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Just don't forget its worse for the JFBs, since we have to use them to carry both fuel and oil, and you can sink ours easier...

How short is Japan with respect to tanker and fuel shipping?  It seems that every other AK I hit gets the "fuel cargo burning" report so it appears the AI is using every hull it has to carry oil/fuel back to Japan.

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

The USN has enough AO's (and there's a couple in Australia too) to refuel a couple of CV or SW TF's, but you've got to protect them like they were made of gold.  I keep mine well back from the shooting (no Andy I'm not telling you where they are) but they allow my TF's to have a larger radius of operation than they normally would if I had to use a base to refuel from.

They can also carry fuel to bases if you don't need them for operations, but they get my heaviest available protection so those pesky IJN CL/DD TF's can't get them...

If you want to have any hope of a 1943 counter-offensive down south, you'll need a good 500,000 - 1,000,000 fuel or more stockpiled in the south by the time 1943 rolls around.

With 2 or 3 large surface groups, 2 or 3 CV groups and all the amphib and cargo fleets operating down there, you can expect to burn through that stockpile pretty quickly, so you'll need regular 100,000+ sized fuel shipments coming in every month once offensive ops start.

So that's 2-3 runs for the entire US tanker fleet during 1942, plus extra runs needed for routine fuel being burned down south during 1942. So even if you had the entire US tanker fleet making runs to the south for all of 1942, you'll barely have enough fuel on hand for your 1943 offensives.

So as the allies I plan to use my AOs to make fuel runs to Pearl, and then use them for extending CV ops out of Pearl when needed. It's simply too expensive to operate CVs from bases south of Pearl in 1942 now, as it'll eat into your slowly growing stockpiles.

In an emergency I'd send the CVs south to defend Noumea or New Zealand, but forget about basing them down there full time like the allies used to do in WitP.

Jim

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

How short is Japan with respect to tanker and fuel shipping?  It seems that every other AK I hit gets the "fuel cargo burning" report so it appears the AI is using every hull it has to carry oil/fuel back to Japan.

Japan doesn't start off as short as the Allies, but its not enough.

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

How short is Japan with respect to tanker and fuel shipping?  It seems that every other AK I hit gets the "fuel cargo burning" report so it appears the AI is using every hull it has to carry oil/fuel back to Japan.

Here's an excerpt from a post by Mike Solli from this thread:

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli
Hi guys. A few notes on all of this. Based on the Japanese fleet of 7 Dec 41 (no conversions beyond what currently exists), the total capacity of all AK/AP/TK/AO/Minecraft/AMCs is:

Troop capacity: ~400,000
Cargo capacity: ~3,000,000
Liquid capacity: ~600,000

I think there will be sufficient capacity for resources, but TKs will be stressed. The TKs themselves carry only 414,000. AOs will have to support a lot (I'm thinking the 8k AOs) and TKs will have to be accelerated.

The one thing Japan has going for it that the allies don't, is range. Allied tankers have to travel twice to three times as far as Japanese tankers during runs to the south. So even though Japan only has about 400k in tanker lift, they'll be making 2 or 3 times as many round trips as the allied tankers during 1942.

For Japan, the long haul runs to bases like Truk, Rabaul, Guadalcanal, etc.. will be made mostly by their AKs. So the tanker fleet is in good shape until the allies can put a serious dent in it.

Jim

Just don't forget its worse for the JFBs, since we have to use them to carry both fuel and oil, and you can sink ours easier...

No, it's only 42. I can DENT your ships, and it probably scares the hell out of the sleeping crew, but my torpedoes are not exploding.

I love the fact that logistics plays such a big part in this game. Success in war depends largely on it, especially when fought over great distances on an area which is mostly water. Worrying about it makes you feel like you are conducting a massive war.

ORIGINAL: Zacktar

Like that old saying goes, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics! [;)]

So true. It's nice to have a game where you get to learn that so thoroughly. I know a lot of people like the carrier action...

From another post of mine:

I just had an AO torpedoed by a sub in the Guad scenario, it was unescorted (no escorts available, though I should have stripped a DD or two from elsewhere). Don't do that to important ships (that would be almost all of them). This game makes you appreciate how important an AO really is. When I was young I used to think about the Neosho getting blasted in Coral Sea, "ah, big deal, it's just a tanker."

ORIGINAL: Kumppi

I love the fact that logistics plays such a big part in this game. Success in war depends largely on it, especially when fought over great distances on an area which is mostly water. Worrying about it makes you feel like you are conducting a massive war.

