Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Gilbert
Thanks Mike. i will look forward to your position. I think anyway a transport TF must have an escort, even if it is small to screen the transports and avoid therefore a possible disaster from an ennemy surface TF. In other words, sending a Transport TF without a single escort will be just a waste of ressources and Japan just cannot afford that for long.
Just my two (euro)cents [:)]

From my [litle but repeated] experience it pays waiting to have available even the most lowly of the escorts, the point is force the sub to attack from submerged, US torpedoes dud ratio is an amazing thing, and when they are depleted will spend a long time going home for more... No escort can mean surface atack and spell doom to your forces

Thanks for the info!

My SNLF squads salute you and are happy with their 3 cargo points a person

Mike, I’m very interested to see the primacy you give to the tonnage: capacity ratio as the index of merchant ship efficiency, and I agree that getting maximum use out of limited docking capacity is an important consideration. From this perspective, I think you are absolutely right to be thinking in terms of canned cargo convoys, by which I take you to mean groups of standardised TF’s, the TF’s in each group having the same ship composition and being optimised for the ports they are to ply between.

I have been looking at Japanese merchant marine efficiency more from the perspective of fuel expenditure, and have now completed an initial run of tests upon TF’s mostly composed of a single ship. I am posting a graphic to show the results of this test, but will also upload the full spreadsheet so others can play with it as they see fit.

The test covers a range of voyages, for some of the tankers between Fukuoka or Takao and Dalian/Port Arthur, with the remainder of the voyages being between Honshu ports and Truk. I noted both fuel expended and hexes travelled each day, so the tests reflect actual rather than predicted performance. I may have made a one-hex error in distance travelled in one day with the Akasi Maru class ship. A better test would have been to send the big whale factory ships to Truk; their voyages are a bit short to make the test results as reliable as I would like.

One anomaly in the tests was the first day’s travel: in all cases save the Yusen S TF the ships seem to have moved only half the usual daily distance travelled on day one – 7 December 1941. The exception – the Yusen S design – travelled a full 9 hexes on its first day, but this was due to it having to restart its voyage on December 9, as I mistakenly set it on its way at full speed, obliging a return to Yokohama and restart at cruise speed. This suggests something anomalous is happening with TF travel in the first turn of the game.

The results permitted calculation of an average expenditure of fuel per hex, which in turn made possible a calculation of a ‘Cargo Miles per Fuel Ton’ figure as an index of fuel efficiency relative to amount of cargo carried.

The tankers come out on top in terms of fuel efficiency, but I suspect that may just reflect differences between wet and dry cargoes. As to the dry cargo ships, I think the figures make a case for using the modern designs (Kyushu Maru’s and NYK N, S and A designs) on the long haul routes (probably Truk and the SRA ports), on grounds of both fuel economy and speed. Not only do they carry more cargo per fuel ton, but they also do so faster. Faster rates of advance = shorter cycle times over a given route = greater cargo hauling efficiency.

A pity the Standard A’s are not available until June 1942: it would have been useful to see how they stack up in fuel efficiency terms.

The figures in my own tests if anything reinforce the conclusion I drew from Mike’s figures, namely that the most significant class of all remains the Aden Maru’s. By my reckoning there are 189 of them, far more than any other class, and they are the ones that I think will have to form the backbone of the Yellow Sea/Sea of Japan services bringing resources in to the Home Islands’ industry.

For me, there are two questions still unanswered. First, can the Standard A’s plus the Lima Maru’s take over from the fast ships as the prime hauliers from the SRA? Doing this would free up the fast ships to enhance Japan’s strategic sealift capability, something that I think will be required if she is to exploit her advantage of interior lines. Second, what to do with the Kawasaki tankers, the Type N TL’s? They are precious vessels since you only get 8 of them, and they can either be converted into fast oilers to supplement the 4 you start with, or they can be converted into Tonan Whalers with their high capacity and fuel efficiency. Or you can just leave them alone. Difficult choice.

Here is the fuel tests spreadsheet uploaded as a zip file.

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
Second, what to do with the Kawasaki tankers, the Type N TL’s? They are precious vessels since you only get 8 of them, and they can either be converted into fast oilers to supplement the 4 you start with, or they can be converted into Tonan Whalers with their high capacity and fuel efficiency. Or you can just leave them alone. Difficult choice.

Hello Mr. Palmer.

Type-N TLs shouldn't convert to Tonans. That was a typo. Will be fixed on the official Patch release.

I must say that I did think that the Type N TL -> Tonan Whaler was an 'interesting' conversion. [:D] That certainly simplifies the choice!

One anomaly in the tests was the first day’s travel: in all cases save the Yusen S TF the ships seem to have moved only half the usual daily distance travelled on day one – 7 December 1941. The exception – the Yusen S design – travelled a full 9 hexes on its first day, but this was due to it having to restart its voyage on December 9, as I mistakenly set it on its way at full speed, obliging a return to Yokohama and restart at cruise speed. This suggests something anomalous is happening with TF travel in the first turn of the game.

Working as designed. There is no "Night" phase on the first turn of a scenario.

