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I am looking for some general advice on how to set up the Allied logistic machine / nightmare.

I am playing my first campaign as the Allies against the Japanese AI in scenario 2.

From some previous searches and my own muddled thinking:

I intend to use Bombay as my main logistics centre in SEA and distribute from there using the lower endureance xAKs and TKs to all points forward

In the Pacific I cannot decide whether Aukland or Fiji should be my main distribution centre. Any pros and cons are greatly appreciated.

So far I have sent all the 17 speed xAKs from India and the DEI to Cape Town and intend to use them to ferry supplies to Bombay/Perth. I have a large portion of the xAKs which can be converted xAPs on there way to Cape Town for conversion and possibly from there to the US or Aden to bring in reinforcements.

All the starting xAPs that begin in India I have sent to Aden to pick up reinforcements (with a few xAKs). The tankers I have set in motion towards Abadan to pick up fuel/oil.

Obviously there is a lot more to do (my first turn is already in danger of taking as long as the whole Pacific war) any tips are welcome.

Which scenario are you playing and who is your opponent? To answer your specific questions on why Auckland/Fiji/Bombay, etc. I would ask why do you think those are good bases to use? What made you pick them over others? What do you think a base is going to need? What kinds of operations would you be supporting out of those bases?

Against AI in stock scens I used Karachi, Bombay, Sydney, Suva & Pearl Harbor as suppy hubs, then distributing from them to forward bases.

Thanks Sardaukar I've been scouring your newbies AAR for ideas keep it coming.

How do you set up your supply network? Do you go for large convoys to make the most of your limited initial ASW and combat resources or smaller convoys to minimise potential losses from raids? Do you have the convoy follow a dedicated ASW TF or is it better to integrate your ASW into your convoy? Do you use specific merchant ship types for specific roles?

Apologies for all the questions as I'm currently at the bottom of the very steep learning curve!

ORIGINAL: Powloon

Thanks Sardaukar I've been scouring your newbies AAR for ideas keep it coming.

How do you set up your supply network? Do you go for large convoys to make the most of your limited initial ASW and combat resources or smaller convoys to minimise potential losses from raids? Do you have the convoy follow a dedicated ASW TF or is it better to integrate your ASW into your convoy? Do you use specific merchant ship types for specific roles?

Apologies for all the questions as I'm currently at the bottom of the very steep learning curve!

I go for large convoys, since it lessens the losses to submarines. One does not need very large escort to fend off IJN submarines, so it helps also with initial lack of ASW assets. Note that you have couple of very long range escorts, like PG Charleston. They are excellent for covering long-distance convoys, even when with small amount of ASW armament.
Large convoys can be bit risky if one happens to run into Japanese CVs, though, especially if one tends to have dozen large tankers etc. in one.

About using specific ship types, obviously some types are reserved for troop and aircraft transports. This include long-range and fast xAKs, you have quite a few xAKs capable for 16-17 knots and thus would not slow down troop convoys too much. For supply & fuel transports, bog-standard slower xAKs and TKs will do.

Don't forget to setup a series of CS convoys from the UK to Cape Town to use the supplies that show up there. I've missed that one for months and am just now getting those running in my other games.

ORIGINAL: rjopel

Don't forget to setup a series of CS convoys from the UK to Cape Town to use the supplies that show up there. I've missed that one for months and am just now getting those running in my other games.

That is really good idea. I have missed that in all my games so far. Thanks for the tip!

Though mainly I run out of fuel in Cape Town, since I tend to ship it to Oz, to fuel up Australian industry and naval operations there.

Don't forget to setup a series of CS convoys from the UK to Cape Town to use the supplies that show up there. I've missed that one for months and am just now getting those running in my other games

another sticky note!

ORIGINAL: zuluhour

Don't forget to setup a series of CS convoys from the UK to Cape Town to use the supplies that show up there. I've missed that one for months and am just now getting those running in my other games

another sticky note!

It's a whole bunch of the 4175 cargo ships for the 52 day round trip. Also I use 2x10800 tankers and then ship fuel have another couple on a CS from East Coast to Cape Town.

