A problem with being historical with Replenishment in WITP

[el cid again]

Trying to set up games, I noticed the original game TF 2 does not work in any form of RHS.
Yet it works in stock and CHS. Eventually I figured out that what went wrong is that the component ships are
classified as TK vice AO. And I had changed the ships because those in the original game are not the historical
ships.

Now the data base correctly says these were merchant ships. And the code seems to want to say "only auxiliary oilers may replenish." That is, a TK may transport, but not replenish. An AO may do either. This is more or less wrong, although it has some points of truth down deep inside. Tankers have often been used for replenishment purposes -
and there is no inherant reason they can not do so. Tankers have organic pumps and at least do astern fueling by passing a hose the same way ships pass a hauser - actually pass a hauser first - and pull a hose across with it. The hauser itself begins as a rope. This is pretty elementary seamanship.

We have a number of options. The easiest is to classify the Huisan Maru [Large] Tanker as an AO. Since anything else involves a lot of work - and there is something to be said for keeping the smaller vessels segregated (fewer crew makes difficult evolutions somewhat less likely) - that will be the first solution. In the long run we might want to reclassify all TK as AO - or only make exceptions when we know for some reason the TK could not replenish.

[m10bob]

While your thread concerns historical possibility of ships, I would still like to see some ocean-going tugs..

[spence]

Actually isn't the fact that TF2 can't replenish more or less historical in any case?

Nagumo may well have had the fuel to launch a third/fourth strike but as things stand now in all scenarios he gets to hang around Hawaii for a week pounding PH to his hearts content after the 60 odd bombs dropped on Dec 7th knock out the 6-7 airfields for that amount of time. Seems to me it would be historical that he needs head back to a valid fuel source after only a short stay in Hawaiian waters (simulating that the tankers gave up their fuel on the way over although I guess they actually had enough to refuel KB for the trip back to Japan).

[el cid again]

Two names are duplicates: they are different transliterations of each other into Romanji:


Nihon Maru and Nippon Maru

slots 995 and 1032 in CHS and RHS
slots 949 and 451 in stock

One name may have a better (more standard) transliteration into Romanji

Kokuyo Maru should be Kyokuto Maru

slot 988 in CHS and RHS
slot 935 in stock

The "correct" spelling is in Hiragana - a Japanese "alphabet" that has a symbol for each syllable. How you spell each in English is not always done the same way. But when they teach the syllables to students, they use charts where the English letters are used in a pattern: start with vowel sounds and repeat each one adding a consonate: a, e, i, o, u; ta, te, ti, to, tu, ra, re, ri, ro, ru might be oversimplified examples (it is more complicated than that - nothing Japanese is ever simple).
So I think the "standard" transliteration should be the one used in schools converting syllables to Roman letters. [There is a parallel way to write every one of the 42 syllables - called Katakana - but only foreign words are written using that system.
It is the only language I know of with strict segregation of foreign and native words, so you can tell when you see them which is which. But if you only hear a word, you don't know which way to write it!]

These ships were really in the Pearl Harbor tanker fleet. It appears not one of the eight ships IRL are in stock or CHS. IF you change them to be right you must ALSO change the ships from TK to AO or the TF won't replenish. In the strictly historical scenarios, RHS only puts in 5 of the 8 - the others appear on 21 Dec at Tokyo (Yokosuka) - after they returned - because they represent fuel lost to refueling by Dec 6, 1941 (US time). Apparently for technical reasons, AOs were substituted into stock - and inherited by CHS.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

While your thread concerns historical possibility of ships, I would still like to see some ocean-going tugs..

It would indeed be nice. The problem is that NO ship can tow another ship. So tugs have no function. However, note that RHS has added "tug and barge combination" multi-ship vessels (if a barge is a ship). And also that ALL forms of WITP had a disguised tug in them! A famous tug with a five barge tow shows up in mid ocean at the start of the war - as an AK! Her captain refused to drop his tow - and spent weeks returning to Pearl at the slow rate that forced him to sail at.


It requires a hard code change to make tugs able to tow - although RHS has a way to make the tow be perminant - using combinations - and the road was paved by stock - which did it secretly with the case above.

Note that there also is a famous FORMER tug class that IS in the game. Lapwing type vessels are present as PCs in most forms of WITP - and as PC or PG in RHS - because they converted to that role. One is also an AVD in RHS.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: spence

Actually isn't the fact that TF2 can't replenish more or less historical in any case?


REPLY: Not at all the case. See the dramatization of Tora! Tora! Tora! [FYI not a single line of that movie is made up script. Every line is known to have been said by the person who said it. It was an amazing joint US-Japanese project - done dramatically - but to scholarly standards - very unusual. Midway is a sequil done in a similar way - but with a couple of fictional sub plots thrown in the mix.] The Kiddo Butai could not have reached its attack position at any reasonable speed (minimizing detection risk) without refueling. It was very marginal - the Hiryu and Soryu could not make the final run with their fuel capacity - and actually carried "more" than 100% of fuel in the form of 55 gallon drums - which had to be emptied and disposed of in order to conduct operations! The need to slow down to refuel was explicitly a concern of Nagumo - who feared submarine attack at such times (plural - it was not a single time evolution).

Nagumo may well have had the fuel to launch a third/fourth strike but as things stand now in all scenarios he gets to hang around Hawaii for a week pounding PH to his hearts content after the 60 odd bombs dropped on Dec 7th knock out the 6-7 airfields for that amount of time. Seems to me it would be historical that he needs head back to a valid fuel source after only a short stay in Hawaiian waters (simulating that the tankers gave up their fuel on the way over although I guess they actually had enough to refuel KB for the trip back to Japan).

REPLY: This latter problem is a function of the "nearly nuclear power" way the data base was set up for most ships. The ship fuel stores were grossly inconsistent - but generally overstated the ability of ships to move. In most cases, the cruising speed was too high AND the fuel was too little - so ships can refuel and move and refuel and move in wholly impossible ways. It was worse for IJN because they were far less efficient - fuel/engine wise - with exceptions (for foreign made engines as in Shiretoko class and for diesel engines - mostly licenced versions of German marine engines).
RHS has reformed this (as have a few other mods like one by AKWarrior) - by increasing fuel requirements per ship, correcting cruising speeds, etc. It should not be possible to sail from Hawaii to San Francisco - hang out for a month - then return to Tokyo and have MOST of the tanker fuel remaining! But I did that in my first game of WITP. You cannot do that in RHS.