valuable cargo

[ozzysoldier]

dit the allies use mainly smal merchants for valuable cargo like for example ammo?

[-SWCowboy.]

Anything to support the war effort across the pond would have been shipped out and over to Britain :cool:

[iambecomelife]

dit the allies use mainly smal merchants for valuable cargo like for example ammo?


Yes. As far as I know they never had a policy to ship high-value cargoes on larger ships, so ammo sometimes ended up on smaller vessels.

[-SWCowboy.]

Wouldn't those ships have be hunted by the u-boats just as desperately the larger cargo ships as well though?

[iambecomelife]

Wouldn't those ships have be hunted by the u-boats just as desperately the larger cargo ships as well though?

I think larger ships would have been the priority, unless there was intelligence information that a certain ship had a valuable cargo.

I read somewhere that Liberty Ships tended to get hit often and were considered "unlucky" by merchant crews. IMO this was simply because they were relatively large at 7200 tons. Most dry cargo ships of the era were between 1500 - 6500 tons.

[-SWCowboy.]

Ahh, learn something new every day! Right on, that makes sense :cool:

[seafarer]

I'd also mention, from things I've read, that many merchants had widely variable cargo loadouts. It was not at all uncommon for one hold to have crates of ammo, another machine parts, and decks with planes and other whole items. Reading about the Malta convoys, the cargo ships would have pallets of 5 gal. tin cans full of aviation kerosene and crates of .303 ammo for the planes all in the same hold. The aviation fuel cans also tended to leak :o

I suppose as the allied merchant fleets built up, loadouts may have become more rigidly organized, but at least early on, it was a really mixed bag. The only guideline seemed to try to load each ship to the maximum to move the most goods as possible in each convoy.

[iambecomelife]

I'd also mention, from things I've read, that many merchants had widely variable cargo loadouts. It was not at all uncommon for one hold to have crates of ammo, another machine parts, and decks with planes and other whole items. Reading about the Malta convoys, the cargo ships would have pallets of 5 gal. tin cans full of aviation kerosene and crates of .303 ammo for the planes all in the same hold. The aviation fuel cans also tended to leak :o

I suppose as the allied merchant fleets built up, loadouts may have become more rigidly organized, but at least early on, it was a really mixed bag. The only guideline seemed to try to load each ship to the maximum to move the most goods as possible in each convoy.

WRT hazardous materials, I remember a sailor who bitterly recalled how the steamship companies loaded their vessels with something like 29 tons of TNT. That way they could avoid paying a hazardous materials bonus to the crew (it only applied to 30 or more tons of dangerous goods). Very clever of them.

Modern containerization didn't exist until after the war (1950's-60's?), and there were few specialized cargo ships.
The one pattern I have seen is that long bridge deck merchantmen (see below) tended to have cargoes of grain & coal - probably because the increased hull volume was useful for hauling low-density materials.

http://uboat.net/allies/ships/photos/br/harlingen.jpg

http://uboat.net/allies/ships/photos/gr/dirpys.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

Dedicated ammunition ships were large, but they weren't used to haul the stuff across the pond; they were fleet support ships designed to replinesh the warships.

A recent interesting discovery I made was that there were several liberty ships built as tankers...but to fool the enemy they looked just like the regular cargo versions.

[_Seth_]

Just a quick question, mateys: In RL, did the convoy commander place the more "valuable" ships, like large ammo and fuel transports inside the convoy, to protect them from uboat attack? (Placing the less valuable on the outskirts, to act as a shield or something..?)

[seafarer]

At least one source says that would be the order - tankers and munition ships inside lanes for cover -

http://www.vac.gc.ca/remembers/sub.cfm?source=history/other/sea/second

This site also has tons of convoy info:

http://www.warsailors.com/convoys/index.html

[iambecomelife]

Just a quick question, mateys: In RL, did the convoy commander place the more "valuable" ships, like large ammo and fuel transports inside the convoy, to protect them from uboat attack? (Placing the less valuable on the outskirts, to act as a shield or something..?)

Based on some historical diagrams the early convoys often had tankers placed in the outermost positions - including valuable 10,000-13,000 tonners. As the war went on they did change this practice, but it's surprising that it took a while to adopt such a simple defensive measure.

[Jimbuna]

Just a quick question, mateys: In RL, did the convoy commander place the more "valuable" ships, like large ammo and fuel transports inside the convoy, to protect them from uboat attack? (Placing the less valuable on the outskirts, to act as a shield or something..?)




A lot of the smaller ammo ships sailed independently because of there lack popularity with other covoy participants.

My grandfather was 2nd engineer aboard such a ship.....she went missing to unknown causes without a trace and to this day, the only information my family have is her date of sailing.

[_Seth_]

Thanx for the good answers and links, mateys! :up: I cant imagine how the men aboard the "outskirt ships" would have felt it, knowing that they were merely shields to the rest of the convoy.. But then, a lot of uboat-commanders often infiltrated the convoy to get to the "juicy" targets, often sailing up and down the rows, looking for prey.. So, all in all, noone was really safe out there..