No pics but I became intrigued....

 I have always read about war.  Something about it has always fascinated me.  How a country like the US can start from a full peace time standing and roll into an industrial powerhouse seemingly overnight.  How ships, tanks, planes, rifles, bazookas......everything could be built and sent off to fight in record numbers.

I think that is something that should have fascinated me but it rarely facisnates anyone....except professionals: Logistics.  The art form of getting everything required to where it needs to be at the time it is needed.  And having served in the Marine Corps as a logistician, I am surprised I never really focused in on it.  

A friend at work and I were talking the other day and he mentioned about how the US Navy got its collective ass kicked off Guadalcanal.  And he asked me why I thought the US did not pull any of the undamaged battleships down there to fight.  For the life of me, I had never thought of that.  

There were plenty of battleships available, in 1942 the Atlantic Fleet had:  the New York (BB34), the Washington (BB56), Arkansas (BB33), North Carolina (BB55), and the Texas (BB35).  

In the Pacific Fleet, of the 9 battleships, one was undamaged during that attack at Pearl Harbor: the Colorado (BB-45).  

The reason?  It came down to LOGISTICS.  What do ships require most?  Fuel.  How many fleet oilers were there in the Pacific in 1942?   11 total.  

Kanawha (AO-1), Cuyama (AO-3), Brazos (AO-4), Neches (AO-5), Ramapo (AO-12), Sepulga (AO-20), Tippecanoe (AO-21), Neosho (AO-23), Platte (AO-24), Sabine (AO-25), and Kaskaskia (AO-27)

Neches and Neosho were both sunk.  

Neches was sunk by a submarine while supporting the failed Task Force heading to support Wake Island.

Neosho was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.  

Of all the Task Forces set up during that first year of the war, none included battleships?  Task Forces 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 18 were all centered around a carrier with its cruiser and destroyer escorts.  

Where were the battleships?  

One therory is that Nimitz held them back in the Pacific so they could support the Carrier Task Forces...not enough to go around.

I am now intrigued enough to dig deep into fleet oiler operations in the first year of WWII.

Down the rabbit hole I go!!