Anyone interested in some intellectual exercise?

I can answer this. I provided figures on numbers, capacity, hulls in service and building, top speed, cruise speed, range, fuel efficiency and fuel per ton of cargo moved in two general categories, cargo/transport and oiler/tanker. We agreed to standardize on a few specific classes and to incorporate time saving construction methods such as having particular yards specialize in a specific type/design, modular construction, etc. We at present have a good surplus in the cargo/transport category but they tend to be less efficient types. We will need more oilers/tankers and should concentrate a larger percentage of our capacity there. The council pretty much left the specifics up to me and then when I suggested we place you in charge of our shipbuilding, they agreed. Prior to doing so I had settled upon the Yusen S type cargo vessel. It is our fastest type (important for submarine defense) and most fuel efficient per ton of cargo moved (by a large margin). We were to continue building only those other designs that had already been laid down. We would complete the design modifications necessary to streamline production and start laying down the standardized type. We would produce an AKA, APA and AKE version, the incorporation of the daihatsus and specialized cargo handling equipment in these types to allow for faster loading/unloading in areas where we will have limited port facilities and should not negatively impact cargo movement in ports with good/excellent facilities.

The tanker/oiler question was more complicated and would require more types. We would standardize on the Tonan Whaler type TK. It is the most fuel efficient per ton of oil/fuel moved but only has a 15kt top speed/13kt cruise, it also has a small dry cargo carrying capacity (2170t) in addition to its 13340t oil/fuel carrying capacity. I felt that in addition to its fuel efficiency this would prove valuable for carrying supplies or materials on the return voyage which with most of the other types would be made empty. It would be the hull of choice due to its overall capacity and fuel economy per ton of oil/fuel moved, and should be the type used in areas where the risk of submarines is not high. There is a plan in place to produce 29 additional Type 2-TL and 30 Type 1-TM types. I recommend cancelling those hulls not already laid down. We have eight Type N-TL tankers with plans to build no more. I recommend we build more of this type because it is the most fuel efficient of the high speed types with a 19kt top speed and 15kt cruise. These will be needed in high submarine risk areas, the higher speed making interception and attack harder on the enemy.
Another aspect I have not gone into in depth is range. I feel long range is important because we are more efficient if we fuel at the source location and whenever possible not at the destination point. By doing this we net more oil/fuel at the end point.

Before turning this duty over to you I was looking at convoy routing, fuel/oil production and requirements, distances and port capacities in order to determine how much capacity we needed. I would suggest that you look at this first, then build in a 10-15% excess carrying capacity (to account for repairs/yard times) and build to that requirement. Then we can lay down new hulls on a two for one basis when we lose a ship (two new for each lost).
Since we restarted by discussing strategy, I think it important that we consider this logistical problem when we allocate attack resources and determine the timing of our attacks. It is obvious that we would wish to capture the oil fields intact, but capturing the refining capacity intact could provide a huge boost to our effort, even if it means idling some of our Home Island refineries. By shipping refined fuel instead of oil to be refined, we gain about 10%, (the difference between crude oil in and refined products out) inversely we can get by with 10% fewer tankers for a given fuel requirement.

Let me give you an example: Point A produces oil and has refineries. Point B has a 100,000 ton per day fuel requirement for industry and naval operations, and also has an oil refining capability. Point A is a two day trip from point B. In order to keep point B supplied using 10,000t capacity tankers, and shipping fuel, you'd need 40 ships to maintain continuous supply. 10 loading at point A, 10 halfway to point B, 10 unloading at point B and 10 halfway back from point B.
If shipping oil instead you'd need 44 ships, an extra 10,000t at each point to account for the 10% loss between raw crude in and refined fuel out.
To illustrate the range factor, let's say the two points are 720 nautical miles apart. If your tankers only have a range of 800 nautical miles you would need to add additional shipping to provide the additional fuel at point B. If the ships had a 1500 ktm range they could do all their refueling at point A and you save that logistical burden at point B.
To illustrate the fuel efficiency aspect, lets say you use a tanker that is 10% more fuel efficient. Every ten days you'd gain enough additional fuel to support the operation for an additional day. Over a years time you save enough fuel to supply the operation for an additional 36 days! Or ship 3.65 million tons of fuel basically for free.

