ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge
I think you guys are getting carried away
where or what size base did you need to base PT boats at ?
and what did they carry ? you dropped off 55 Gallon tanks of fuel and Trops in a area where you could park the boat, and set up a crain to load the fuel and Trops needed for the boats to reload
some of the PT bases were not anything we would call bases in the game
if you can make a port on a base, it should be able to support SUBS
you want to give them R@R great (I try to also) but don't make rules that make no sense
HARD_Sarge
It’s not that simple Sarge, port there, move crane and torps and here we go. Historically there were only 3 submarine bases in South Pacific, accessible by UV player – Brisbane, Truk and Rabaul, these bases had torpedoes, repair facilities, sub tenders with spare parts, after usually pretty long patrols sub crews could get appropriate rest there. Submarine, in comparison with all other warships had very limited space onboard where a crew could rest, no such space actually. If you dock CA or even DD at, let say Lunga with 2 size port, CA crew do not fully experience all that pretty stuff like mosquitoes, bad food, wet clothes etc. as their ground partners do, they stay onboard in somewhat comfortable conditions. They can stay there for a couple of months without serious fatigue and morale penalty. But if you dock sub there, these guys rather stay onboard, and it’s just like being on patrol for them, or either go ashore, where, at such ‘nice’ places, conditions are barely better. Sub with exhausted crew with low morale lose its combat readiness.
Besides that, even if some minor mechanism is out of order it can cause major problem for sub in combat, while surface ship can do very well with some pumps out or any other secondary devices unserviceable. That’s why submarine should receive full and authoritative technical treatment every time ship returns to port. Here is another in-game shortcoming becomes clearly visible, at every port you have, qualified mechanics, specific equipment and facilities are available a priori, even if there are no other troops at all. You can dock ships there and all those complicated procedures take place, while in reality it’s impossible without additional port personnel. Why I should think that so numerous additional port personnel is available while other troops modeled as separate units are in shortage as it was in reality? Well, I can understand when port like Gili Gili is built up to 6-7 size and several base forces stationed there, forward or even major submarine base could be moved there. But when subs use ports like Lunga, Tulagi, Nevea etc. it’s gamey. Read Lockwood, chapters covering 1942 early ’43. Shortage of torpedoes, spare parts, trained personnel and how hard it was to make even forward submarine base.
But main problem with ports in UV is that program does not take into account size of anchorages. You can dock 100 or even 200 ships at such a small place like Tulagi, and all these ships will be safe from sub attacks and will receive certain amount of repairs. When Japanese explored Tulagi anchorage they had concluded that this place is suitable only for seaplane tender base and as refueling point for vessels no larger than DD.
If you’ll accept the fact that all ports in game should have natural limits of their anchorages, you’ll realize that when you’re enlarging ports in UV, you do not make natural anchorage there any larger, if there is space only for 50 warships, you shouldn’t have ability to dock 100 there. In my understanding, when you’re building up ports, you just build additional warehouses, piers, breakwaters, enlarge waterways, place anti-torpedo nets and port cranes there, more of those you build faster your transports can unload and more supplies and fuel can be store there, nothing more, natural anchorage still has its natural size, which can be very very small.
Another problem is amount of supplies and fuel, which can be stored at largely undeveloped forward bases. You grab a base with potential port size of just 1 and can immediately move 100,000+ fuel and supplies there, in reality it will take several months to build such a huge warehouses and fuel tanks there.
There were a lot of problems with Noumea port still in 1943, not enough capacities to store all needed war materials there, load/unload operations were proceeding very slowly and this had great impact on combat operations speed, transports were waiting for 3-4 days to unload their cargo, and that was big port for South Pacific.
Of course, no wargame can simulate all these complicated matters absolutely realistic, there are some limits since it’s just a game actually, but if one wants to bring more realism into a wargame, house rules help a lot. I don’t use any rules that do not make sense Sarge.