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How many can one place in a port for cumulated effect? Or is one only allowed in each port?

AE's rearm your ships, and the amount of supply in any one of them determines how large a weapon they can rearm, so it doesn't matter if you've got 1 or 3 in port, the biggest one you've got will determine what you can rearm.

Each AE is limited by ops as well as by supply (ammo) onboard. If you have lots of ships requiring rearming, individual AEs might run out of ops.

Otherwise it is as John Lansford says, the capacity of each AE determines the largest weapon that that individual AE can rearm. Stacking AEs does not increase the size of the largest weapon (beyond the largest AE, that is).

Should they be in the port or just docked or does it matter? Thanks for all the help.

ORIGINAL: ETF

Should they be in the port or just docked or does it matter? Thanks for all the help.

If you want them used by "Replenish from Port" they must be disbanded in the port.

If you want them used by "Replenish at Sea" they must be a an TF in the hex, docked or not.

What is the largest (best) merchant class that can be converted to AEs?

The C2 cargo vessels can convert to AEs, indeed the newer USN AEs were built on C2 hulls.  You get quite a few, so you can really go to town if you want.  Or you can convert some of your older ships to AKEs to boost the ability of small ports to rearm ships.

When at sea, do they have to be in a 'replentishment' TF in order to reload fellow ships?

True "at sea" replenishment does not begin until 1945 and then the AEs must be in a replenishment TF.

What we are talking about here is replenishment at a port. Very specifically, if there is a friendly port in the hex (even a dot base). Replenishment "at sea" in this circumstance is assumed to be "in harbor" - two ships not underway (even though they are in TFs).

We (OK, I) were particularly impressed by a history of the RAN that included an early war example of this. A regular tanker, not equipped for underway refueling (the Norden as I recall) put into a protected anchorage and refueled a couple of Australian Cruisers. Also, think Ulithi - ships at an undeveloped port that can be used to refuel and rearm ships in the anchorage.

The key is the port - or more accurately the anchorage. If the TF is completely at sea, different rules apply. For game purposes, at sea means not in a hex with a friendly base.

Hope this is clear.

Thanks Don

Unless things have changed since Admiral's Edition's development stage, ammunition ships don't have a cumulative effect, from what I recall of earlier posts on the subject.  In other words, you can't add together the load capacities of multiple AE's in order to raise their aggregate capacity to a level at which you can re-arm a battleship's main battery, if none of the available AE's have the capacity to do this individually.  I'm not sure, but if you don't have an AE with the capacity required for main battery replenishment I think it may still be capable of re-arming secondaries - is that correct?

Correct.

No cumulative effect - you can't carry a 2 ton item in 4 half-ton pickups.

The AE can rearm any weapon up to it's capacity rating. This would include secondaries for a ship whose primaries could not be rearmed. That is, even if the AE could not rearm 16" guns it still might rearm 5-inchers.

Supply required on the AE, of course.

Thanks Don, grateful for the confirmation about the secondaries in particular.