Exactly, the whole reason I play this game. Try explaining that to friends or family though [:)]

Its interesting reading these posts, as I have never ran short of fuel or suplys for the allies, theirs plenty to be had the only wory is simply moving it, and theirs plenty of lift for it.

I use Cape Town a lot though, not for the CBI realy but mostly to move stuff to Austraila.

It's certainly something you need to keep in focus. I've reached mid-May in a campaign against Jap AI, and have avoided fuel shortages so far. I set up a conveyor belt of CS trips from LA to Pearl using AKs selected by capacity, so they all load at the same rate. Seems to work well and frees up the TKs and AOs for escorted, faster runs to where the bad people live. I've set up big forward fuel dumps at Noumea and Suva ready for the start of my counter offensive.
Having an absolute ball in Burma; Jap army is being written down in a very big way, and the increasingly desperate navy attempts to interfere, a la Guadalcanal campaign, are fascinating, bloody and very exciting.
40 years of wargaming, and this is the best ever by a very long way.

ORIGINAL: Brady
Its interesting reading these posts, as I have never ran short of fuel or suplys for the allies, theirs plenty to be had the only wory is simply moving it, and theirs plenty of lift for it.

I use Cape Town a lot though, not for the CBI realy but mostly to move stuff to Austraila.

Well I did say the tanker fleet would need to have taken a significant hit before problems would prevent building a decent stockpile. Have you lost many tankers?

How much fuel do you have stockpiled in OZ, New Zealand and Noumea? Have you started serious offensive ops yet in the south with large CV and battle fleets being active on most turns?

I know in WitP you could burn through several hundred thousand points of fuel per month once offensive ops were underway. I assume AE is the same, but haven't gotten that far in yet.

Jim

I am only to Feb 42 yet, but I have been moving fuel from Pearl to Oz regularly and also moving fuel from Abadan which helps. The Dutch have a lot of short range tankers but I can run Abadan - Columbo and Columbo - Perth and Perth - Brisbane. I'll see how I am in a few more months, but at the moment I have Brisbane in the 50-100,000 range up and down (I am running ops out of Brisbane) and have lots more on the way to Brisbane. I have lost very few tankers thus far (all the convoys are escorted and largish).
 
Another thing that helps a lot which I assume people are doing is judicious use of Do Not Refuel. Ships should only refuel at the base with the higher fuel supply eg only fuel at SF for an SF - Pearl run and only fuel at Pearl for a Pearl - Canton run.

I searched manual, but could not find what Cross-load penalty is. It is mentioned multiple times, but not specified. AKs seem to be just fine to haul fuel and some of them also have small liquid capacity (like 5600/200). I have to check how much that penalty is in game...and is it for space or loading/unloading. Manual is very vague in this.

OK, found only this:

Fuel. Loaded in bulk at a specific rate. Counts against daily fuel limit unless in barrels and being cross-loaded into cargo space, in which case it counts against cargo limits. The Fuel Rate is 500 x (Port Size).
Cargo. Generally equipment and supplies loaded at a specific rate for packaged, palletized, and “large loose” items (tanks, etc) rate. The Cargo Rate is 100 x (Port Size)

So, basically your xAKs etc. load/unload cross-loaded fuel only 20% speed compared to fuel getting loaded/unloaded with specific liquid carrier space. But you are not usually in hurry with big routine supply convoys. Could not find any penalty for amount...for me it'd make sense that xAK of 5000t cargo capacity could not load full 5000t of fuel, since it'd have to be loaded in barrels.

If you tailor your naval forces to your logisitcal state you'll be allright. The biggest difference from stock is, it takes alot more time to build up Oz (so Feb42 offensives are not very viable) and you can't use big warships like Battleships for every op. There was a reason they didn't fly all over the map besides being high value.....they were fuel hogs.

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Brady
Its interesting reading these posts, as I have never ran short of fuel or suplys for the allies, theirs plenty to be had the only wory is simply moving it, and theirs plenty of lift for it.

I use Cape Town a lot though, not for the CBI realy but mostly to move stuff to Austraila.

Well I did say the tanker fleet would need to have taken a significant hit before problems would prevent building a decent stockpile. Have you lost many tankers?

How much fuel do you have stockpiled in OZ, New Zealand and Noumea? Have you started serious offensive ops yet in the south with large CV and battle fleets being active on most turns?

