads in the main forum about supplying Oz with "stuff." There are many ways to go, personal preferences, pros and cons. My oft-stated preference is to route most of everything to Perth from Cape Town, with the East Coast feeding CT. My reasons are in those old threads. But it's up to the individual player, as well as whether it's an AI or PBEM game.

[witpqs]

My recommendation is for the Allies to saddle themselves with leaving everything in OZ "On" and the struggle to supply enough fuel.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

My recommendation is for the Allies to saddle themselves with leaving everything in OZ "On" and the struggle to supply enough fuel.

That's one way to go. Although when I had over two million supply at Sydney and no fuel for my ships I thought I'd like a way to turn off the HI machine. Now there is one.

[NAVMAN]

Hi All,
Thx for all your suggestions/comments. I d/n realize Oz fuel supply was going to be this
much of an issue. I have turned off all industry but aircraft production. I may try a
tanker "blitz" to the ports someone suggested. Had not thought about the need for shipping
in oil as well to feed the refineries.
Bullwinkle: you mentioned shipping in "CT" from the east coast. What is "CT"?
I'll write down some of the specific suggestions and give them a try.
Thx to all.

[jmalter]

CT = Cape Town (offmap). which also needs fuel to refuel ships carrying supplies to Oz. it receives fairly regular 'convoy' LCUs, but be careful you don't drain it dry of fuel - set TFs returning to CT to 'do not refuel', & refuel them only as needed for new TFs outbound to Perth.

[cantona2]

Massive tanker convoys from WC to Sydney keep enough fuel in Oz to keep the war machinge rumbling. Use the long legged 14,000 capacity ones and you should be fine.

[USSAmerica]

Australia's Heavy Industry requires about 67k fuel/month. If you want to turn off any industry to save fuel, HI is all you need to hit. This is a new capability with the new official patch. That's 5-6 large TK's/month before your ships use a single drop. You will be amazed at how fast a large number of ships operating in the area can drain fuel stores. Get your TK's busy hauling fuel from Abadan, US East Coast, and LA on Day 1 and keep them hauling fuel the entire war. The route you take to get to Oz is up to personal preference of course, and depends on enemy activity.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Massive tanker convoys from WC to Sydney keep enough fuel in Oz to keep the war machinge rumbling. Use the long legged 14,000 capacity ones and you should be fine.

This is one way to go. However, the newbie player should carefully consider that "massive convoys" drink massive amounts of the fuel they just hauled across the wide wastes of the Pacific to get themselves back to the West Coast. And that in every hex of the journey--both ways--they are open to attack.

The off-map mechanisms in the game are the single biggest design advantage given to the Allied player. Ships in the wormholes use no fuel and are immune from attack. Why not use them?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: NAVMAN

Hi All,
Thx for all your suggestions/comments. I d/n realize Oz fuel supply was going to be this
much of an issue. I have turned off all industry but aircraft production. I may try a
tanker "blitz" to the ports someone suggested. Had not thought about the need for shipping
in oil as well to feed the refineries.
Bullwinkle: you mentioned shipping in "CT" from the east coast. What is "CT"?
I'll write down some of the specific suggestions and give them a try.
Thx to all.

Aircraft production in OZ needs HI, so you'll have to monitor those levels. It's not a lot, but some. It's really about the only economy management the Allied player needs to do. (There is some minor decision-making about repairs in China and other tiny dog & cat issues, but nothing serious.)

There is no need to bring oil to Oz. For the Allied player there is never a need to move oil, anywhere, anytime. Some players like to do it for historical reasons, but there's no need and it ties up precious tankers in an interim step that's unnecessary. You are awash in fuel; it's just in the wrong places. Spend your hull-time moving it, not the dips and drabs of oil available to the Allies which is not already committed to the refineries nearby.

In 1942, remember that fuel can move in xAKs. Not as efficienlty as in a tanker, but in great quantities if needed.

[cantona2]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Massive tanker convoys from WC to Sydney keep enough fuel in Oz to keep the war machinge rumbling. Use the long legged 14,000 capacity ones and you should be fine.

This is one way to go. However, the newbie player should carefully consider that "massive convoys" drink massive amounts of the fuel they just hauled across the wide wastes of the Pacific to get themselves back to the West Coast. And that in every hex of the journey--both ways--they are open to attack.

The off-map mechanisms in the game are the single biggest design advantage given to the Allied player. Ships in the wormholes use no fuel and are immune from attack. Why not use them?

Takes longer via the wormhole route. Obviously ones shipping lanes need to be secure and a string of airbases to keep asw/search planes in the air is a prerequisite. It is doable and so far I have had enough fuel in OZ. Slower, similar size convoys do take the other wormhole route via abadan/CT

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: cantona2

Takes longer via the wormhole route. Obviously ones shipping lanes need to be secure and a string of airbases to keep asw/search planes in the air is a prerequisite. It is doable and so far I have had enough fuel in OZ. Slower, similar size convoys do take the other wormhole route via abadan/CT

Once you pay the time penalty once and have a steady-state supply chain the route time is not a significant variable. And the usable throughput in the two cases is significantly differnet when to & fro fuel consumption by the haulers is factored in. The non-loss of tankers is just icing on the cake. No one has yet been able to convince me that a WC-to-Oz route is preferable to using off-map.

Mid-east to Oz is an interim proposition. It is shorter, but also uses fuel both ways and is open to attack. I have had the AI CV-raid into the IO in each game I've played and tankers are dead meat in that case. I've never lost one in the South Atlantic.

[witpqs]

Moose, are you sure they don't use fuel???

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Moose, are you sure they don't use fuel???

The off map portion of the trip does not use any "on map" fuel. The ships are assumed to be refueling from stops in the Atlantic, etc. East Coast - Capetown never uses a drop of fuel. Of course, once they pop onto the map, they burn fuel.