Thanks. I've read this before but didn't save it.EwenS wrote:This article explains the USN Pacific Fleet oil position in Dec 1941.
https://faculty.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/ ... onovan.pdf
It has good points/info but contains a lot of the superficial "logistics!" crap. For example - Nimitz saying that strikes on PH oil would have extended the war by 2 years and Kimmel saying that Pac Fleet would have needed 75 oilers in 1941 to operate heavily at sea. This is the kind of obvious BS that professionals talking about logistics can say because they know everybody else is too bored to question "logistics!" Not even the author of a "logistics!" paper bothers to question these absurd statements. That Kimmel would make BS excuses when testifying to Congress is too obvious to bear.
Pac Fleet burned 760k barrels or 17% of the PH stockpile - presumably much of the burn was drawn from the West Coast though.EwenS wrote:The extent of the problem is summed up in the fact that in the 9 days following PH the Pacific Fleet consumed nearly the equivalent of the capacity of its entire tanker fleet in the Pacific.
Even assuming all was drawn from PH, Pac Fleet could have operated for 2 months at that rate with ZERO replenishment from ConUS. Those two months are the critical period for not letting a relatively puny country conquer a big chunk of the world and wreck your grand strategy (Germany First).
Maybe instead of prioritizing fastidiousness in inventory management, USN should have prioritized actual fighting. For all that the author and the "logistics!" crowd love to obscure it, a military's main job is to kill the other guys. While the Japanese military was busy conquering and killing, the US Navy was busy doing very little of strategic value. They didn't even prevent a handful of German subs from destroying US logistics in the Caribbean.
Good point and I'm glad you're asking questions.EwenS wrote:One question in my mind is the civilian capacity. Given that most of Japan’s oil was shipped from California in US registered tankers and the oil embargo went into effect on 1 Aug 1941, this should have released tanker tonnage for the lift from California to PH. Where did they in fact go? More research required.
I'd also question the author's assertion that only 4 US oilers were capable of at-sea replenishment. Even if true - why? Was it because the USN planned to sit around watching Tirpitz? Might they have made the necessary physical/training modifications to their oilers, had their 1941 strategy involved actually doing something in the Pacific?