 

One thing some of us do in the Witp game is work on any damage to oil production first and then if needed, the refineries, I believe according to this game Japan does have decent refinery production. I think Palembang alone would provide enough for our needs in refining unless completely destroyed. Since our repair capacity is limited this can help restore the oil first. Also is there an allowance for capturing foreign merchants? This is essential since about half or more of all oil for Japan is carried in foreign flagged ships and if we can snag Dutch and British ships it could help ease the loss of capacity.

 

I'm hoping we act audaciously and use the forces we've freed up to seize the key oil production, oil refinery locations right from the get-go, before they can be seriously damaged or destroyed. I hope to do this even if it means we have to ignore that those forces at these locations are temporarily isolated. I would reinforce and expand outward from these locations. The rewards in my estimation are worth the risk. Even if the US decides to declare war on the side of the British and Dutch, it will probably take a number of days, then even more time to organize a naval expedition. I do not believe there will be enough popular support to allow this DOW immediately, perhaps for some time. Much depends upon our actions and our propoganda management. With proper management we have sufficient shipping initially. If Noka initiates a wise building plan, and we implement the construction time saving measures we have discussed, we should be able to reach equilibrium and start replacing our oil/fuel stockpiles before they are exhausted. Ultimately, I would like to replace many of our smaller, less efficient hulls with larger fuel efficient types. Every ton of fuel we save adds to our stockpile for if and when the allies are able to cut off our sources or allows for increased operational tempo of our navy.

 

There are two risks I believe we discussed, air and naval attacks from the Phillipines and naval strikes from the carriers

 

I certainly like the idea of efficient hulls, but part of the efficiency of our best merchant ships is that of size. Large hulls require large slipways to build and reduce routing flexibility. The name Yusen S would appear to refer to a ship built for our largest commercial line, NYK (Nippon Yusen KK), but there does not appear to be any perfect match for the ship described. I believe the reference comes from staff work done previously by Ensign Mataryukisu. It might be that it is a describes a planned ship not yet constructed, or perhaps it is a generalization based on the NYK fleet, which has ships both larger and smaller. The closest matches I can find are a series of relatively new ships built by Harima. They are relatively fast steam turbine tankers of just under 6700 registered tons. Turbines would explain the speed of Mataryukisu's design, and it seems reaonable that he would be working from a relatively new ship such as one of these.

This ship is not practical as our only standard design freighter for two reasons: First, we cannot produce turbines in enough capacity to supply both a large merchant fleet and our military program. (Even the United States during WWII couldn't build enough turbines, thus the use of triple expansion and diesel engines in nearly all standard types, and indeed some military vessels such as CVEs and DDEs.) Turbines plants make these ships relatively efficient at a high cruising speed (16 knots, much the same as most of our fleet), but at the cost of significant manufacturing complication. I feel certain this is not actually our most efficient hull at more modest cruising speeds, since direct acting reciprocating plants offer a significant savings in fuel at lower shaft RPM. Second, a 440' hull exceeds many of our smaller yards. I do not believe we have the yard space to produce this hull in sufficient quantity to meet all our needs at the same time as our military program. If we fill every dock in the empire capable of handling these ships we could build about thirtyfive at a time. (I may be overlooking a few yards, but I think this is a close estimate.) I would guess this hull would take the best part of a year to complete. Assuming we launch them quickly we could build perhaps perhaps 40-45 a year, and this with an unsustainable schedule that precludes even basic maintenance of larger ships.

The Tonan Maru Whaler has similar problems. Depending on what vessel Mataryukisu had in mind it is somewhere from 460' to 535' in length and may well be a ship of 20,000 GRT. (There were three whalers by this name. The first one was large The last two were quite large indeed.) This would be a very challenging ship. I feel certain we can design a better tanker than simply improvising with a whale factory ship. There are several features associated with whale processing that are unnecessary for oil transport and complicate and slow manufacturing; most principally the stern slipway and split superstructure to accommodate it. But even beyond that, the large deckspace necessary for flensing and rendering gives an unusually beamy profile. (They quite literally look like bathtubs with a bit of a bow.) A ship based on our standard Kawasaki tankers would no doubt serve much better for conversion to a fleet oiler, of which we will need more. (Since we've already done this several times.) One based on our older Shiretoko design would probably serve better as a civilian taker.

