Off-map movement and the Suez Canal.

[Tector920]

I am an old hand with Grigsby's Pacific games, starting with "Pacific War" in '92. I've invested hundreds of hours in the titles that followed over the years.

One question about AE, to which I haven't yet seen an answer, remains. Why is off-board travel between the Persian Gulf ("Guff," in Alabama) not allowed until mid-43? Unless my geography is extremely off, travel from Abadan and/or Aden to South Africa never involved transiting the Suez Canal and the Med. It's not too big of a problem for me game-wise, but it's an irritation.

As the young bride said: Go easy on me.

[bradfordkay]

The travel you are describing is done via Cape Town, South Africa - which travel actually crosses the game map. The direct route through the Mediterranean did not open up until the Allies had firm control of the sea lanes in that area, which was sometime in mid-1943.

[RangerJoe]

I am an old hand with Grigsby's Pacific games, starting with "Pacific War" in '92. I've invested hundreds of hours in the titles that followed over the years.

One question about AE, to which I haven't yet seen an answer, remains. Why is off-board travel between the Persian Gulf ("Guff," in Alabama) not allowed until mid-43? Unless my geography is extremely off, travel from Abadan and/or Aden to South Africa never involved transiting the Suez Canal and the Med. It's not too big of a problem for me game-wise, but it's an irritation.

As the young bride said: Go easy on me.

How about the war that was going on in the Mediterranean Sea with Germany and Italy maybe having something to do with this movement until North Africa and then Sicily was at least captured?

[Tector920]

I may not have been clear enough in my original post . Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town has never required sailing through the Mediterranean. I know how it works in AE, and how it worked in real life. I don't think that there ever was a significant Axis naval presence off of eastern Africa. I could be wrong.

[RangerJoe]

I may not have been clear enough in my original post . Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town has never required sailing through the Mediterranean. I know how it works in AE, and how it worked in real life. I don't think that there ever was a significant Axis naval presence off of eastern Africa. I could be wrong.

Actually, there were German surface raiders as well as U-Boats off Africa and farther into the Indian Ocean not to mention a few Italian ships. Also, part of that travel is on the map so off map travel would have to go through the Mediterranean Sea. Just ask the crew of the HMAS Sydney about enemy ships in the area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Sydney_(D48)

[Tector920]

Thanks for the information.

My question is why a direct, early-war, off-map lane from Abadan and Aden to Cape Town was not included in the original design. I have no problem running convoys across the map. ANY sea travel was dangerous throughout the war. It's just a niggling AE issue. I may have to post a map of trade routes throughout history to make my point explicitly clear. How did Arabs get to South Africa pre-Suez? Did they sail through the Med after carrying their ships across the desert?

[Dewey169]

I may not have been clear enough in my original post . Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town has never required sailing through the Mediterranean. I know how it works in AE, and how it worked in real life. I don't think that there ever was a significant Axis naval presence off of eastern Africa. I could be wrong.

Wouldn’t most of the movement from Abadan to Cape Town be in support of the European theater with fuel convoys? So how would you control such convoys in a Pacific theater game or why would you want to? To me something like that doesn’t add anything realistic to this game.

[RangerJoe]

I may not have been clear enough in my original post . Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town has never required sailing through the Mediterranean. I know how it works in AE, and how it worked in real life. I don't think that there ever was a significant Axis naval presence off of eastern Africa. I could be wrong.

Wouldn’t most of the movement from Abadan to Cape Town be in support of the European theater with fuel convoys? So how would you control such convoys in a Pacific theater game or why would you want to? To me something like that doesn’t add anything realistic to this game.

This game, unless it would be a modified scenario, does not require resources/oil/fuel from Australia, New Zealand, India, nor any other location to be sent to the UK. In a modified scenario, having LI in the UK to allow excess resources shipped to the UK to be converted to supplies would be an option to provide for more supplies but they already have a flood of those from CONUS so there is no need for that even though it would be realistic.

[Dewey169]

I may not have been clear enough in my original post . Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town has never required sailing through the Mediterranean. I know how it works in AE, and how it worked in real life. I don't think that there ever was a significant Axis naval presence off of eastern Africa. I could be wrong.

Wouldn’t most of the movement from Abadan to Cape Town be in support of the European theater with fuel convoys? So how would you control such convoys in a Pacific theater game or why would you want to? To me something like that doesn’t add anything realistic to this game.

This game, unless it would be a modified scenario, does not require resources/oil/fuel from Australia, New Zealand, India, nor any other location to be sent to the UK. In a modified scenario, having LI in the UK to allow excess resources shipped to the UK to be converted to supplies would be an option to provide for more supplies but they already have a flood of those from CONUS so there is no need for that even though it would be realistic.

RJ, I understand that….