You dont need shipping to move LCU or air units from East Coast to Cape Town.
 
I never look at the UK base, dont remember running dry at the Cape either.

ORIGINAL: JeffK

You dont need shipping to move LCU or air units from East Coast to Cape Town.

I never look at the UK base, dont remember running dry at the Cape either.

I think this is more relevant to PBEM than AI games. PBEM games will find the convoy routes from the WC to NZ/Oz often interdicted by a combination of submarines, SCTF, LBA, and/or CVTF. As a backstop to this, many players move a large amount of supply through CT to Oz as well as to India/Burma. I doubt you would see nearly as great a need for this against the AI or even a less aggressive PBEM player

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: JeffK

You dont need shipping to move LCU or air units from East Coast to Cape Town.

I never look at the UK base, dont remember running dry at the Cape either.

I think this is more relevant to PBEM than AI games. PBEM games will find the convoy routes from the WC to NZ/Oz often interdicted by a combination of submarines, SCTF, LBA, and/or CVTF. As a backstop to this, many players move a large amount of supply through CT to Oz as well as to India/Burma. I doubt you would see nearly as great a need for this against the AI or even a less aggressive PBEM player

Since I tend to pile up more supply than I can ever use in the USA I use East Coast instead since it seems like it should be quicker.

ORIGINAL: vettim89

ORIGINAL: JeffK

You dont need shipping to move LCU or air units from East Coast to Cape Town.

I never look at the UK base, dont remember running dry at the Cape either.

I think this is more relevant to PBEM than AI games. PBEM games will find the convoy routes from the WC to NZ/Oz often interdicted by a combination of submarines, SCTF, LBA, and/or CVTF. As a backstop to this, many players move a large amount of supply through CT to Oz as well as to India/Burma. I doubt you would see nearly as great a need for this against the AI or even a less aggressive PBEM player

I use CT/Perth against the AI, a lot shorter than SF/Sydney.
Explains why I have 10mill supply at SF!

I've got three evenly spaced convoys shuttling supplies from Cape Town to China via Rangoon:  two with 8 Dominion 'M' cargo ships each, and one with 7 Dominion 'L's.  That yields about 130,000 tons of supplies on every convoy cycle - about nine weeks time - again with most of it going to China.  Of course, this can only work as long as I hold Rangoon and, preferably also, Pegu for the rail link.  The Japanese are making a mighty effort at Moulmein, though...

Air cover at Ragoon is key.  Thank goodness for all the 221 and 223 Group air reinforcements out of Aden!

However, I need to shunt supplies into CT from the UK in order not to deplete CT - the regular computer-controlled convoys that come to CT aren't enough to sustain this tempo.

Also, it's unbelievable how much supplies and fuel piles up in the Eastern U.S. over time!  Gotta start sending convoys that way...

I pay a lot of attention to logistics. The part of the game I like the most [:)]

Sooooo.

First off I do not use the East American Coast (I guess vs human opponents it might make sense) at all.

From Seattle: supplies and fuel to North Pacific
From San Francisco: supplies to Pearl Harbor and Brisbane (or Sydney)
From Los Angeles: fuel to Pearl Harbor and Australia.

From Pearl Harbor: fuel and supplies to the central and south pacific bases. Pago Pago gets bigger convoys since they redistribute fuel and supplies to surrounding bases (Fidji, Bora Bora etc.).

When the South Pacific gets stronger (summer 1942), they get a big convoy from SF with supplies and another from LA with fuel.

Australia sends fuel and supplies to New Zealand.

From the Middle East:

1) supplies (few) to India
2) small tankers send fuel to India
3) medium tankers send fuel to Colombo
therefore
4) big tankers transport fuel from Colombo to Perth...

From Cape Town:
1) supplies to Perth
2) Supplies to Colombo -> to India

Easy and works like a charm [8D]

ORIGINAL: rjopel

Don't forget to setup a series of CS convoys from the UK to Cape Town to use the supplies that show up there. I've missed that one for months and am just now getting those running in my other games.

