Admirals Edition Naval Thread

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Okay, so assuming a light tank is/was considered to be 20 tons, they used a weight calculation. But could you actually pack 440 light tanks (or even 260 mediums) in a Liberty ship?

[This is a serious question, I don't know what mechanism they had to do that at the time.]

Why assume? Just look it up. An M-3 Stuart Light Tank weighted 14.9 tons. 440 of them would be 6556 tons..., so the limiting factor for loading them on a Liberty Ship was space rather than weight.

[KahunaPete]

I haven't played an entire game yet of WITP but will there be German subs in the game that operated out of Malay peninsula during the latter part of the war?

I think they operated out of Palembang and did some havoc on Allied shipping in the Indian ocean.

Not sure about the remaining German raider surface fleet by Dec 1941 in that area.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: KahunaPete

I haven't played an entire game yet of WITP but will there be German subs in the game that operated out of Malay peninsula during the latter part of the war?

I think they operated out of Palembang and did some havoc on Allied shipping in the Indian ocean.

Not sure about the remaining German raider surface fleet by Dec 1941 in that area.

From what's been said it looks like German vessels aren't going to be involved in AE. But don't worry too much..., if it comes out in June some modder will have a version including them by July.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: KahunaPete

I haven't played an entire game yet of WITP but will there be German subs in the game that operated out of Malay peninsula during the latter part of the war?

I think they operated out of Palembang and did some havoc on Allied shipping in the Indian ocean.

Not sure about the remaining German raider surface fleet by Dec 1941 in that area.

Well German units, belonging to some other command, except for a couple submarines as said earlier, would be tough to simulate.
And unfortunately, WitP game systems doesn't leave much room for the raiders. Once you know the ID of every single ship on the map, including Merchies, it is a little bit hard to simulate...

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
If I may question your source Jim, I seriousely doubt you could expect to put 440 Shermans on a single Liberty, both because of the space and the weight of such a number of vehicules... (well maybe they are talking about 440 Stuarts or 440 M8, but well...)

Well I doubt they simply dropped the tanks into the cargo holds on top of each other. More than likely they were contained within cargo containers designed to carry their great weight.

I found this snippet of info which suggests they were in train sized cargo containers:

“The standard Liberty Ship, categorized by the Maritime Commission as an EC2 (“Emergency Cargo”) vessel measured between 400 and 450 feet in length, nearly 60 feet in breadth, drew close to 40 feet of water. Liberty ships had five cargo holds, three forward of the engine room and two aft (in the rear portion of the ship). The standard Liberty ship had a gross tonnage about 7,176 and displacement tonnage 14,300. Each could carry 10,800 deadweight tons (the weight of cargo a ship can carry) or 4,380 net tons (the amount of space available for cargo and passengers). The cargo gear included 5-ton booms for each hold and a 50-ton boom at No. 2 hold and a 15 or 30-ton boom at No. 4. A Liberty ship could carry an amount of cargo equal to four trains of 75 cars each. There are 121,000 board feet of lumber in a Liberty ship and 72,000 square feet of plywood.”

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... design.htm

75 cars times four trains would mean a max of 300 rail cars per ship inside the cargo holds (not sure how may tanks per car, I’ve seen pictures of 2 or 3 tanks on a rail car before), plus whatever could be lashed to the deck.

I doubt they shipped tanks on open rail cars though, more than likely they designed some kind of steel frame to bracket the tanks that allowed them to stack one above the other. Or perhaps they did have specialized rail cars that could be stacked, I don’t know, but I'm sure they had a solution to ship hundreds of tanks on a single ship when needed.

I know about 25 ships of task force PQ-17 were sunk, and the net loss was:

142,500 tons of shipping had been sunk and 150 merchant men had perished, material losses included thousands of vehicles including 430 tanks, 210 bombers and around 100,000 tons of other cargo.

http://www.websters-online-dictionary.o ... tion/PQ-17

I’m not sure if all the ships were liberty ships in this task force. Given that it occurred in June-July 42, I doubt they were all liberties.

Jim

[Iron Duke]

Some Liberty ships were converted to 'Liberty Army Tank Transports' designated Z-EC2-S-C2 sometimes refered to as Zipper Ships. They had an additional platform deck constructed below the tween deck so as to reduce the dead space above the cargo.

I think only 8 were built -- delivered between Nov 43 and Feb 44

[Jim D Burns]

I found a great PDF file (164 pages) that gave a better idea of a liberty’s lift abilities. It should be noted that it states there was a specifically designed tank and aircraft version of the ship designed to carry the larger individual cargo items. The main difference was the tonnage each boom could lift and the ships went from 5 cargo hatches to 4 so larger individual items could get below decks. It’s on page 29 and lists all 44 of these modified ships by name.

Here’s a link to the full PDF:

http://ww2ships.com/acrobat/us-os-001-f-r00.pdf

Here’s the specs breakdown which mentions the difference between ‘grain’ volume and ‘bale’ volume. The term ‘stiffeners’ seems to imply there was a scaffolding style framing structure that was used to allow large cargo items to be stacked.


Liberty specs

Dimensions
Displacement (Max.) 14,245 tonnes
Length (OA) 441 ft 6 in (129.81 m)
Length (pp) 417 ft 8.75 in (122.82 m)
Length (WL) 427 ft (125.52 m)
Beam 57 ft (16.76 m)
Draft [Note 1] 27 ft 8 7/8 in (8.16 m)
Block Coefficient 0.745
Propulsion 2500 hp
Speed 11 kts

Cargo Capacity
Deadweight [Note 2] 10,856 tonnes
Gross tonnes 7,176 tonnes
Cargo volume [Note 3] 562,608 ft3 grain (14,297 m3)
499,573 ft3 bale (12,695 m3)

Miscellaneous
Armament [Note 4] Varies
Compliment 81

Note 1: Draft quoted is maximum normal seagoing draft in peace conditions, and corresponds to the maximum
displacement. This draft may be exceeded in coastal or inland waterways, or by overloading during wartime.
Unladen ships will have a significantly lower draft.