Great job guys, thanks! Really helps in plotting missions for various Merchant types!

One big change, is that CS settings really work in AE; I have been using them this to automatically ship Resources to Honshu. I need to work on magic formula for exact number of ships from where to where, given transit and unloading times, etc, but it definitely works. THAT is a big help.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Great job guys, thanks! Really helps in plotting missions for various Merchant types!

One big change, is that CS settings really work in AE; I have been using them this to automatically ship Resources to Honshu. I need to work on magic formula for exact number of ships from where to where, given transit and unloading times, etc, but it definitely works. THAT is a big help.

You can now ship ressources - not supplies - by CS? Can you also do that with oil?

Haven't tried OIL, but RESOURCES works. So well that the biggets problem is you have to check the port you are shipping to and make sure it doesn't get overloaded (over 999,999 resources). It works.

I will probably only use around Home Islands, where you need to get that 100K resources there, and there isn't alot to ship in the other direction. I can also see using it from Merak to Singapore, for example, for OIL, if OIL works.

I had a bit of time to mess around with AE last night and thought about this merchant efficiency thing.  I looked at it a different way.  I divided up the bases that produce stuff into regions, basically the same way as I did in WitP and figured out what is produced in each region per month.  In most cases, it's obvious where each comodity in each region needs to go, but there are a few that will change based on events.  In most cases (for the small, isolated bases), setting up a CS TF will keep the stuff flowing in the right direction.  Some of the large regions will be a somewhat greater challenge (meaning keeping closer track of TFs moving stuff), but most of them have larger bases (> level 4) or several bases. 
 
The movement of stuff isn't really all that difficult.  Resources are plentiful, so it shouldn't be too difficult.  All excess oil will go to the Home Islands, and it will never exceed refinery capability so once the initial oil stores in the Home Islands are used, there probably will never be a surplus of oil in the Home Islands.  Fuel is a probable concern.  There is quite a bit initially, but eventually there will have to be a flow from the SRA to the Home Islands (and anywhere else a Japanese fleet is hanging out).  I'm not sure about supply yet.  There's a fair amount produced in the SRA.  I'll play it by ear to determine where that goes.  I suspect most of it will be used to repair oil facilities initially.  After that, who knows.  I'm hoping the SRA/Burma will be self-sufficient concerning supply.

I had a bit of time to mess around with AE last night and thought about this merchant efficiency thing.  I looked at it a different way.  I divided up the bases that produce stuff into regions, basically the same way as I did in WitP and figured out what is produced in each region per month.  In most cases, it's obvious where each comodity in each region needs to go, but there are a few that will change based on events.  In most cases (for the small, isolated bases), setting up a CS TF will keep the stuff flowing in the right direction.  Some of the large regions will be a somewhat greater challenge (meaning keeping closer track of TFs moving stuff), but most of them have larger bases (> level 4) or several bases. 
 
The movement of stuff isn't really all that difficult.  Resources are plentiful, so it shouldn't be too difficult.  All excess oil will go to the Home Islands, and it will never exceed refinery capability so once the initial oil stores in the Home Islands are used, there probably will never be a surplus of oil in the Home Islands.  Fuel is a probable concern.  There is quite a bit initially, but eventually there will have to be a flow from the SRA to the Home Islands (and anywhere else a Japanese fleet is hanging out).  I'm not sure about supply yet.  There's a fair amount produced in the SRA.  I'll play it by ear to determine where that goes.  I suspect most of it will be used to repair oil facilities initially.  After that, who knows.  I'm hoping the SRA/Burma will be self-sufficient concerning supply.

I had a bit of time to mess around with AE last night and thought about this merchant efficiency thing.  I looked at it a different way.  I divided up the bases that produce stuff into regions, basically the same way as I did in WitP and figured out what is produced in each region per month.  In most cases, it's obvious where each comodity in each region needs to go, but there are a few that will change based on events.  In most cases (for the small, isolated bases), setting up a CS TF will keep the stuff flowing in the right direction.  Some of the large regions will be a somewhat greater challenge (meaning keeping closer track of TFs moving stuff), but most of them have larger bases (> level 4) or several bases. 
 
The movement of stuff isn't really all that difficult.  Resources are plentiful, so it shouldn't be too difficult.  All excess oil will go to the Home Islands, and it will never exceed refinery capability so once the initial oil stores in the Home Islands are used, there probably will never be a surplus of oil in the Home Islands.  Fuel is a probable concern.  There is quite a bit initially, but eventually there will have to be a flow from the SRA to the Home Islands (and anywhere else a Japanese fleet is hanging out).  I'm not sure about supply yet.  There's a fair amount produced in the SRA.  I'll play it by ear to determine where that goes.  I suspect most of it will be used to repair oil facilities initially.  After that, who knows.  I'm hoping the SRA/Burma will be self-sufficient concerning supply.

Ouch Mike, it seems your browser has serious issues with these forums
 

ORIGINAL: d0mbo

Ouch Mike, it seems your browser has serious issues with these forums

Some things are so important they should be said more than once. [;)]