aghart wrote:Your talking about the USN that had the vast Pacific to deal with. The RN used a string of bases to operate from, A Fleet train was not in British Plans, Any RN foray from Columbo or Sydney would arrive at Singapore short of fuel, not a problem "if" they somehow got there before the IJN, a very serious problem if the IJN was waiting for them when they arrived.
No, I am talking about a different point of view. The British opted for building bases around the world (the Falklands for example as a coaling station) rather than have a mobile fleet of support ships that could follow the fleet.
The US with the Great White Fleet world sailing, found they needed a means to operate far from home without permanent bases. That led to the establishment of a fleet train in 1905 (proposed in 1904 by Admiral A. C. Cunningham USN) that continued to develop into the one so successfully used in WW 2. This was to be a substitute for forward bases and ports like the British had.
The use of Singapore should have been for fueling an provisioning along with light repairs at most. With Sydney as the main base and repair facility to its rear. This way you could have a squadron at Singapore to both defend the base and control the straights that could be reinforced quickly from Sydney. That was how most other RN overseas squadrons operated.
Hoist40 wrote:While the US had the idea of a "Fleet Train" in WW1 they did not get one until at least 1943 and more into 1944
In 1941 and 1942 they were very short of just supply ships let alone repair ships in the Pacific
You'd be wrong. The first forward (advanced) base the US built was Guadalcanal / Florida island (Tulagi Harbor). It started immediately upon the invasion of that island group and expanded into a massive logistics operation by mid 1943.
The next postion to be set up was Funafuti atoll. Collection and postioning of the nessessary ships and barges for the first mobile base started in early 1942. The 5th Marine Defense battalion landed on Funafuti atoll October 1942, unopposed, and the USN moved in Service Squadron 4 to set up their first mobile fleet base. CB battalions built an airfield and the USAAF flew in B-24's to to begin bombing Tarawa and other Japanese held islands in the Gilberts. The Seabees also dredged entries into the lagoon and removed obstacles within it to create sheltered 100 ship anchorage.
Service Squadron 8, 13 fleet tankers backed by merchant tankers begain to operate forward to allow ships of the Pacific Fleet to fuel at will without returning to Pearl Harbor. The fleet tankers operated in remote parts of open ocean where they were unlikely to be spotted, escorted by a few destroyers.
By mid 1943 Funafuti was a fully operational forward base capable of supplying and repairing the fleet.
The next location forward was Majuro atoll (abandoned by the Japanese November 1942) in the Marshalls. The same thing was repeated with Service Squadron 10 there. The operation by mid 1944 moved to Ulithi atoll (unoccupied by the Japanese).