Lastly, large ships make large targets. I have heard a saying from our Yankee opponents: never put all your eggs in one basket. A larger number of more modest merchants will prove more robust if we should find ourselves combating a submarine threat.

I appreciate your work on this matter, but I regret that I can no longer support such a program of standardization. We will need smaller standardized ships along with larger more efficient ones if we are to have any chance of success in this enterprise. There is simply no other way that we can carry out a large enough merchant ship program simultaneously with our military program.

I beg your patience on this matter. I have asked Ensign Amatusonu to retrieve some older, but very valuable references for us that come from the "World War II" study project Combined Fleet carried out last year: The Japanese Merchant Marine in WWII and Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. I believe Admirals Takao and Karonado will recommend at least the former and Ensign Wakipediyu has referred to both. They should much improve our understanding of the present situation.

It might be worth discussing the auxiliary program concurrently, as it would behoove us to utilise a few standard designs that can be adapted to both. A 440' freighter is a solid design we should pursue, but perhaps a second design of around 300' would also be good, since it would provide us much more building flexibility. (I have on record another 18 docks that could build such a ship and I feel I have likely missed rather more small docks from my survey than large ones.)

Sincerely,
Admiral Noka Shijin.

 

We have ten in service: They're 479 feet in length around 6860 tons displacement. All are diesel powered on those I've been able to find the specifics for, either Kawasaki-M.A.N. or Mitsubishi-Sulzer.

We're OK here as I said they employ diesel propulsion.

We have sufficient cargo shipping initially. Can we not expand some merchant yards? By incorporating mass production techniques and keep the builds at a few specific yards, can we not decrease build time? I do not wish for the merchant shipping build program to take any capacity away from our naval shipbuilding plans.

We have 5 Tonan Whaler class vessels in service at 13, 340 ton displacement each. I do not suggest we keep the Whale factory ship specific features. The ship should be redesigned with ease of build and mass production in mind, so the split superstructure and stern slipway would of course be deleted or re-designed with its primary function as a tanker in mind. When I was looking into the build program I planned on building these for use in areas where efficiency was more important than speed. In areas where greater speed would be desireable I would standardize on the Type-N TL (we have 8, I planned for another 32 over 4 years and the Type 1-TL (we have 8, there are 23 planned and I would add one additional). IMHO, the Shiretoko design is too slow (13kts top/10 kts cruise) and fuel inefficient. We have ten of these in service with plans to build two more. I'd cancel the two planned and standardize on the Type-N TL AO, four in service and Typw-1 TL AO, three in service.

Much here depends upon convoy routing, convoy escort, ASW aerial assets, etc. There are certain areas we can maintain relative safety in using coastal patrol vessels and aerial ASW patrols. In the areas where we must cross deep water, far from land, we'll need a heavy escort and speed to insure our safety. One of the reasons I wanted you in charge of NLC also (Naval Logistical Command), was that you could build the ships YOU, needed to implement your planning. I wanted port construction/improvement, convoy route ASW air assets, convoy escorts, strategic level logistical movement of fuel and resources, and the shipbuilding program to support it, all under "one roof" so to speak. No inter-command squabbling, a unified vision and all efforts aimed like an arrow at our goal. Optimize efficiency. Our predecessors were too lax, too many alternate visions, not enough coordination. The United States with its enormous industrial capacity and nearly limitless resources can only be defeated if, from day one, we optimize our resources and potential. We can waste nothing.

I've placed YOU in charge of this area, the council has approved it. I think you should be given as much freedom from interference as possible. There is no need to support anything I had been working on, you develop the plan as you see fit and then sell it to the council. I think I should point out that as to cargo vessels we have 942 AK, xAK and xAKL's in service with a gross tonnage of 3,343,640 tons, The bulk of these hulls are the smaller types you speak of.

