India to England supply pipeline

[mussey]

Does anyone have any thoughts on how WITP models supply/fuel/shipping in the India theater?

Over the years of playing it seems that there are too many supply ships and too much fuel for use in the SE Theater and that much of what is created here should be going to Great Britain. Everything I've read mentions how this Theater was run on a shoe string, the last to get supplies and reinforcements. Yet, not only does it get to consume what is created here, it gets additional supply Convoys at Cape Town.

Here are some of my thoughts:
- Aden and Abadan are both generating supply, why? If the Mediterranean is shut done to mid-1943, there should be little to none generating here.
- there are well over 175 supply ships and tankers here, surely many of these would be earmarked for England convoys? In my games I would send 80% of these to Cape Town and leave them there to simulate this, but not sure if this is correct.
- If I were to simulate supply/fuel convoys to England, is there a way in the Editor to have attrition to off-map shipping between Cape Town and England due to U-Boat attacks? Is there a way to tie in Victory Points on how much supply England gets?

As I write this now, maybe I'm make this too convoluted, but it has been gnawing on me for awhile. Anyone with thoughts on this would be much helpful!

[Evoken]

I would imagine as lend lease act and US entering war significantly reduced needs from Colonies for UK
-Aden and Abadan are still connected to Africa and Egypt their supply production is very limited , not enough to sustain India
-175 ships is pretty insignificant compared to Merchant fleet size of Commonwealth , i would imagine these ships are assigned to Pacific front. The ships needed at Atlantic front already has withdraw date in game.
-There is no way for Allied ships to get attacked at off-map route

[Ambassador]

Aden generates 500 supply, Abadan 1,700. India (including Colombo) generates 5,070 supply/day, Australia (including Tasmania) 5,115/day. What you get in Aden is ridiculously small, and all that, plus the free convoys, don’t allow you to make sufficient stockpiles for the ‘44-‘45 operations without bringing supply from Eastern USA (hint for where your « surplus » cargoes have to be used for). Unless you’ve diverted most of the reinforcements for India to Australia or elsewhere.

With the exception of Port Stanley, there is an automatic source of supply in every off-map area - and in the case of PS, the lack of supply is probably due to the lack of units appearing there, contrary to Aden. And the supply of Abadan is probably representing Avgas anyway.

[mussey]

ORIGINAL: Evoken

I would imagine as lend lease act and US entering war significantly reduced needs from Colonies for UK
-Aden and Abadan are still connected to Africa and Egypt their supply production is very limited , not enough to sustain India
-175 ships is pretty insignificant compared to Merchant fleet size of Commonwealth , i would imagine these ships are assigned to Pacific front. The ships needed at Atlantic front already has withdraw date in game.
-There is no way for Allied ships to get attacked at off-map route

The ships needed at Atlantic front already has withdraw date in game.

This helps. So the Game has already withdrawn merchant ships from the Indian Ocean that would be used in the Atlantic. I did not realize this. So all that is remaining can be used in-game with no qualms. Thanks for your feedback! [&o]

[mussey]

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

Aden generates 500 supply, Abadan 1,700. India (including Colombo) generates 5,070 supply/day, Australia (including Tasmania) 5,115/day. What you get in Aden is ridiculously small, and all that, plus the free convoys, don’t allow you to make sufficient stockpiles for the ‘44-‘45 operations without bringing supply from Eastern USA (hint for where your « surplus » cargoes have to be used for). Unless you’ve diverted most of the reinforcements for India to Australia or elsewhere.

With the exception of Port Stanley, there is an automatic source of supply in every off-map area - and in the case of PS, the lack of supply is probably due to the lack of units appearing there, contrary to Aden. And the supply of Abadan is probably representing Avgas anyway.

Aden generates 500 supply, Abadan 1,700. India (including Colombo) generates 5,070 supply/day, Australia (including Tasmania) 5,115/day. What you get in Aden is ridiculously small, and all that, plus the free convoys, don’t allow you to make sufficient stockpiles for the ‘44-‘45 operations without bringing supply

Thanks for the feedback. I have had concerns how WITP AE interplays between in-game Indian Ocean and the war in Egypt and the Atlantic. I had assumed the Commonwealth shipping available was also needed for Atlantic convoys to England.

[LargeSlowTarget]

The interplay of the Atlantic/Med off-map areas and the map area and the withdrawal of ships for service outside the map area is approximative at best. The scenario editor allows to withdraw a ship from the map and to return it on map only once. I think it is safe to assume that in over 3 years of war, a significant number of merchant ships made voyages between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic and/or Med more than just once. The withdrawal and return dates might be accurate for the few ships that have such dates, but I'm sure there are also ships which should withdraw at some point but don't and others which should come back but won't. To accurately model the shipping available and the withdrawal and return dates would require researching the movements of every single merchant ship the Allied had in service - impossible even for the best scenario designers. The withdrawals and returns aren't even accurate for major warships, or worse, absent - see USS Nevada which participated IRL in operations Overlord and Dragoon before returning to the Pacific in time for Iwo Jima, but has no withdrawal/return date in stock scenarios. It is very likely that similar omissions exists concerning the merchant ships. It is also unnecessary in the game to collect resources and fuel from the Indian Ocean for shippment to the UK to be converted into supply points and shipping back to India, so even more shipping remains available in the indian Ocean

[geofflambert]

Aden and Abadan should be supply sources (albeit small) because the supply they generate is avgas and other refinery products. Until the British control the Med there's no way to get it to Britain except through the field of play. Not sure why that was brought up. The severe shoestrings are UK air production and replacements of all sorts. You can run out of pilots and or planes in a real hurry if you're not careful. While Indian units get replacements any for UK units either in men or materiel is very limited.