I know in WitP you could burn through several hundred thousand points of fuel per month once offensive ops were underway. I assume AE is the same, but haven't gotten that far in yet.

Jim

I rarely loses any tankers to the Ai, nothing to note at anyrate, and I move Fuel out of the SRA to help with Austrailia initialy then move the larger ones to cape Town.

West Coast tankers all fill up and Head for Austraila right off, I dont generaly wory about stock pilling fuel per say.

My test games tend to run diferently than what you might think normal. I go on the Ofensive right from the start as the Allies.

In fact I normaly have so little concern over fuel, thats on hand, I just disband some tankers into ports and use them to refuel the ships instead of off laoding the fuel.

This helps to spead operations up at smaller ports like Nouma is initialy.

I love the fact that logistics plays such a big part in this game. Success in war depends largely on it, especially when fought over great distances on an area which is mostly water. Worrying about it makes you feel like you are conducting a massive war.

I love it to. One makes many of the same mistakes that were made at the time. If you survive, you learn. I have personally recreated the fuel crisis and the 3 month backlog of ships waiting to unload at Noumea. (forgot to take the engineers out of strat move, they sat around and did nothing, now it is a level 6 port)

From Dec 8 onwards you need to begin moving fuel and supplies out of DEI and to Australia. Since fuel is so critical I load up AK's with it eventhough its inefficient. The supplies in Java is secondary. Once the area gets hot you need to break up the transport/tanker fleets into smaller groups to prevent a huge slaughter, create confusion and create so many potential targets the Japanese won't be able to hit all, should they choose to attack. Up until Java is actually taken, you can usually still get a tanker or 2 filled up and off to Aus. If need be use some of your combat ships and excellent Dutch subs with functioning torpedoes to keep the Japanese honest.

Plan your supply/fuel runs carefully and find out where the large fuel supplies are-you don't want to have to route your transports through the choke points. Once you have places like Darwin with large amounts of supply and fuel you can begin ferrying to Townsville, Brisbane and other places.

Make sure you have air ASW patrolls, ASW hunter killer groups and escorted tankers-although I have sent some unescorted and lost 1 or 2.

Those transports and tankers that began the war in the DEI are worth their weight in gold after the DEI falls, Don't let them get caught there.

Also make sure to send some if not all of the Dutch support ships to Oz. I'm not 100% sure of this, but you'll need Dutch ships like AS to support the Dutch sub in Oz when the DEI is over run. I'm also planning on using PP's to send some of the Dutch search planes to Oz when the DEI is about to fall. They will always be useful if I can use them in Oz.

I am in May 1942. Here is what I learned and what I am doing.
 
1. Do not send BBs or a lot of surface ships to OZ early on. BBs drink gas like crazy. You will not ever have enough fuel. As it is, I have four carriers operating out of Sidney and can barely keep enough fuel in stock.
 
2. Japanese carriers and surface raiders seem to smell tankers from 1,000 miles away. I have lost about 25 tankers and it hurts big time.  And I have been careful. Be warned, this is not WITP and the AI can show up anywhere to raid.
 
3. You have more tankers than you need in the India theater. You can run tankers from Cape Town to Perth fairly safely. Send a an occasonal TF from Aden to Perth if needed but give them a good surface escort. India does not have a large need for fuel and is a short haul from Aden. You will have a surplus of tanker there. (That is until KB raids and sinks a dozen of them...[:@])
 
4. I found that I have a surplus of AK tonnage early in the game. (No troops to supply). Half of my Aks running to OZ  are carrying fuel. This really helps. The big Aks can carry plenty of gas.
 
5. Your options in the spring are limited. You really can't mount any big offensive operations. I have been fighting for PM and that is using up my fuel. I just don't have enough to make any major moves in the Solomons.
 
It is tight but I have enough fuel in Oz for now. But I am gonna have to go find some more tankers.

I think Nikademus's comments are spot-on: the gorilla difference between stock and AE is tempo and time... it really reminds me of some of the differences between PacWar and Witp... everything in AE takes longer (in gametime, I mean) and it much more simulates the wartime long waits and preps punctuated by short bursts of intense activity.. this fuel business is deliciously maddening for Allies... it's not a bottomless cookie jar anymore... combined with the beefier AI, it really makes the Japanese a lot more menacing... as the Allies, it's keeping me up nights...
 
Regards,
Helldiver