Maintaining Fuel Supplies In Australia

[denisonh]

Where are all those U Boats when a JFB needs one........

ORIGINAL: 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.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

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

You have to carefully study the tables in the manual. Some of the off-map bases have fuel costs to get to the "transit box" while others are 100% off-map and fuel-free. The fuel to the transit boxes is pretty trivial though. In a CT to Oz route the EC to CT is cheap, and CT to Perth and back is mostly free. The route from the wormhole exit to Perth is not 100% safe from attack, but it's a long way for IJN subs to transit from, say, Batavia, and CVs will have little dwell time. OTOH, in many cases having Japanese carriers off on the deep left corner of the map is good for the Allies. If I saw them there I'd just stop the "seagoing train" and let them burn up fuel and fatigue unitl they left.

[Alfred]

A properly structured convoy from America or the Middle East to Australia's east and west coast ports respectively will burn only its own fuel stores and not touch a single drop of fuel in an Australian port. It strikes me that players who experience difficulties in building up their fuel stocks in Australia allow their convoys to refuel from an australian port. that is totally unnecessary and considerably reduces the amount of net fuel which is delivered to Australia.

Alfred

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

A properly structured convoy from America or the Middle East to Australia's east and west coast ports respectively will burn only its own fuel stores and not touch a single drop of fuel in an Australian port. It strikes me that players who experience difficulties in building up their fuel stocks in Australia allow their convoys to refuel from an australian port. that is totally unnecessary and considerably reduces the amount of net fuel which is delivered to Australia.

Alfred

Within strict boundaries of ship selection and employment you are correct. There are some few early ships with the round-trip range to do what you suggest. But:

1) They are very valuable and every day they spend west of PH increases chance of loss.
2) They have other, valuable uses such as rapidly building stockpiles at PH and other early-war transfer points.
3) Use of my tactics allows many relatively uselss early-war ships, such as evacuated DEI xAKLs, to be used in the low-fuel shuttle service between the EC and CT.
4) Use of CT-Perth minimizes the need to tie up rare and valuable early-war escorts with any useful ASW capacity. Or to slow speed of advance to constantly re-fuel short-legged escorts such as SCs or AMs.

[NAVMAN]

Hi All:
Thx for the continued discussion on this. I'm going to print this thread and study the various suggestions/comments. This is the furthest I've gotten in a campaign.
As of now, end of 7/42, PM, Java, etc. are gone. Rangoon, Mandalay, etc are
still holding. I have 4 cvs and I'm toying with the idea of going into Tarawa and
then the Solomons.

Thx.

[crsutton]

Well the obvious question that I did not see asked here was how many ships are you operating in that theater? This is important. If you have all your old BBs in Noumea or OZ along with your carriers then you can expect severe fuel shortages in early to mid 42. There is nothing unusual or unreasonable about this. In my campaigns as the Allies I made that initial mistake. The old BBs especially sucked all the fuel out of the area. Send them back to Pearl until you build up the bases, fuel depots, and get enough tankers to support them.

Leave your old BBs stateside, use your carriers sparingly and you will do OK. I had a general shortage in OZ for the first six months of the war that gradually improved with time. After that, it has never been a problem.

[jmalter]

hi navman,

you're a bit further in your game, i'm in late 5/42. 's good you're holding the Burma Road.

but be careful w/ your CVs, you're still in restricted air-group co-ordination time. 2 AirTFs of 2 CV each, you're not likely to get the best strike-power. 's ok for a raid, but not optimal for an offensive.

a quick raid against island bases close to Pearl might give you some results, but you're likely to have no early recon on the opposition strength, you don't want to have 1 or more of your CVs get tagged.

better, maybe, to conserve your CVs for use in a sustained offensive strike, vs. the Solomons. where, if you've been building/reinforcing Noumea/Luganville, you've got land-based NavS/NavB/CAP from underneath which Air/Surf/Amph/Trans TFs can operate.

which is to say, mebbe you don't want to be sending your CVs out into the ughknown belly/nettle areas, on a low-return operation. best to keep all your CVs fully fueled & operational for a Solomons assault.

[jmalter]

crsutton has a good point - oldBBs have no useful purpose, & should stay at USA WC & do their upgrades, until '44. 

[Mundy]

If I recall, while reading Neptune's Inferno, this was mentioned.  It came down to sending either the BBs or the carriers to Noumea, but not both.

I feel the pain, trying to keep Oz fueled myself.  It starting to threaten my supply convoys to PM.

Ed-

[LargeSlowTarget]

IMO using the "whormhole" in order to be save from attacks smells a bit gamey. Ships using off-map movement should be subject to u-boat attacks [:'(].

I'm running supplies and fuel convoys from WC to Australia via a waypoint in the Tahiti area. The convoys have orders not to refuel at the destination in Australia, but to minimal refuel at the waypoint. In the beginning, I keep groups of AOs based at the waypoint while a port is being built. At a certain port size, shortlegged tankers from LA keep this fueling base filled and the AOs leave for other duty.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: crsutton


Well the obvious question that I did not see asked here was how many ships are you operating in that theater? This is important. If you have all your old BBs in Noumea or OZ along with your carriers then you can expect severe fuel shortages in early to mid 42. There is nothing unusual or unreasonable about this. In my campaigns as the Allies I made that initial mistake. The old BBs especially sucked all the fuel out of the area. Send them back to Pearl until you build up the bases, fuel depots, and get enough tankers to support them.

