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Deluxe Logs APs and AKs (just as a start) - Is this an Error?


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#1 MatthewB

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 10:31 AM

As I mentioned in another thread, I found something that is seemingly at odds with the rules in The Merchant Ship System.

The first is just a quibble, really, in that many of the AK cargo ships listed in the Early Pacific Deluxe Logs are listed as being AKAs, when none would have that designation until February of 1943 at the Earliest.

The APAs labeled by the Deluxe Ship Logs for the Early Pacific also would not have seen that designation until early 1943 as well.

The other concerns some of the larger APs:

But the worst cases I saw were for the USS Mount Vernon (AP-22) and the USS West Point (AP-23), where the Ship's Log lists only 4 Troop Compartments, and one Cargo Hold.

Yet Navsource (see link) lists the West Point as carrying roughly 7,700 men (other sources list it as being able to carry up to 8,000 Enlisted men and Officers), and the Mount Vernon is listed as being able to carry 6,000 Enlisted men and Officers.

By the rules given in The Merchant Ship System, it says that one Troop Box is used for every 400 men the ship can carry.

This should give the USS Mount Vernon 15 Troop Spaces. And the USS West Point should have 18 - 20 Troop Spaces.

Also, according to the MSS, Both of these ships should have nine Hull Boxes, as both were roughly 30,000 ton ships, and the MSS lists ships as greater than 29,000 tons+ as having nine Hull Boxes.

Yet both of these have only 8.

Both were huge ships, used primarily for hauling large numbers of men from the West Coast to Australia or New Zealand, prior to being sent to Forward Areas in the Pacific (or, after 1943, to Staging Areas on Pavuvu, Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santos, or Noumea).

So I can kind of see how it might be difficult to cram 15 - 20 Troop Boxes on a Ship Log (plus the Cargo Hold each Ship would have had).

But really it is only these large Troop Ships (many later turned into Hospital Ships) where there is any problem.

Is there an error here, or was this intentionally done for some reason?

MB



#2 Cpt M

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 10:01 PM

"The first is just a quibble, really, in that many of the AK cargo ships listed in the Early Pacific Deluxe Logs are listed as being AKAs, when none would have that designation until February of 1943 at the Earliest.

The APAs labeled by the Deluxe Ship Logs for the Early Pacific also would not have seen that designation until early 1943 as well."

 

Has to do with the function of the ships (in real and game terms).  While the designation did not come into use until 1943, the functional use of such ships as attack transports and attack cargo ships was already established.  Also, using the later designation allows for separating the two functional "types" of cargo/transports (purely transports and cargo ships on one hand and attack transports and attack cargo ships on the other).  



#3 Cpt M

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Posted 17 January 2017 - 10:09 PM

The Deluxe Logs were developed before the MSS supplement and represent an earlier "system" with regards to the cargo/troop "boxes" (these were more nominal than representing specific capacities).  If it is of importance (and in the case of a campaign game that may be the case) then the carrying capacities as outlined in the MSS can be substituted. 






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