Wow how were you able to draw that first inner circle like that?

Convoy Size
 

I started my first career in December '41. It's now November '42. Most of the ships I've encountered have been either lone or sets (2-3) of merchants without escorts. I even sank a lone troopship in the Marianas.

I think as lot has to do with where you're patrolling. Off the Japanese coast I did see mostly escorted convoys. But in the Carolines and Marianas the escorts are often non-existent.

Horst

That's because there is almost no traffic at all in the Marshalls.

It was in game, I didn't do anything.

Well, I've encountered manu unsecorted small convoys of up to three ships. I don't have any problem with that. I don't like the fact that escorted convoys are unrealistically large with up to three columns of ships. I'd like to see some smaller escorted convoys too.

The funny thing is that the Marshalls is exactly where you'd actually see escorted convoys early in the war.

IJN traffic to Palau or Truk might be escorted. Traffic FROM Palau or Truk to downstream places on the front (New Guinea and the NEI, Rabaul, Kwajalein, etc) would almost certainly be escorted, and heavily too. The number of cargo ships would likely not be as many as we see in SH4 convoys, however, even if the escorts remained the same, lol.

This is because the IJN had a kind of "zone" defense in terms of ASW. Local port admirals were responsible for their area. In the case of points towards the front from Palau/Truk (early, later the Marianas and Tawi Tawi), the Combined Fleet would actually detach fleet units for escort.

The stock campaign is pretty poor from a historical standpoint, but it's easy to fix technically, just a lot of work.

Even troop convoys were sometimes given ridiculously little protection- the convoy transporting the invasion force for the landing on East Java, for instance, consisting of some 40 transports, had only two destroyers as direct protection. Unfortunately, NO Dutch or US subs managed to get within striking distance- if they had, they would have had a field day.

Gerrit, do you have an OOB for that force? I'm working on a new mission file to replace the entire Japanese southern advance (Malaya, NEI, Philipines, etc).

I'll have to check my "archives" for the Java Sea battle for the Japanese destroyers, but the IJN side was well represented with heavy cruisers "Nachi" and "Haguro" and light cruisers "Jintsu" and "Naka". From memory the IJN had 14 destroyers, two of them were most definitely "Asagumo" and "Minegumo".
The ABDA force consisted of heavy cruisers USS "Houston" and HMS "Exeter", but the "Houston's" X turret was out of action, reducing her main battery by one third.
Light cruisers were Hr.Ms. "De Ruyter", Hr.Ms. "Java" and HMAS "Perth". Destroyers were HMS "Electra", HMS "Encounter", HMS "Jupiter", Hr.Ms "Kortenaer", Hr,Ms. "Witte de With", USS "Alden", USS "John D. Edwards", USS "John D. Ford" and USS "Paul Jones".

Tater, I have paperback book titled "A Battle History of the Imperial Japanese
Navy"(1941-1945) by Paul S. Dull. It has alot of ship makeup in different
battles and conquests. The first one I see is one called Table of Organization
for the Invasion & Conquest of the Malay Peninsula. It gives the name of:

"Second Fleet, Southern Force, Malay Force"
Battleships: Haruna, Kongo
Hvy. Cruisers: Atago,Takako,Chokai,Mogami,Mikuma,Kumano,Suzuya
Light Cruisers: Sendai
*Destroyers:Fubuki,Hatsuyski,Shirayuki,Murakumo,Sh inonome,Shirakumo,Isonami,Uranami,
Shikinami,Ayanami,Amagiri,Asagiri,Yugiri,Sagiri

"Southern Expeditionary Fleet" (escort for Army Troopships)
Light Cruiser: Kashii
Destroyers: *from second fleet above when the need to transfer was great

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are many more but the context is very large. I am gonna try to scan
the pages needed and create files. It will be much less time consuming....

JIM

Did a quick check and the IJN destroyers at the Java Sea battle were "Murasame", "Harusame", "Yudachi", "Samidare", "Asagumo", "Minegumo", "Hatsukaze", "Yukikaze", "Amatsukaze", "Tokitsukaze", "Ushio", "Sazanami", "Yamakaze" and "Kawakaze". The first six, together with the cruiser "Naka" (rear admiral Nishimura Shoji's flagship), formed the convoy's close escort.

Cool, I have Dull (poor name choice, huh?). I was thinking also of the composition of the transports in terms of rough sizes.

tater

The warships present at major operations can usually be found in reference books etc, but the composition of the transport convoys is rarely mentioned, apart from numbers involved. Usually the only transports mentioned are those that were actually sunk or damaged, and with a name one can look up said vessel's size. I don't think that any book has been published listing the names and tonnage of all transports involved in convoys, so be prepared to visit archives if you really want such info. And with the Japanese being able to destroy much material at the end of WW2, such info will be very hard to come by.

Quite true. The actual names aren't really critical, I have information about BaseFor1 going to place X, but I have no idea what ships are involved in it. My principal concern is getting the right balance of merchant targets in there.

DANG! I've got to find a link to that convoy document set! It has all that stuff.:damn:

Sorry to be a tease, but I know the link has been posted before. I'm still looking.

EDIT: Got it! Unfortunately the original poster was releasing it by request only, so there's no link. If he's now unavailable, or you can't find another link, I'll put it up as soon as I can. The bad news is that, as I said, it may be awhile before I can do that.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109621

First post in the research thread in the mod forum:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=109621

Donner says to PM him for the files in there.

The problem is that the japanese didn't start organized convoys until 1944. There were a few in 1943, but not as organized as '44.

tater

Yeah, but these don't just list organized convoys, they list every sailing, from December 1941 on. Well, I can't vouch for every single sailing, but it sure looks like it. They even list the owners of each ship sunk.

Got it! This is an excellent resource. After some cursory browsing of the listings it is obvious that the SH4 convoys needs less DD's and more gunboats/minesweepers/armed merchants as escorts if the aim is to make the convoy compositions more realistic. I have yet to cross-check the sinkings listed in the Japanese Convoy History file with Aldens data in US Submarine Attacks In WWII, but the Convoy History listings seems accurate and comprehensive.

Can you PM me so I can get the file?

BTW, the quick and dirty mod I did to the existing layers radically reduces the escorts (and number of ships early on, too), and replaces many with subchasers and minesweepers changed (in the roster) to finction as "corvettes" so they will escort.

tater

I've been watching your mod very cloesly and I'll install it before my next SH4 session. Looks like just the thing for me. :)