 

Admiral Noka, I would also like to suggest that per our discussions you look at expanding shipbuilding facilities in China. I was planning to expand our facilities in Shanghai, (we already have a merchant shipyard and repair facility) and add facilities in Tsingtao. With China's large coal deposits, raw material sources and large workforce, added to the economic/industrial expansion we are planning there to pacify and occupy the populace, it would seem to make sense logistically to do some non-naval or small escort type vessel construction there. I was also planning on building shipbuilding facilities at Cam Rahn Bay, there is already a repair facility in nearby Saigon. Once Singapore is captured I would utilize those facilities as well. There is a large ethnic chinese population there, many are skilled shipyard workers. Some I would like to re-locate to the "new" China to teach their skills to others. When done they can return to Malaysia or remain in China, as they choose. Since, Germany wishes to rid itself of Jews and we need teachers, physicians, researchers, industrialists, and persons with technical skills; and since we have no history of anti-Jewish sentiment, I am going to have our diplomats try and get Germany to allow those with the requisite skills to immigrate (along with their immediate families) to China.
I have gotten approval to build repair facilities at Truk on the Carolines. I intend to build a large and medium drydock there as well as other repair facilities. This should, once complete, take some pressure off the Home Island yards.

 

Hong Kong also is good for a medium sized naval and merchant base once captured.

 

Yes sir, glad you mentioned that. I had failed to mention that to Noka. Thanks for the reminder.

 

Esteemed gentlemen of the Council,

Building merchant, auxiliary, and escort vessels in China and Indochina, and Hong Kong and Singapore should we liberate them from the British crown, will certainly ease our situation somewhat, so long as we can avoid war with the U.S. Repair facilities at Truk, when complete, will also help. (I believe we may already have a floating drydock there for repair purposes.) Your immigration plan is quite laudable if we can slip it past our German "allies."

As to the merchant ships, first, I mistated. The Harima ships are not tankers, but cargo vessels with a modest passenger capacity. There are, at present, two of these. One of them is described on Combined Fleet: Onoe Maru. Perhaps the class of 470' cargo vessel to which and Mataryukisu refer is the Nagara Maru class. They still differ somewhat from your description. They are both shorter and heavier at 471' and with GRTs around 7150, but they are close. They do have diesel propulsion. Since most were built by Mitsubishi I must assume that it is probably as you describe. And with six units in service and a variety of similarly sized vessels in the NYK fleet this does seem like a good candidate for the "Yusen S" type. These are somewhat more suitable designs, but I would still favor a few changes. A reciprocating steam plant might offer three advantages: they are less expensive to build, they can burn unrefined fuel in a pinch, and we have more yards that could build them. They require more labor to operate, but I think this is a cost we can afford, particularly if we can entice Chinese peasants into an enlarged Chinese merchant marine to parallel your expanded shipbuilding at Shanghai and Tsingtao.

Another change I would suggest: I would keep the hulls below 440' if at all possible. This modest decrease in length will dramatically ease the process of finding ways where we can build them. Yes, we can and should launch a project to expand our ways, but doing so would put the facility under expansion out of service for an extended period of time; perhaps six months or more. (I'm not quite sure of the time involved in a construction project of this sort, but anything requiring extensive or complex foundation work will take time. Slipways and graving docks are clearly large and soft wet shoreline soils must surely make the work complex.)

Thus I might suggest building something based on the Onoe Maru mentioned above, but with a few changes: Replace the plant with a reciprocating plant to ease construction and reduce costs, study modular or sectional construction, simplify the hull form for mass production at numerous facilities. Alternately, we could base the design on the British Ocean class. These ships have an even more modest length, but with a very high registered displacement. They are somewhat beamy and their cruising speed is very modest, but I believe this is a design we could produce in quantity at many yards without great need for reconstruction, and a cruising speed of 11 knots is not unreasonable for some of our convoys, particularly on the China run.

Perhaps we should build two standard classes of freighter: one short, slow, high displacement, low cost tanker (to be called Ocean Maru after the British class) and the other basically follow-on Nagara Maru Class ships, either with diesel plants for range or turbines for speed and the ability to burn unrefined fuel. (This could feasibly be split.)

