USN Cruiser availability

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mescal
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USN Cruiser availability

#1

Post by mescal » 22 Dec 2008, 19:09

Hello,

I was doing some research on the cruiser and battleship availability during the war.
So I began to make diagrams, since it appears to be the most readable presentation
Below is a first part, dealing with the US 8-inch cruisers (since it's very time-consuming, I don't know when I will be able to follow on with other navies)

Green : Pacific/Indian
Light green : Atlantic/Mediterranean
Red : sunk
Orange : combat damage
Light blue : shakedown/training
Purple : dockyard/repair/refit/overhaul/ post-repair training
grey : building
US_CA_avail1.jpg
US_CA_avail1.jpg (57.6 KiB) Viewed 2400 times
US_CA_avail2.jpg
US_CA_avail2.jpg (53.5 KiB) Viewed 2400 times
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#2

Post by mescal » 22 Dec 2008, 19:12

Here is the same study for the light cruiser (6-incher).
Note that the Omaha are excluded.
US_CL_avail1.jpg
US_CL_avail1.jpg (56.42 KiB) Viewed 2407 times
US_CL_avail2.jpg
US_CL_avail2.jpg (56.52 KiB) Viewed 2407 times

Only the ships which saw action during the war are represented here (both for 'heavy' and 'light' cruisers).
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#3

Post by LWD » 22 Dec 2008, 19:20

I see the CL list includes the 5" armed Atlanta's as well. Nice chartes. Why did you exclude the Omaha's?

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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#4

Post by mescal » 22 Dec 2008, 19:33

Oh yes, the split was between "8-inch" and "less-than-8-inch".

I excluded the Omaha mainly because they were 'second rate' cruiser (that is not to say that they were 100% garbage, but that the Navy relatively quickly found out that they were of limited use against IJN.
(AFAIK, Komandorski Island was the only time a Omaha was in action against IJN.)
And the starting point of my study was to check which ships were available for the Guadalcanal campaign after Tassafaronga, and committing the Omahas was taking huge risk of losing them.

Moreover, in a less rationalized way, I have not as much data on those ships than on other classes :D


I forgot to mention in the first post that some of the data may be doubtful or incomplete.
They are also imprecise because I did not go under the month as basic time unit, and I made some 'rounding' : for example, a ship in yard from 04/06 to 20/07 will probably appear in purple during june and july, even if it's in action on 25/07.
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#5

Post by JamesL » 22 Dec 2008, 21:33

Excellent job!

My father served aboard USS BOSTON and the dates presented appear to be right on.

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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#6

Post by mescal » 07 Jan 2009, 15:54

I have an other view of the same data.
However the focus is on the Pacific, I did not take into account the USN ships when they were in the Atlantic.
But I tool into account the RAN cruisers which were in the Pacific cooperating with the USN (for example HMAS Shropshire appears in oct 1943, but HMAS Adelaïde in not taken into account since whe remained under RN/RAN control through the war)

Note also that a ship is counted available for a month if it is available the first day of this month (USS Juneau is in the Nov 42 count,for ex.)

Here is a first version, by number of ships :
US_cruiser_number.jpg
US_cruiser_number.jpg (36.46 KiB) Viewed 2208 times
And the same data, this time viewed by tonnage :
US_cruiser_by_tonnage.jpg
US_cruiser_by_tonnage.jpg (36.6 KiB) Viewed 2207 times
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#7

Post by mescal » 25 Mar 2010, 16:19

Hello,

I finally completed the charts for the Omaha-class light cruisers.

The color code is the same as in the previous charts.
The geographic tags reads as follows :
A : Atlantic (actually, most of the Omaha's service in the Atlantic was in South Atlantic)
M : Mediterranean
EP : East Pacific
CP : Central Pacific
SP : South Pacific
NP : North Pacific
EI : East Indies
JW : Japanese Waters
IO : Indian Ocean

T : Training ship
U : unavailable
W : Withdrawn from service (USS Milwaukee, when transfered to the Soviet Red Fleet as Murmansk).
US_old_CL.jpg
US_old_CL.jpg (79.48 KiB) Viewed 1968 times
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#8

Post by mescal » 23 Oct 2010, 19:44

Hello,

I completed the charts I made in the first posts of this thread with a geographic tag for each month and each ship, giving more precision on its whereabouts.

You will find these charts below.
The tag code is the same one as used previously for the Omahas.

I just added the 'PI' label for the waters around the Philippines, and the 'UD' label, to help distinguish between unavailability provoked by enemy action and 'standard' unavailability.
USN_Cru_11_bis.jpg
USN_Cru_11_bis.jpg (86.66 KiB) Viewed 1839 times
USN_Cru_12_bis.jpg
USN_Cru_12_bis.jpg (74.43 KiB) Viewed 1839 times
Last edited by mescal on 23 Oct 2010, 19:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#9

Post by mescal » 23 Oct 2010, 19:46

And after the heavy cruisers in the previous post,

here are the light cruisers :

(color codes and labels are still the same)
USN_Cru_21_bis.jpg
USN_Cru_21_bis.jpg (109.43 KiB) Viewed 1839 times
USN_Cru_22_bis.jpg
USN_Cru_22_bis.jpg (103.11 KiB) Viewed 1839 times
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#10

Post by JamesL » 24 Oct 2010, 17:14

Incredible! I commend you. This is a first rate piece of work.

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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#11

Post by mescal » 24 Oct 2010, 21:42

Thank you James.

And below are the synthetic numbers of ships per geographic area and per month.

Each value represents the total number of cruiser which have the line label for the given month.
Hence no distinction is made between a Omaha and a Baltimore - so take these values with a grain of salt...

The labels are the same as in the previous posts.
The 'B' line represents the ships under construction which had or could have had front line duties before the end of war - that's why this line ends with zeroes, which does certainly not mean that no US cruiser were under construction in the summer of 1945.
The 'grand Total' is the sum of the ships in ETO, PTO, unavailable and in training.

USN_Cru_Stats1.jpg
USN_Cru_Stats1.jpg (69.45 KiB) Viewed 1819 times
USN_Cru_Stats2.jpg
USN_Cru_Stats2.jpg (73.41 KiB) Viewed 1819 times
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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#12

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 04 Dec 2011, 00:12

Nice ! Color coding charts for USN cruisers...

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Re: USN Cruiser availability

#13

Post by nebelwerferXXX » 31 Jan 2014, 10:12

baltimore-class.JPG
A Baltimore-class heavy cruiser...

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