Mixed taskforces

[Zeta16]

Is there going to be restrictions on British and American ships working together. This did not happen much until late in the war, because King was anglophobic and wanted just the United States Navy to be the only one to advenge the Pearl Harbor attack?

[madflava13]

I don't know what your sources are, but that seems a little unlikely... I think it was more a matter of the Brits having most of their hulls either on the bottom (Prince of Wales, for example) or else tied up in the Atlantic and Med...

US/Australian forces worked together throughout the war with little or no problems AFAIK. (I'm speaking of the naval forces).

[Snigbert]

ABDA forces were an example of multi-national units early in the war. I haven't heard about any restrictions of British/Commonwealth/American ships working together, except for the natural geographic differences of our forces locations.

[Zeta16]

The information is from Operation Pacific (The Royal Navy's War Aganist Japan) by Edwyn Gray. Gray says, "Fraser wanted the Royal Navy to be in at the kill when Japan finally fell, despite Admiral King's equal determination to keep the Limeys out of the picture so that the US Navy should have the sole honour and glory of destroying the Japanese Navy and avenging Pearl Harbor."

Also in the book it talks about how the British Navy was not allowed to use American bulk supplies except for bulk fuel supplies because of King's orders. Also that British ships were not allowed to make Major repairs at US advanced fleet bases like American ships were.

I understand something like this would be to hard to put into a game, but maybe Something like British ships could only get ammo reload from their bases or their own supply ships and that their ships could not be repaired at any place except Oz, US mainland, India, and in home ports.

[Mike Scholl]

The information is from Operation Pacific (The Royal Navy's War Aganist Japan) by Edwyn Gray. Gray says, "Fraser wanted the Royal Navy to be in at the kill when Japan finally fell, despite Admiral King's equal determination to keep the Limeys out of the picture so that the US Navy should have the sole honour and glory of destroying the Japanese Navy and avenging Pearl Harbor."

Also in the book it talks about how the British Navy was not allowed to use American bulk supplies except for bulk fuel supplies because of King's orders. Also that British ships were not allowed to make Major repairs at US advanced fleet bases like American ships were.

I understand something like this would be to hard to put into a game, but maybe Something like British ships could only get ammo reload from their bases or their own supply ships and that their ships could not be repaired at any place except Oz, US mainland, India, and in home ports.

King was an Anglo-phobe, but the reason the Brit's needed their own "fleet train"
was because they used different ammunition and spares. Hard to stuff a US
5" round into a British 4.7" or 4.5" gun. The Brits were there, though by then
it hardly mattered. If I remember right the British Pacific Fleet wound up as
TF 58.7 of the US Pacific Fleet. Ernie King's "druthers" hardly need or deserve
game representation.

[Zeta16]

I guess I am saying is that the higher US Navy command did not really want British ships playing a major role, and they went out their way to make this happen. When in US advanced bases, commanders were told not to let the British use American supplies and they were not allowed to use things such as the american movie theaters and other base facilites

[madflava13]

I have no real sources for this, but even if that was an order at the commander level, I bet the operational level units ignored that sort of thing in the interests of common sense...

[Zeta16]

They did ignore it when they could. The one thing they did not was the use of dry docks at forward fleetbases. I guess I am wondering how easy will it be to use British ships with american ships. Are there pp points used to assign ships to task forces or fleets like there is for ground forces to be assigned objectives.

[Snigbert]

I thought the reason that the British offer of ships to be used during the final operations of the war was refused was due to lack of range and capability compared to the Essex class carriers which would cause them to be more of a hindrance then a benefit.

[Zeta16]

King keep looking for other operations for them. We wanted them to operate in SRA area. However, Nimitz wanted to use them as well as Hasley.

