Allied Troopships of WW2

[Dili]

https://history.army.mil/documents/WWII ... pships.pdf

[Yaab]

Thanks!

[fcooke]

Interesting find! I've only briefly looked at it but was surprised to find a 9 knot ship in the mix and quite a few around 11. In the game I would never put troops on something that slow......

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: fcooke
In the game I would never put troops on something that slow......

JFBs routinely put troop on xAKLs when ferrying to the small islands nearby. Ship availability and ability to dock at very small ports are more important than speed

[fcooke]

I have had a few cases where I could not get the radar unit offloaded. A little odd that an xAKL can do it. Because they have such great deck handling equipment (abstractions - I know).

[btd64]

Nice. Some good information on transports....GP

[rustysi]

JFBs routinely put troop on xAKLs when ferrying to the small islands nearby. Ship availability and ability to dock at very small ports are more important than speed

Key word here being, 'nearby'. For long hauls I'm with fcooke.

[Insano]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Interesting find! I've only briefly looked at it but was surprised to find a 9 knot ship in the mix and quite a few around 11. In the game I would never put troops on something that slow......

Interesting indeed. You can note that all these slow ships are listed as having an old style reciprocating engine propulsion plant. From browsing briefly the cutoff seems to be at 14 knots. 14 could be either but faster is steam turbines and slower is reciprocating engines. Neat book.

[Dili]

Yeah if you read some the text it tells some were modified with turbines to be able to be faster, i remember reading one that 11kt when upgraded speed increased to 17kt.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Yeah if you read some the text it tells some were modified with turbines to be able to be faster, i remember reading one that 11kt when upgraded speed increased to 17kt.

The hull has to be able to take the strain of the speed increase too. A lot of the smaller 'coaster' vessels pressed into service were decrepit things with rusting hulls and corroded internal structure. A lot of them had not had any boiler maintenance either. My dad (a KV Petty Officer) told me it was nearly impossible to get these ships to stop spewing smoke as they struggled to keep up to the 5-6 knot speed of the convoy.

[Dili]

Yeah that's a factor too. One of good things of that document is that gives the range, i was surprised by the very small range of some big transporters like Queen Mary 5000nm, Mauritania 4500nm, Empress of Australia 5700nm.

Another good thing is that the document is OCR..ed so you can search keywords, it is not just a typical image scan.

[BBfanboy]

Thanks for posting that! I have been looking for a photo of the ship aboard which my Mother (a war bride) came over from Ireland - Samaria. Found it on page 325. Doesn't look like it could accommodate over 4000 passengers!

[Dili]

Nice

btw the ship that increased speed from 10 knots(not 11 like i said before) to 17 knots is in page 20 Edmund B Alexander . And it seems it maintained the reciprocating engines, but was reboiled and converted for oil instead of coal.

[geofflambert]

Looks like the particularly slow ones were only used on milk runs to and from Alaska and Hawaii.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Looks like the particularly slow ones were only used on milk runs to and from Alaska and Hawaii.

Maybe on the US side because the war had already been in progress for two years. In 1939-40-41 there were not that many new ships available to Britain and its Allies, thanks to the Great Depression which all but stopped shipbuilding.

Once the war started shipyards started getting orders to build merchant ships but priority was given to escort warships first, and most yards were soon at capacity. It would take two years to expand the shipyard capacity to put out greater tonnage (little things like bringing in new power lines from a new generator on a hydro dam don't happen quickly).

So in the North Atlantic, the Allies had to make do with whatever they could scrape up. The old ships that lagged too much behind the convoy were left on their own and the U-boats usually found them. That was survival of the fittest but the merchant crewmen paid the price.

The US benefitted from orders for new merchant ships which helped reactivate US shipyards before entry into WWII. And the genius of mass produced Liberty Ships and Victory Ships meant that the old, slow vessels could be relegated to coastal trade again.

[Dili]

There were quite a bit of new merchants ships build in 30's and there were a big incentive for them: diesel engines were starting to be viable.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Dili

There were quite a bit of new merchants ships build in 30's and there were a big incentive for them: diesel engines were starting to be viable.

Was that in the US? From what I have seen in the British/Canadian theatre there was a shortage of good merchant ships and the shipbuilding industry was starving (except for naval ships in Britain to counter the new ships being built by Germany and Italy).

[Dili]

No dieasels were more in Europe, US was late to the diesel.

The Clan series was all build in late 30's, but those were no diesel. Port Chalmers, Halifax and other 2 i think were diesels and i have seen recently any British ships with diesels. but obviously the War put a big strain and there was needed more ships. There were several liners also build in 30's.
French German and Italians went fast for diesels due to lack of oil own sources. Diesel is much more economical than a triple expansion and turbines.

Since i am on a roll on merchant stuff you can get ONI 208 here, it has nationality and year date in the document list. https://archive.org/details/MerchShipRecogManual

[Ian R]

I remember reading somewhere (possibly on here) that when building of merchant hulls was expanded during WW1, they went for the tried and tested reciprocating engines instead of then the then new-fangled turbines. The manufacturers just weren't tooled up for the new technology stuff.

Eventually the EFC set up Hog Islander production, with the new design featuring oil fired turbines - too late for WW1.

[Gridley380]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Since i am on a roll on merchant stuff you can get ONI 208 here, it has nationality and year date in the document list. https://archive.org/details/MerchShipRecogManual

Nice! I've never seen that one available before. Thanks!