Leave your old BBs stateside, use your carriers sparingly and you will do OK. I had a general shortage in OZ for the first six months of the war that gradually improved with time. After that, it has never been a problem.

Makes great sense. Also as LST mentioned above creating a refueling waypoint mid trip betwen WC and Oz is a great help. I do this as well for any carrier ops in the southpac and SWPac areas. Most mid ocean ports are too small during the first 6 months to handle the fuel capacity necessary and too small to allow the large carrier TFs to dock and refuel. Stationing AOs as refueling depots seems to be the best way to go in the first 6 months of the campaign.

[NAVMAN]

Hi All:
crsutton does raise a point which I had not considered regarding the number of ships and their effect on fuel.
As of 8/4/42 this is where the bulk of my ships are based;
Brisbane: 1 BB(Prince of Wales), 5 CA, 5 DD, 54 AP/AK, 11 AO, 10 DM, 6 AU, 5 AV.
Sydney: 1 CA, 1 DD, 152 AP/AK, 14 AO, 14 DM, 2 AU.
There are some minor units at Darwin, Melbourne, etc.
The bulk of my units are at PH and west coast.

Re: the use of old BBs, I use them as escorts for high value troop convoys to Oz and SOPAC as proof against raiders. Also, I use them along the Midway, Johnston, Canton,
Baker axis and they have had success in countering landing attempts.

My attemps to bring in fuel from Aden to Oz has not worked out as I have lost tankers
to hi sys damage.

Upon reflection, jmalter is probably right and I'll refrain going into tarawa till '43.
I'll also make more use of xAKs/AKs as fuel transports, something I have not done, as well
as setting convoys to don't refuel, something I was not doing.

The comments/suggestions have been of great help/interest.

BTW, can allied bomber/fighter sdquads be combined into one unit for sea transport?

Thx all.

[Historiker]

I never had any problems.
Always had CS-Convoys running from Aden to the West Coast and from the West Coast to Eastern Australia, though.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: NAVMAN

BTW, can allied bomber/fighter sdquads be combined into one unit for sea transport?

Alas, no.

(But if someone has figured out how to do so, please enlighten me/us!)

[moonraker65]

I have found the best way to keep Fuel moving to Australia is a relay from Abadan to Colombo to Cape Town then onwards to Adelaide in 3 or 4 CS TK Convoys. That seems to bring enough in for industry and keep the bigger ports like Sydney topped up enough for most op's. Once the sealanes are clear of Japanese Air between Pearl and Noumea or Lunga you can safely ship that way but make sure you have enough escort protection. Also bear in mind the Supply Convoys which regularly turn up at Cape Town. As the war progresses they bring a lot of fuel and supplies which can be used to keep Australia topped up

[crsutton]

And unless there is heavy fighting going on in OZ, the need for fuel there is very limited. Even with her factories short of fuel Oz can produce more than enough suppy. Early in the war, my fuel was going to bases not connected to Oz in order to build up dumps. Aside from a few tanker fleets dumping fuel in OZ (mostly Cape Town to Perth) I just left OZ alone. There was plenty of supply. I can only see it being a problem if there is a major Japanese effort to take out OZ and you have everything you got there. But then again, it is probably more efficient to ship supply to Oz in a case such as that and just not worry about Australian industry. Just dump your fuel in Noumea and Hobart or Auckland if he is pushing south.

I have to admit, I pretty much never had to worry about industry in Oz in my campaigns.

[foliveti]

A lot of folks are talking about convoys from Cape Town to Perth. I have had a heck of a time with Japanese subs off of Perth. Given the scarcity of tankers and escorts, I have been staying away from that route.

[geofflambert]

I prefer the WC to Syd route w/AO pit stops. The West Coast ports load so quickly, and it saves time, and their supply is almost unlimited, plus they're much faster repairing damage to your xAKs and TKs. Advise using xAKs to supplement though it's inefficient. Consider transferring a large quantity of them from the Indian Ocean, especially if you have salvaged a lot from Indonesia (I hope you did). Send the longest range ones so they won't eat so much fuel along the way from WC to OZ. The short range 4k-6k ones are quite adequate for Aden to India work. Also Abadan is so slow loading fuel it can only handle fueling India, and this is important because supply production there is critical. Sticking to the WC to OZ route simplifies providing escorts, and the WC ports are huge and can handle maximally sized Convoys which need no more escort than small ones.

[geofflambert]

Also make sure and send USN base forces to whichever port in OZ you decide to use as soon as they are available, to cut unloading times and speed any needed repairs.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: foliveti

A lot of folks are talking about convoys from Cape Town to Perth. I have had a heck of a time with Japanese subs off of Perth. Given the scarcity of tankers and escorts, I have been staying away from that route.

Well yes, if your IJN opponent catches wind of it then you have a problem. Japanese subs are very deadly in 1942. But the one thing that always got good escort were my tanker convoys. Also, it makes a case for using more than one route and port of delivery. Darwin always begs for a Jap sub or two.