For tankers something in the size range of Tonan Maru 2 might be more feasible than I realized. I'm reexamining my dockyard survey by way of the merchant ship list. I had always meant to do this, but apparently neglected to complete this study. I find we have more large dockyards than I realized. Some conjecture is required, but we may well be able to lay down more large merchants than I had assumed. (I'm going through the merchant list organized according to builder to see how many ships of a given size builders produced at a time, and how many builders produced large ships. If, for instance, I have evidence that a given builder built 6 ships in a year of 450', I can surmise they probably had five or six docks/slipways of over 450'. Further, I can examine modern maps to get a feel for where these dockyards were situated. Many seem to have been modernized, but modern facilities can help me guess a little bit.)

The type 1TL seems to be a modified version of what some sources call the "Kawasaki" type. This forms the backbone of our replenishment oiler fleet. It's a good tanker with a high speed and a large capacity. I think it will be more suitable than the Tonan Maru 2 type. Our sources differ on the Shiretokos. According to Mr. Robert Hacket at combined fleet they are capable of 14 knots, and I much suspect that is a sustainable speed at which they could operate efficiently for long periods. (Hopefully I'll have some better answers shortly.) I'm afraid I misstated myself in my previous missive. I would not recommend building Shiretokos to the exclusion of other types, we will need ships suitable for conversion to replenishment oilers to replace possible losses and for dangerous routes requiring higher speeds, but for localized shipping near and around the home islands we don't need so fast or luxurious a ship. I feel this old design is a better design for medium duties than the 2TM study. I cannot pinpoint your type N-TL.

Once Amatusonu delivers the records from the WWII study project I'll be able to form a better picture still of what our capabilities really are. Thank you for your patience.

For the meantime, I think your idea to expand shipyards is a very good one. We could start doing so at a limited number of ways and once those are complete and in service we could begin expanding a second set of ways and so forth.

Sincerely,
Admiral Noka Shijin

 

Just for clarification, the Onoe Maru is classified by Mataryukisu as a Yusen Type N, xAK. We have 57 in service with no more scheduled to build. They are our 4th most efficient type, and with a speed of 15kts/13 cruise and a range of 13000 knm are a good type. I have not determined the build time for additional units of this type. (For ship types where I added additional units, I took the historical build times of all ships of that class that were available, added them together and found the average build time. I used this to enter the production time of the ship in the database. Using the accelerated build feature of the game engine we can accelerate the build to replicate the shorter times.)
Our second most efficient type they have named the Kyushu type xAK. An example of the class is Canberra Maru.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Canberra_t.htm
I think there is an issue with the link on the page because Canberra Maru is not listed and it links to the Unyo Maru class, Mataryukisu has this as the Aden type xAK.
Heres another ship listed as Kyushu type:
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Goyo_t.htm
This is an example of the type they have labelled Type-1 TL http://www.combinedfleet.com//Kuroshio_c.htm
This is one of the ships listed under Type-N TL
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Akebono_c.htm
Heres another
http://www.combinedfleet.com/Genyo_t.htm

What are we discussing, a one knot difference? I had it at 13/10. Janes has several of the class listed as 12knts and I suspect that's probably due to their being 20 years old when the war broke out. I suspect 14knts was as built.

 

Actually truk has limited facilities, I read where it did not even have fueling tanks. A oiler was based there for that task. Due to the fact Japan did not intend to fight outside of home waters for years bases were not developed much.

 

We are improving Truk. We are building permanent repair facilities in place of the floating drydock currently stationed there, barracks, tank farms, etc.

Bobimoto,

Yes, we're discussing a one knot difference. At these modest speeds I do think it makes a difference, and while they are no longer new the Shiretokos are hardly old, dating to the early 20s. (Newer, in fact, that any of our battleships save the Yamatos. Newer than Hosho and Akagi. Newer than most of our passenger vessels, in fact. They only look old because our oilers and tankers are predominantly the newest vessels in our inventory.)