[Mr.Frag]

I always thought it was because the Brits had booze onboard and the Yanks had no control

[Hornblower]

Right! We traded Grog for Oil.. Churchill was pressing for the recovery of former british possessions. i.e, malaya etc. He felt that the peoples of these lands needed to "see" the japanese defeated, and was pressing for an operation to force the Malacca straits. However the admiralty wanted the main battle fleet to be used in the main theatre of operations, and after much infighting won over Churchill. Roosevelt accepted Churchills "offer" of the british pacafic fleet (BPF). King wanted the british to be self-sufficient, and once sitpulated that the BPF be on notice to join Macarthurs command. Neither happened. Self-sufficient was interpreted on a very very genereous way by the american commanders on the spot, nor did Nimitz want to hand the BPF over to Mac, so they took up position on the Right of TF38's (the tf was Halsey's at this time)- a location of honor. The right of a line was location where a regiment's Grenadiers where stationed. However Halsey excluded the BPF's airgroups from his Pearl Harbor revenge/payback attack on Kure in '45. 3 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 5 cruisers, and other ships were sunk in the raid.

[Reg]

Is there going to be restrictions on British and American ships working together. This did not happen much until late in the war, because King was anglophobic and wanted just the United States Navy to be the only one to advenge the Pearl Harbor attack?

I was under the impression he wasn't too keen on the US Army being involved either .......

(And definately not the other Allies).

[HMSWarspite]

I commented on the possible need for restrictions in multi-nation TF before. The issue should not be one of prevention, since, as has been pointed out, various nations did cooperate. However, IIRC until the RN converted some ships (1944?) they could not easily replenish underway using US systems, but used the old fashioned trailing hose (much slower). Also, operating procedures etc differed. None of this couldn't be fixed (and was) but it took a few weeks training together before the cracks ceased to show.

I think someone mentioned something about TFs being harder to form in WitP (can't remember what/where), but maybe there should be an extra penalty if multi-national. UK replenishment at sea should be slower until along side replenishment kit was fitted, and I think UK and US CV in the same TF should probably be severly limited early war, with lost of op losses if air units try to cross base for any reason ( IIRC early war US landing practice was reversed relative to UK). I would have to look it up, but early war, RN deck landing officers indicated where the plane was relative to the correct position, and left it to the pilot to sort out what to do, and US ones gave instructions to the pilot what to do, and the pilot had to follow them. (I may have these 2 reversed in my memory!). Late war the UK learnt the US method IIRC

Whilst I am on the subject, I have never used TK in replenishment groups in UV, since it is unrealistic and gamey. I haven't bothered to find out whether the game allows it. It shouldn't (they don't have the kit a fleet oiler does). The extensive and easy refueling of DD from bigger ships ought to be a little harder as well for (at least) non US navies.

I must re-read my sources, and check up some more on this (unless someone can confirm my shaky memory!)

[TIMJOT]

I don't think there should be any logistic penalties, but there probably shoulp be some operational penalties for mixing nationalties in TFs. Perhaps in the form of experience hits. the experiences of ABDAFLOT, demonstrated that there were definite difficulties operating tactically in these mixed TFs. The USN, UK and Dutch used different signals, terminology, frequencies, doctorine ect. Given time these difficulties could be sorted out and overcome. An example being the USN Chicago and DDs operateing with the Aussie CAs, but they had months to work up with each other.

Which brings up an old issue. I wish there could be benefit/penalties for keeping ships together in TFs. Maybe leadership or experience bonuses of some sort. Something that would discourage constant mix and matching of ships in TFs, which in the real world would greatly effect efficiency.

[Mike Scholl]

While it is true that there were some difficulties to be ironed out in the Allies
using Multi-National TF's, what about the Game's representation of the "infigh-
ting" and lack of co-operation between the IJA and the IJN? I haven't seen
much of anything in the Play-testers reports to suggest any problems on that
front. If the Game allows "perfect harmony" and co-operation between those
two entities (Who couldn't even agree on a common electrical voltage for A/C
production), then leaving out the small aggrivations of Allied Co-operation hard-
ly seems worth a major discussion.

[Rainerle]

maybe soviet ships should be excluded from ever joining TF's with non-soviet allied ships ?