It's a matter of style, but in my first game I managed to drain the UK to zero pretty easily. There's no advantage to using it to go to CT over the EC at all. The EC quickly builds more supplies than you have ships, and it has a max load speed and dock space.

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I think this is more relevant to PBEM than AI games. PBEM games will find the convoy routes from the WC to NZ/Oz often interdicted by a combination of submarines, SCTF, LBA, and/or CVTF.

The AI has done each of these to me, in varying amounts. Newbies playing the AI should NOT see the WC to Oz as a Princess cruise. It is highly dangerous in 1942, and less so all the way through.

In particular they should attend to Tarawa route-arounds, Baker/Canton if/when, and Truk.

Yup.

Safe routes from the WC to OZ/Australia are LONG routes. 

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

First off I do not use the East American Coast (I guess vs human opponents it might make sense) at all.

The EC is a huge freebie. AI players should use it. Why? Anything leaving there for another off-map destination, such as CT, Aden, or the Canal Zone, does not use fuel. Therefore there are no range considerations. Even xAKLs can make up a CS convoy from EC to CT and run on auto-pilot. EC to CT is a great route for all the dog & Cat merchants you evac from the DEI in the first months. (xAKs carry fuel just fine, albeit more inefficiently.) Pay the transit cost once to get them from their refugee port of CT to EC, then set them up to build CT and forget them for a year or so. They can't be attacked either. Just check on system damage every month and repair as needed. This can be done at either end.

From Seattle: supplies and fuel to North Pacific
From San Francisco: supplies to Pearl Harbor and Brisbane (or Sydney)
From Los Angeles: fuel to Pearl Harbor and Australia.

All WC to Oz routes take a lot of fuel, and the TFs have to be carefully formed for like endurances. Plus, they eat up escorts. Early, you also have to dogleg them around LBA traps, which eats up more fuel and time. The AI has surprises built in which make this route expensive on occasion. On the backhaul leg they eat up a good portion of the fuel they hauled out just getting home.

Oz will make a LOT of supply if you get it fuel. Fuel delivered to Perth from CT, which is a shorter, fuel-economic leg, will flow to the east coast of Oz by itself and start making supply piles. In the betas you can turn industry on and off in Oz if you like, so later on when fleet fuel is needed more than a third million supply at Sydney, you can turn HI off and save the fuel for the fleet.

I'm not saying don't set up some fuel piles across the wide Pacific, but hauling it at full cost each way to Oz from the WC is sub-optimal when you can get it from the EC to CT for nothing, and the run from the CT wornhole to Perth is relatively safe.

From the Middle East:

1) supplies (few) to India

Again, style, but I don't send suplies to India. Bombay and Calcutta make millions of points if you get India fuel. Dump CS tanker loads into Karachi from Abaddan, and it will flow where it needs to go. Later on, when you start doing Big Things in NE India and Burma, you'll need to haul supplies into those ports to flow inland. But India proper is fully railroaded and supplies go when they should, mostly.

2) small tankers send fuel to India
3) medium tankers send fuel to Colombo

I use Colombo as my main fleet base. Against the AI I've never felt a need to base in Bombay, or for sure not Karachi. Colombo is defensible against the AI if you start early.

therefore
4) big tankers transport fuel from Colombo to Perth...

Again, style, but this can be a pretty risky route, far more so that CT to Perth. The AI sometimes does CV raids into the IO. Depends on your script draw, and the timing is highly variable. You also have similar issues as with the WC to Oz routes in that a lot of the fuel you bring has to go back into the returning convoys to get them home. Any logistics movement one can do off-map one should do. It's free, except for normal, minor system damage. And it's 100% free of the risk of attack.

Humm, I think you sort of convinced me to use these channels [:)]

Anyway, there's a flaw in your theory. The WC -> Australia (or Ceylon -> Perth) routes are risky? Are you sure? Keep in mind the convoys sail south of Bora Bora... If, despite this, the Japanese manage to raid them, then I AFFIRM they can raid any convoy west and northwest of Perth too = your "safe" route. The convoys will be caught once they leave their heaven [;)]

As I have said, I think I am going to follow your advice though.