RSRD Comments

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

The convoy composition, while slightly odd, isn't impossible. Suppose that they where going to bombard the hell out of something and those merchants where hauling extra fuel and ammo. I can really think of maybe a dozen reasons why a few merchant ships might tag along with a task force.

Replenishment at sea during World War II was limited, for the most part, to refueling operations and whatever small amounts of cargo could be transferred by high line. Loading high caliber shells was a delicate operation usually done in the placid waters of a port. Plus, no commander wanted his high speed bombardment or carrier force forced to run at 12 knots so a few merchants or tankers could tag along. That's why replenishment oiler TFs usually operated at a distance in the backfield of an operation with their own dedicated escort. (The oiler Neosho and destroyer Sims at the Battle of the Coral Sea being one small example.)

As the war progressed the high expenditure of aircraft ordnance by fast US carrier tasks forces became a problem during the last year of the war when air groups aboard the fast carriers began to expend more bombs than could be carried aboard ship for the sustained ground attacks now being conducted. By 1945 methods of transferring cargo between AEs (cargo ships converted to carry ammunition) and the flattops under way, which made use of the standard winches, booms, and cargo nets normally carried by the AEs were developed. The devastated Japanese navy never progressed to this point though.