My point was to the OP about what purpose would those shipping lanes, that he thinks are missing , would have served in real life during that time frame of the war. Yes, there was shipping flowing along the east coast of Africa between Cape Town and Abadon in real life but if it wasn’t a big impact to the PTO why would the DEVs have add it to the game…

[RangerJoe]

Wouldn’t most of the movement from Abadan to Cape Town be in support of the European theater with fuel convoys? So how would you control such convoys in a Pacific theater game or why would you want to? To me something like that doesn’t add anything realistic to this game.

This game, unless it would be a modified scenario, does not require resources/oil/fuel from Australia, New Zealand, India, nor any other location to be sent to the UK. In a modified scenario, having LI in the UK to allow excess resources shipped to the UK to be converted to supplies would be an option to provide for more supplies but they already have a flood of those from CONUS so there is no need for that even though it would be realistic.

RJ, I understand that….

My point was to the OP about what purpose would those shipping lanes, that he thinks are missing , would have served in real life during that time frame of the war. Yes, there was shipping flowing along the east coast of Africa between Cape Town and Abadon in real life but if it wasn’t a big impact to the PTO why would the DEVs have add it to the game…

I agree with your point. There is no need to have those ships nor their escorts until they were to be used in this game for the theaters in this game.

I was thinking of doing a modified scenario with resources being shipped to the UK to be used by LI which would make supplies to be used in SEAC and elsewhere. Do that instead of the free supplies. I don't know how to make a negative supply requirement showing the need for the resources unless it can be done in the editor but then there would be no penalty unless there were damaged aircraft factories in the UK that needed supplies in order to be repaired. But then, people could just ship supplies from the East Coast of CONUS or Canada to the UK

[Tector920]

My fondest AE wish is that I can run a tanker TF from Abadan to Cape Town off-map in '42, then to Australia, or wherever else I need fuel. Is that gamey? If so, wouldn't it be gamey in the later war? I know -- the Axis had free use of the Suez Canal until mid-'43. (Please don't be triggered by my sarcasm.) I don't care if it's just a teacup full of fuel. It ought to be possible.

My other fondest wish is for 1967 Raquel Welch to ride into my room on a unicorn and serve me breakfast on a golden platter. We'll just have to see which wish comes true, first.

[RangerJoe]

You can't run that TF in 1942 but you can when the Mediterranean Sea opens up. But you can set an on the map destination for a TF from Abadan with the home port of Cape Town. Although it would be much quicker to move fuel from CONUS to Australia.

[Tector920]

RJ, thank you for the link to the "Sydney" page. I enjoyed reading that.

I have no problem taking risks in crossing any body of water in AE. Travel from Arabia to Malta, Tobruk, Gibraltar or even Alexandria ought to be restricted as designed. However, the off-map route from Arabia to South Africa, if it is open post-'43, ought to be open from the start.

[Skyros]

Remove or reduce the free supply and replace it with LI. THat will require resources to be shipped back to Great Britain and Conus to generate the supply. IT will also keep busy a lot of hulls that normally might just sit in port.

[RangerJoe]

Hulls that brought supplies could bring resources but they would not haul enough resources to produce enough supplies to fill them up for the return voyages which would be fine. But that and having aircraft factories to be repaired to allow for production of future models could slow the extreme build up of supplies.

[bradfordkay]

My point earlier is that any movement from Abadan to Cape Town must cross a portion of the game map, since there was no way any ship could pass west of the Horn of Africa (Italian East Africa) unless they used the Suez Canal.

Now my pet peeve is having allied heavy bombers arrive in Aden when they flew directly to Karachi IRL.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Remove or reduce the free supply and replace it with LI. THat will require resources to be shipped back to Great Britain and Conus to generate the supply. IT will also keep busy a lot of hulls that normally might just sit in port.

Yup. There is a least one mod who did this for that reason

[RangerJoe]

Remove or reduce the free supply and replace it with LI. THat will require resources to be shipped back to Great Britain and Conus to generate the supply. IT will also keep busy a lot of hulls that normally might just sit in port.

Yup. There is a least one mod who did this for that reason

I did not know that.

Does the mod have unrepaired Allied factories for future aircraft production? That could also slow down the initial Allied build up of supplies but not necessarily by much.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Unrepaired industries galore for everything except
aircraft factories.

[Tector920]

I was beginning to doubt my memory of maps, so I took a look at a map of Abadan and the larger portion of the world around it. Sea travel from Abadan to Cape Town involves a long voyage SOUTH, then a short turn to the WEST. At no point do ships moving along that route go anywhere near the Suez Canal, much less the Med. I know that AE took liberties with its map of the Earth ("Erf," in Baltimore), but restricting travel to Cape Town -- from ANY direction was unnecessary. Off-map travel, that is.

Next, I'm going to investigate how Magellan circumcised the Earth with his cutter WITHOUT using the Suez or marching across Abyssinia.