That said, I'm curious where Mataryukisu gets his range and bunkerage figures. I have those for some classes, but very few. (And I haven't recorded bunkerage on my list. This is an oversight that I noticed when working on the preliminary NoGo proposal.) If he gets them from either or both of the two documents I have on order that will improve matters greatly.

As a preliminary study I looked at our approximate dockyard capacity as I understand it and elements of your proposed merchant shipbuilding program and some of my own preliminary proposals. Segregating completely between military and civilian shipbuilding is difficult or impossible presently since we build so very many of our military vessels in civilian yards. I imagine that we will segregate work, to a large extent, by yard. Leaving ourselves a very modest margin in larger docks for repair work I have thus far found space to lay down:

4 Tonan type tankers
4 Type 1TL
10 Nagara Maru class freighters
16 "Ocean Maru" type freighters

These last sixteen are my proposed 440' freighters.

The method by which I arrived at this numbers is fairly simple:

All slips over 500' are set to build one tanker (with the types split evenly), with the exception of one extremely large dock at Kawanami where I believe we can build two Tonans end to end. All ways of between 470' and 500' are set to build Nagara type freighters. All from 440' to 470' are scheduled to build "Ocean Maru" type freighters. My understanding of the situation and my estimate of our dock capacity is continuously evolving as I find new docks, but this seems like a decent estimate of what we could lay down. We have a great many smaller docks still available for escorts, minelayers, subchasers, and the like. I will add more as I learn more.

How does this match with your understanding, honorable Secretary?

Can you supply me with approximate build times for some of these classes? I could come up with an estimate, but if you have the figures to hand I will trust your methods. They seem sound enough.

Sincerely,
Noka Shijin.

 

I would suggest we use the range and bunkerage figures as they exist. I will provide them for you. They have an excellent track record for correctness, but if you see any glaring inaccuracies I can go in and edit the data. I do not know where they got the figures, and like I said there are probably 18,000 or so vessels included in over 2700 classes. There is room for us to define another 1300 or so classes if we choose.

It not strictly regulated in the game, some small escorts (military) are built in merchant yards and merchant capacity can be converted to naval capacity and vice versa with an associated cost.

What ever you think best, I stand by to assist you.

I can provide that data. the method was explained above.

 

Symphonic Poet, I just e-mailed you a copy of the cargo types spreadsheet I had. At the bottom it had the beginnings of my 4 year building plan. Look at the data and let me know what additional information you might need and I'll modify it. It has the ships listed by class and the number in the class active and the number Japan built historically. The historical builds we can start at any time. I need a revised build figure for any that you might wish additional units put into the database so they can be laid down whenever you wish to start construction within the game. Ship classes highlighted have ships scheduled to build at some later point. I also have a transport/AP/xAP spreadsheet and a tanker/TK/AO spreadsheet, I'll modify and get to you when I see what additional data I need to include.
BP

 

SO any word on when things will happen??

 

Hi all,

i am sure that i am far out of any information but that was my fault. would be nice to hear how it goes on. But if you want, Bob, you can PM me and we could talk about some things.

 

Good to see you return General!

 

We've all been dangerously quiet for a while. There are several possible explanations, but I am inclined to believe this is the quiet before the storm of war overtakes us all. Perhaps, if we have not already decided this issue, Belasaru could either re-open debate on the New Caledonia operation or call a vote on it. I had put forward a tentative operational plan several months back. (Or was it only yesterday?) The gist of the proposal was in post 2655. I included a proposed mission outline, force list, and map. The operational plan would require much revision, but I think it gives an idea of the expense and effort. Thoughts, gentlemen?

 

I admit that initially I held less than charitable opinions on the proposed operation. My concerns dwelt in the areas of over extension and possible excessive dispersion of effort in the critical early moves scheduled during the initial movements. I have since come to the conclusion that, while these concerns remain valid, they are not currently as grave as I first feared.

For these reasons I am prepared to endorse the New Caledonia operation as laid out by Admiral Noka. I do however reserve the privilege to call into question expansion beyond these stated objectives or any over extensive development of facilities there until a significant degree development of bases and defenses closer to our vital SRA objectives is completed.

I would appreciate the thoughts of the rest of the Council.