BlondieBC
Banned
That's weird since this sight reports .....9 HSK conducted 12 cruises accumulating 3769 days at sea or an average of 314 days per cruise. Where does "90 day expected life" come from?
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/hilfskreuzer/hilfskreuzer_introduction.html
The prewar value placed on HSK was clearly derived from WW-I experiences.
https://archive.org/stream/ReviewOfGermanCruiserWarfare19141918#page/n1/mode/2up
according to the above site each warship raider averaged 10 kills and took 10-11 enemy warships [mostly CL] to hunt them down, while the HSK raiders averaged 9-10 kills and required ~ 10 warships although many were AMC & DD.
If the numbers in WW-II were to bare similar fruit , 20 HSK could have required a fleet of 200 AMC/DD to hunt them down after the HSK sank 200 enemy vessel's. That would be a worth while investment. I gather that the historical WW-II HSK missions accumulated 142 enemy vessels sunk or captured [& turned into other suede HSK] . That part looks better than WW-I record.
The WW1 data. Been a while, but seems like 90 days is about right.
I am not arguing against AMC, I just think that the mass usage of AMC will result in a life span closer to 3 months than 9 months. And isn't the WW2 data inflated by things like ships sailing to Japan via the Arctic Ocean and then operating in a Pacific region largely devoid of British warships due to the Med campaign. Start spamming out AMCs, and you move them to the better but more dangerous operations zones in the Atlantic. And if we assume the Germans choose zones of operations wisely, each additional AMC will tend to operate in a less safe area.
Edit: I probably also did not count in days traveling to or from the kill zones when not actively hunting such as the trip via the arctic. And seems to get this number, I started counting from first kill or attempted kill. So I am saying 90 days survival after first kill. Our numbers are probably not that far off since these ships could easily take a month or two to get to the operation grounds and back.