US Reserve Destroyers

[engineer]

If you look through the scenario files it turns out that there are over 100 US destroyers that don't appear in the game. That begs a question about just what they really are so I spent awhile in the Dictionary of American Navy Fighting Ships and ran them down.

They are real US destroyers. They fit into one of four classifications:
- Reserve: These ships are in long-term storage. About two months of yard time is necessary to ready them for sea, then you have to bring aboard the crew and go through shakedown.
- Decommisioning Pending: In 1922 the USN decommissioned well over 100 destroyers due to budget constraints. Many of these ships had their personnel re-assigned, but were not yet formally decommissioned when the early scenario combat would start. These vessels could be ready for sea in shorter times than the reserve vessels since less reconditioning would be necessary.
- Coast Guard Employment: Twenty old destroyers were transferred to the Coast Guard and used to help run down rum runners and enforce prohibiton. This would be for the late scenario only, but the ships were immediately available.
- Active Duty: Some of the ships were on active duty in the Atlantic.


Conversions: A few destroyers had been converted to alternative roles before being laid up in reserve. USS Harding was converted to a seaplane tender (AV). The USS Murray and USS Lansdale were converted to light minelayers (DM).

See this post and next one for JPEG's of the data.

[engineer]

Here's the next half of the data:



Okay, so what to do with the data?

1) It boggles the mind that the Navy would leave dozens of destroyers in storage with a war going on. Getting these ships ready for action wouldn't be the first order of business, but over the course of the 1st year of the war one would expect the reserve ships to be refitted and recommissioned at whatever the latest standard was. These ships would free Atlantic Fleet destroyers for duty in the Pacific or be available themselves.

2) In the early scenario, it makes sense that orders to cancel the decommissioning would be cut so those ships would be available within a few months.

3) The Coast Guard and Atlantic Fleet destroyers would be available as the recommissionings take place.

4) All of the destroyers will not be available for Pacific deployment. Some will escort shippng from the Panama Canal to California. Some will remain in the Atlantic and Caribbean to protect against possible raiders and Japanese submarines. However, it seems plausible to me that between forty and sixty of the more modern ships (Wickes and Clemson Class) would be available to deploy into the Pacific during the first six to eighteen months of both the early and late scenarios.

5) Finally, this is a step that unbalances the game in favor of the Allies. That means as a mod one is making a conscious choice to pursue a more historical flavor for the game or one is so routinely whipping the AI that this is a way to handicap things for a more interesting challenge as the Japanese player.

PS: While coding this up over the weekend I cobbled up a Wickes AV Conversion class. I dumped the stern DC racks and the rear 4" gun and added a capacity of 4. My test case calls out adding 50 DD's to the US OOB, 4/mo from December 1926 through November 1927. Refits to the latest available class of Clemson/Wickes destroyer are performed on the east coast so the DD's don't show up and instantly clog the shipyards on the west coast. Two more in December 1927. The DM's arrive in March 1927 and the AV arrives in May 1927. In 1928, with the war 18 months old, I would imagine that new wartime construction would start to join the fleet.