What's an Auxiliary?

[Nisgeis]

Just read in a war patrol of a Japanese contact report from a U.S. search plane that consisted of 1 AO, 1Auxiliary and DDs. Now, I found out that an AO is an auxiliary oiler, that seems to be a tanker for other warships, a DD is obviously a destroyer, but what's an auxiliary?

I've done quite a few searches, but most result in an answer for an 'auxialiary something', auxiliary being used as an adjective, rather than auxiliary as a noun. The rest talk about auxiliaries as if you already know what they are.

From what I can gather, an Auxiliary is a ship that was a merchant ship, but has been converted to Naval / Army use... is that right? So it could be a merchant passenger and cargo transport in use by the army during war time. Is that right and is there any other meaning of an auxiliary? What ships could an auxiliary refer to?

[tater]

There are many auxiliaries, but in this context is is likely an auxiliary escort.

Converted merchants with guns, maybe DCs, or an ASW mortar:
http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/~iwashige/chojusanmarumod.jpg

tater

[Nisgeis]

Thanks Tater!

Would an auxiliary specifically have to be a converted merchant? A military ship, e.g. net layer, converted to escort duty would not be an auxiliary?

[tater]

No, it could be. There are tons of possible ships, I was just guessing since they were common escorts.

[Nisgeis]

Sorry Tater, I was at work when I poisted this and thought I had all the info, but looking through my notes, alas I missed some info about the size out.

The contact report is from the war patrol of the USS Baya, March - May 1945. The contact is reported as above and it appears from reading the war patrol that the same connvoy is intercepted about 7 hours later by the USS Baya. The war patrol describes the convoy as follows:

Convoy identified as one large (No.1), one medium ship (no.3) and two escorts (no. 2 & 4), both equipped with 10 cm. radar.

I don't have the ship contact details section of the war patrol, so I can't get any further details of what the contacts were. I emailled the person who posted the war patrol about 3 weeks ago, but I haven't had a response yet. In the absence of the complete war patrol, I assumed that the AO was the 'large' contact, probably about 10,000 tons (stop me if this sounds absurd) and that the 'medium' contact was the auxiliary at about 5-7,000 tons displacement (possibly a troop transport?). I knew in the back of my mind why I didn't think the auxiliary ship was an escort as it was described as a medium contact. That auxiliary you very kindly posted a picture of looks as if its about 2,000 tons - would that be too small to be described as medium?

[tater]

I'd think so. There are other possibilities. an Auxiliary might well be nothing more than an armed merchant that appears to have been commandeered by the IJN.

Meaning a regular merchie looks like a merchant ship, and an IJN one gets gray paint, or dazzle paint, plus has life rafts all over for easy access, and gun platforms, etc.

Could be an AP, AK, etc. Certainly possible!

[M. Sarsfield]

In 1.5 you can give orders to auxiliaries and auxiliary cruisers at the higher commander ranks. I'm not sure how the ships differ, but you can tell a difference in the silhouettes for their respective icons.

[FAdmiral]

I would like to see some Japanese "Q-Ships" in this game. Some with
sonar, DCs and hidden guns (can't be seen until opened)

JIM

[Nisgeis]

Thanks for the replies Tater and M. Sarsfield. I've been researching loads of things recently, trying to get a clear picture of the Japanese war machine, as with SH4 being set in the pacific, it really has shown me where the gaps in my knowledge are and how little I actually do know, when I try to answer issues I come across.

I've recently been trying to ascertain the paint schemes of IJN and Japanese merchant ships. From what I can make out, merchants and IJN ships received the same anti-fouling, anti-corrosive paints, which did not last long. There are some great sites out there for the U.S. and British ships, but I've found it quite hard to get anything concrete for the paint schemes for the Japanese. So far the only thing I am fairly confident in is that the IJN ships used red anti-fouling paint, with grey boot tops. The rest of the ship was painted the same colour grey, the shade of which depended on which of the four main shipyards the ship was refitted last in.

I've looked at many photos, but it's hard to draw conclusions, as many are up without any dates, the ones that have the date the photo was taken seem to be flat grey, with some Japanese characters on the side, or occasionally a number. The models of the Yamato and other ships I have seen also show red anti-fouling, meeting grey upper parts. combinedfleet.com has pictures of lots of destroyers etcetera and these mainly show flat greay, no camouflage, although they are artwork for model boxes, not actual photographs, so I'm not sure from what source they are derived. All this points to camouflage not being widely used on the IJN ships, but I have also seen pictures of one ship converted to a commerce raider and its painted in a dazzle-esque (mainly horizontal lines rather than angled) camouflage pattern. Also, all the Japanese destroyers in SH4 are comouflaged and have dark bottoms instead of read.

It's almost as if the more research I do, the less I know! Were there any hard rules on Japanese camouflage like the 'measures' for British and U.S. ships?

[Sailor Steve]

Got here late, again. Technically an auxiliary is any naval ship that is not built as a warship. This includes merchants, oilers, tenders, barges, and right down to tugboats, as long as they're owned by the navy. Arm any one of them and send them out as escorts or raiders, and you have an auxiliary warship.

[gimpy117]

There are many auxiliaries, but in this context is is likely an auxiliary escort.

Converted merchants with guns, maybe DCs, or an ASW mortar:
http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/%7Eiwashige/chojusanmarumod.jpg

tater
could we have on en game??

[tater]

The guy who did that model has many more, with interesting paint schemes:

http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/~iwashige/modellist.htm