[geofflambert]

The UK also has a severe shortage of engineers, so all sorts of things that should be getting done are not.

"The last to get supplies and reinforcements". Reinforcements yes, supplies no. Tanks, planes, trucks, artillery - materiel, yes. They aren't starving for food or American cigarettes or clothes and what not.

[geofflambert]

A lot of the supply the Japanese use in Burma is coming from the DEI refineries. If you think there shouldn't be supply coming from Aden and Abadan you're probably not aware of the supply the Japanese are getting from those oil field/refineries, so you're probably not doing as much to interdict that as you should be.

[Ambassador]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Aden and Abadan should be supply sources (albeit small) because the supply they generate is avgas and other refinery products. Until the British control the Med there's no way to get it to Britain except through the field of play. Not sure why that was brought up. The severe shoestrings are UK air production and replacements of all sorts. You can run out of pilots and or planes in a real hurry if you're not careful. While Indian units get replacements any for UK units either in men or materiel is very limited.

Indeed. You receive for Brit Infantry sections roughly 750 squads for the whole game. You get as nearly as many for Indians or Australians in ‘42 alone, and even more for US Army Rifles.

[mussey]

because the supply they generate is avgas and other refinery products.

That's what I overlooked, the fact that supply represents several things including these. Thanks for setting me straight

[mussey]

It is also unnecessary in the game to collect resources and fuel from the Indian Ocean for shippment to the UK to be converted into supply points and shipping back to India, so even more shipping remains available in the indian Ocean

And this gets me back to my original concern, in that maybe there is too much shipping available in this Theater. I guess the only way to determine this is to research raw numbers, or track history of individual ships ([8|])

[Ambassador]

ORIGINAL: mussey

It is also unnecessary in the game to collect resources and fuel from the Indian Ocean for shippment to the UK to be converted into supply points and shipping back to India, so even more shipping remains available in the indian Ocean

And this gets me back to my original concern, in that maybe there is too much shipping available in this Theater. I guess the only way to determine this is to research raw numbers, or track history of individual ships ([8|])

This is even worse for the IJN, with the amount of useless xAK. If you find you have too much shipping, play with one of the mods reducing the shipping capacity, like some DBB mods.

[Alpha77]

Well I played 3 (or even 4 if the one is counted that I gave up in 43 cause not much challenge) as Allies. I never had any problem anywhere with supplies or fuel (only in China ofc). I do not even track it or so like with the Japanese...

I just ship every point of fuel and supply that is in Aden, Mombasa and Abadan (mostly fuel there) to India and Colombo (I am in April 42 now and have 200000+ supplies at Colombo for example which is 5x more then would be needed at all or 1.2 Mio supplies at Suva for example, 800000 fuel at PH etc.). As others noted the supply at Aden adn Abadan is limited so not much issue with port/TF sizes (for docking) but Abadan you need to juggle with the tankers a bit. Ofc building the ports helps..

But that is a small issue compared to the Japanese with the small max ports at the major oil/fuel production centers, lots of micromanagement there As you need to manually resize TFs to fit in the port, disband some, then form up again etc.

South Africa is another matter - I recommend in fact to send some fuel there (from Abadan) as it can run out with many TFs. One often needs to wait for the supply convois to arrive, so there is too much shipping in the area. I sent at least 50-60 of the longer legged bigger AKs,TKs and APs over to Panama so the mountains of stuff at the WC can get out. Capetown ships mostly to Perth/Adelaide and a bit to Colombo too.

Which is quite ironic btw. when one reads accounts that still at the end of 42 there were OFTEN shortages (esp. spare parts I read plus often the wrong spare parts for eg. planes would arrive) at Allied bases and a "lack of shipping" (which is not reflected in the game at all, Allies just have no shortages, except you play a very good IJ in a PBM who manages interdicting your lanes and/or sink lots of laden ships)...but I wrote that some time ago already. I tried to adress this in a scen I made (deleting cargo ships for both sides, and "damaging" industry at the US WC, so in theory that would slow production a bit.

However I was not "radical" enough in this when I test played as there were still no serious shortages.. also some other mod (dababes?) tried it with the method cutting load tonnage plus also lowering ranges of AK types IIRC). I would rather use my method means lowering numbers of ships, which also means a bit less logistics burden. The Japanese also have perhaps 20-30% too many (cargo)ships in my estimination..

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

A lot of the supply the Japanese use in Burma is coming from the DEI refineries. If you think there shouldn't be supply coming from Aden and Abadan you're probably not aware of the supply the Japanese are getting from those oil field/refineries, so you're probably not doing as much to interdict that as you should be.

There is a mod in which refs do not produce supplies, might be more realistic perhaps. But as IJ I really like refs produce supplies [:D]
Not only safes supplies from the HI but also lowering logistics burdens. Imagine at Palembang also supply convois coming in not only TKs even more ship "juggling" and clicks with the tiny port [:(]

[geofflambert]

You don't have to ship supply from Pal directly, it shows up overland from Oost to Sabang. Suck from there.