Japanese Tanker Organization

[archvivant]

Greetings everyone, newbish player here (longtime lurker, got the game on the holiday sale)

I'll cut to the point:
New standard campaign against Allied AI, January 1942:

After minmaxing my resource CS convoys to haul stuff into the Home Islands, I've captured a few of the DEI oil centres and refineries. Since I have to get those onto Honshu as well, I wanted to check with you, how do you organize your tanker convoys?

Do you pile all oil and fuel in a single base (Palembang or Surabaya or Balikpapan) and haul it from there, do you have each oil centre with its own dedicated Honshu outward convoy? How much ASW is really enough? Expand port and fortify which locations?

[traskott]

Here you have ALL the info:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=4597303

[ITAKLinus]

Not very clear and mostly in Italian, but here is my TK organisation until mid-43.

Also, I generally use those little 1,250 capacity TKs as spare ones around the map in little groups. Generally, they either bring little quantities of fuel to some minor frontline harbours (such as Paramushiro-Jima or Kwajalein) or bring OIL back from locations which don't produce much such as Shakhalin.

[LargeSlowTarget]

There are different ways to run convoys but by and large a "hub and spoke" approach seems to work best.

Use small ships to collect the goodies from the small ports of the productions sites and ship them to a nearby hub - a larger port - were the stuff is being unloaded and stored to be picked up by larger ships for the transfer to the Home Islands.

I ship the stuff from Java, Sumatra and Burma to Singapore and the stuff from Borneo and below to Manila.

From Singapore I use the biggest ships available and from Manila the medium ones to haul the goodies back to the Home Islands.

Some people say it is sufficient to ship resources only from China/Manchukuo/Korea and from Hokkaido, but it might be a good idea to grab a maximum to have a stockpile in the Home Islands for the end game when the Japanese shipping has been swept from the seas and convoy routes are under constant threat from subs and air.

It is also good practice to group ships by cruise speed and capacity for most efficient steaming and loading (so smaller ships already full don't have to wait for bigger ships to finish loading).

Further optimising can be done concerning fuel efficiency and ship sizes/number vs. port sizes, but that depends how much time you want to spend - as a general rule, short-legged slow small ships work the short routes, longer-legged medium-fast ships work the longer routes, and the fastest merchantmen small and large usually are being converted to something more useful, like escorts, tenders or "AK-t", the closest thing to an APA/AKA the Japanese side gets.

Concerning ASW, there is never enough. Try to run large convoys - fewer convoys at sea = less chances to be spotted and less occasions for subs to attack.

Port expansion - not necessary IMO, the supplies spend for construction work can be put to a better use.

[PaxMondo]

Well, get the Magic Highway going and just drop everything at the nearest port. Then haul from Fusan/Shanghai to HI. [;)]

[Trugrit]

Mike Solli is another good source on Japanese logistics.

My understanding is that he works, or did work, for the U.S. Dept. of Defense.
His day job was military logistics planning so he is a professional at this.

Thread on planning.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2959613

[kbfchicago]

Traskott...this is great post, thank you. Don't recall seeing that one previously!

LST touched on ASW, concur "there's never enough". From a tactical composition for convoy TFs (and ASW specific TFs) my non-scientific experience and observations are:

- 1 ASW ship will get you significantly better protection vs. none.
- 2 ASW ships are better than one, not sure the value is exponential but I've always perceived at as such.
- 3 AWS ships seems to be optimal "best" coverage, 4 or more don't seem to give you further (significant increases). The number of ships in the convoy don't seem to dilute the effect of "3 ASW" as optimal. So a critical TF of 4 large TKs gets 3 ASW or a convoy of 16 ships...get's the same same 3 ASW.

I also use 3 as the optimal # for ASW specific patrol TFs along coastal areas and critical routes. 3 is "best", 2 ships in a pinch or earlier (for both IJN and Allied)/late (for IJN) in the war when resources are stretched.

I haven't perceived a capability gap, e.g. how much better protection do I get from a small DD vs a PB? But I always play it like there is one (and expect the combat engine does reflect that, however lots of variables here...action circumstances, crew training level, skipper assigned, TF commander assigned, et.al.). So bigger more important convoys will get the more capable ships, when I can spare them. I do tend to put the more capable (usually the small DDs) into convoy duty vs. coastal or route ASW protection is "hit or miss" vs. "potential" sub attacks and convoy escorts are specific defense of critical resources assets.

Disclaimer...I've not done a sandbox test on any of this, just my perceptions over time playing the game. This rule of 3 also does not apply to combat tasks forces where I've always used higher ratios and numbers of ASW capable ships (e.g. 6 DDs to support a CA and 2CLs), usually a minimum of 2 to 1.

My 2 cents...

Kevin

[jdsrae]

ORIGINAL: archvivant

Greetings everyone, newbish player here (longtime lurker, got the game on the holiday sale)

I'll cut to the point:
New standard campaign against Allied AI, January 1942:

After minmaxing my resource CS convoys to haul stuff into the Home Islands, I've captured a few of the DEI oil centres and refineries. Since I have to get those onto Honshu as well, I wanted to check with you, how do you organize your tanker convoys?

Do you pile all oil and fuel in a single base (Palembang or Surabaya or Balikpapan) and haul it from there, do you have each oil centre with its own dedicated Honshu outward convoy? How much ASW is really enough? Expand port and fortify which locations?

I recommend checking Port size, docking limits and load/unload rates tables in the manual.
If Palembang is captured with industry intact it is the most difficult base to keep drained of Fuel. You need small enough task forces to dock and enough of them to load and move the good stuff to wherever you want to stockpile it for the larger TK to haul home.

My priorities for Fuel are:
1. Keep Heavy Industry going
2. Keep TK convoys moving fuel so they can keep Heavy industry going
3. Whatever is left is for IJN Fleet ops
So I try to keep Palembang, Soerabaja, Balikpapan drained of Oil (leaving just enough for the refineries there to produce some fuel for local use) and move Fuel not needed for the Fleet home. I don’t go directly from those bases to Japan.

There are enough ASW capable ships to escort if you convert some (lots) of the xAK that can to PB.

You don’t have to expand many ports for oil/fuel hauling purposes but I do expand some to improve export flow rates from key bases.
Fusan for me is a must for Resources, plus a few others like Ominato, Miri, Palembang; but not many other than that.

I try to protect all oil producing bases from the obvious threats like subs, mines, air/sea bombardments.

I’ll post a few more details in my AAR in the next few days to try and avoid CrackSabbath getting any more info than that!