Note 2: As well as cargo weight, deadweight also includes the weight of stores, fuel and other consumables,
although on a cargo ship the 'deadweight' is dominated by cargo weight.

Note 3: Cargo volume is quoted in various measures depending on the type of vessel. The 'grain' measurement is for
general dry cargo vessels, and indicates the total volume of the holds, excluding any structural items or fittings (grain
fills in all corners and around structural members). The 'bale' measurement is again for general dry cargo vessels,
however it measures volume up to the stiffeners on the inside of the hull, with space between stiffeners being lost
(bales of cargo don't flow around beams). The 'barrel' is quoted for oil carriers, although in the modern world oil is
now normally measured by the ton.

Note 4: The armament provided varied considerably, and could include four inch and three inch guns, 20mm and
37mm cannon, as well as 0.3 and 0.5 inch machineguns. The largest gun (generally a four inch) would typically be
fitted at the stern, and would be flanked by two smaller guns (such as two single 20 mm cannon). There would
usually be four gun positions on the superstructure, and these could be 20mm cannons, machineguns, or a mixture of
both. The forward mast would be provided with two guns, usually 20mm cannon or 0.5 inch machineguns. On the
bow would often be a single three inch gun. Many variants on this typical arrangement existed, with additional guns
being fitted in other areas (such as two or four guns added adjacent to the second mast), or the arrangements changed
from those described above (such as replacing the single bow gun with two 37mm cannon).


Jim

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed
If I may question your source Jim, I seriousely doubt you could expect to put 440 Shermans on a single Liberty, both because of the space and the weight of such a number of vehicules... (well maybe they are talking about 440 Stuarts or 440 M8, but well...)

If you look at Jim’s source, you will see that everything mentioned is broken down and “crated”.

The source is a “victory” pamphlet from the time when War Bond purchases and subscriptions were crucial to fulfilling the shipbuilding program. The source is technically quite correct, but it casts capacity in terms that would support a layman’s understanding and enthusiasm, rather than a cargo master’s load schedules.

The EC2-S-C1 Liberty ship has a "bale cubic" hold capacity of 426,800 cubic feet. This is 10,670 measurement tons (agrees very well with the website definition of 10,500 measurement tons). 9,000 measurement tons of crated jeeps or tanks would occupy 360,000 cubic feet of hold space, with the remaining 60,000 cubic feet made up of headspace, loading aisles, and the unavoidable open areas caused by crates not being of the exactly necessary aspect ratio to fit into a rectilinear volume enclosure precisely.

A “measurement ton” is not a “ton”. It is an arbitrary 40 cubic feet of space. So can a Liberty ship hold 440 Lt. Tanks, or 260 Med. Tanks ? well .. technically (spatially) yes. The volumetric hold capacity is sufficient, and makes for wonderful press copy. But, as the bottom of the web page indicates, that was not the nominal loadout.

Many factors combine to define loadouts for cargo vessels.

[witpqs]

Re: PQ-17

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
I’m not sure if all the ships were liberty ships in this task force. Given that it occurred in June-July 42, I doubt they were all liberties.

Jim

They weren't, although I forget the mix, IIRC at least one was, maybe more. For a good read see The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17 by David Irving. Those guys had one tough journey!

[witpqs]

JWE,

That's what I was suspecting. Thanks.

[wworld7]

Will AE allow and changes to the ships "allowed" in certain TFs?

Such as being able to include BBs in invasion TFs?

Or is this an issue for the hoped for WITP2?

Happy Holidays!

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

Will AE allow and changes to the ships "allowed" in certain TFs?

Such as being able to include BBs in invasion TFs?

Or is this an issue for the hoped for WITP2?

Happy Holidays!

?? Well BBs are "allowed" in invasion TFs now (via the workaround of first creating an invasion TF as an escort TF and then performing a "mission change" to transport). But things have been tightened up in AE and such workaround will be eliminated.

Don, could you publish for us the tentative match up between ship types and TF types?

[wworld7]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: flipperwasirish

Will AE allow and changes to the ships "allowed" in certain TFs?

Such as being able to include BBs in invasion TFs?

Or is this an issue for the hoped for WITP2?

Happy Holidays!

?? Well BBs are "allowed" in invasion TFs now (via the workaround of first creating an invasion TF as an escort TF and then performing a "mission change" to transport). But things have been tightened up in AE and such workaround will be eliminated.

Don, could you publish for us the tentative match up between ship types and TF types?

Thanks for the answer. I'm a stickler sometimes and the "work around" seemed to me to be trying to cheat the system, so I chose not to use it. It popped into my head tonight as my CAs just don't have the pounding power NEEDED, and at the moment I'm short escorts for another TF. So my BBs are sitting in harbor and the crews are having drinking contests...

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Don, could you publish for us the tentative match up between ship types and TF types?

Sure can, and emphasize tentative.

First, Air TF Types

[Don Bowen]

Now Surface (tentative)

[Don Bowen]

Transport (tentative)

[Don Bowen]

Subs (tentative)

[Don Bowen]

Mine warfare (tentative)





In addition, all secondary minelayers in minelaying TFs.

[Don Bowen]

And, lastly, cargo/special (also tentative)

[jwilkerson]

So actually, it looks like tenatively, BB are allowed in both transport and amphibious TF types - we will have to wait and see whether this remains so by the time of release!