Coaling at Sea and Captured Merchants

[Bullethead]

I'm curious about whether coaling at sea will be handled in the campaign, and if so, how?

There are several areas where coaling at sea could impact the game in significant ways. Off the top of my head, these are the ones I feel most important:

1. Commerce Raiding
Raiders could loot coal from the bunkers of their prizes, thus extending their own range. In addition, back in these days, a common type of merchant ship was a collier, which hauled coal to where it was needed. If a raider captured one of these, and brought it along under a prize crew, the raider would have a large supply available to greatly extend its range, at least until it had to run and leave the collier behind.

2. Small Ships
Most destroyers and torpedo boats of the day had VERY limited bunker capacities. Without coaling at sea, these ships could not go very far from base, nor remain on station very long.

3. The Russian Baltic Fleet
This fleet had to coal at sea MANY times during its long voyage. It therefore traveled with a number of colliers, which slowed the fleet's progress even more than its antequated warships. Would these colliers be included in any tactical encounters with this fleet? And could the Russian player order them around like warships?

[aklua24h]

Will the type of coal be modeled top? Civilian coal was genraly a lower grade then the navies used, german radier had thid problem in WWI IE: more smoke denser heat temp ect.........?


Thanks

Aklua24h

[Rhetor]

Will the type of coal be modeled top? Civilian coal was genraly a lower grade then the navies used, german radier had thid problem in WWI IE: more smoke denser heat temp ect.........?
Thanks

Aklua24h

Well, I believe that would be too much to ask; I'd be perfectly satisfied if the game would simulate the occasional breakdowns of machinery, or the need to reduce speed for maintenance.

[mbv]

Presumably, if the Baltic Fleet/Second Pacific Fleet arrived on the scene and you sank the attached collier vessels while also blockading Vladivostock and Port Arthur, they would be pretty much dead in the water without fuel. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty prevented the Russians from coaling at shore bases in the Pacific/Indian Ocean and the Japanese did not really have to worry about coal as they had at least four coaling stations on the mainland and others at Shanghai and on the Korean coast.

Simulating the type of coal is way over the top IMHO. Of course, Welsh coal was the best :p

[Bloodstar]

3. The Russian Baltic Fleet
This fleet had to coal at sea MANY times during its long voyage. It therefore traveled with a number of colliers, which slowed the fleet's progress even more than its antequated warships. Would these colliers be included in any tactical encounters with this fleet? And could the Russian player order them around like warships?

Hehe... also I would like to see a coal all around in Russian ships of Baltic fleet!!! :stirthepot:

According to book "Tide at Sunrise" Russian ships coaled anywhere they could and as English have forbidden them to coal in some of their ports they had to put as much coal as possible and piled them on deck etc...

Also, due to long voyage Russian fleet have come into Tsushima straits in very pitiful state and I hope that this would be also simulated - boilers were in bad shape etc...
You know better I think...
:ciao:


Mario

[Rhetor]

Also, due to long voyage Russian fleet have come into Tsushima straits in very pitiful state and I hope that this would be also simulated - boilers were in bad shape etc...

If I remember correctly, in the "ship status display" shown in one of the screenshots something was said about when the ship was last overhauled.

[aklua24h]

true it might be too much to ask for but just metioning it my stir thought. IMHO I think this would add somthing to this rts game. If we don't get that ok,just a thouhgt




Aklua24h

[Bullethead]

According to book "Tide at Sunrise" Russian ships coaled anywhere they could and as English have forbidden them to coal in some of their ports they had to put as much coal as possible and piled them on deck etc...

That's quite true. They really overloaded on coal in addition to having fleet colliers with them. The excess coal, which hadn't all been disposed of before Tsushima, had a number of effects on the ships in battle, most of which were bad.

First off, the extra weight made the ships ride rather lower in the water than their designed full load draft. This submerged their belts, so hits at their effective waterline at Tsushima blew big holes in the sheet metal and let in lots of water. This water was thus above the armored deck instead of below it, giving it a great capsizing moment. The coal topsides also decreased stability. This is why, it is generally believed, several Russian ships capsized fairly rapidly from gunfire damage at Tsushima.

OTOH, the bags and baskets of coal stacked all along the passageways and inside 2ndary batteries would have acted like sandbags. This doesn't seem like a good tradeoff, however :).

[Bloodstar]

That's quite true. They really overloaded on coal in addition to having fleet colliers with them. The excess coal, which hadn't all been disposed of before Tsushima, had a number of effects on the ships in battle, most of which were bad.

First off, the extra weight made the ships ride rather lower in the water than their designed full load draft. This submerged their belts, so hits at their effective waterline at Tsushima blew big holes in the sheet metal and let in lots of water. This water was thus above the armored deck instead of below it, giving it a great capsizing moment. The coal topsides also decreased stability. This is why, it is generally believed, several Russian ships capsized fairly rapidly from gunfire damage at Tsushima.

OTOH, the bags and baskets of coal stacked all along the passageways and inside 2ndary batteries would have acted like sandbags. This doesn't seem like a good tradeoff, however :).


Jim, thanks, that's a lot of good information here :cool:
You Sir have a great deal of knowledge about RJW :)


Mario

[Bullethead]

You Sir have a great deal of knowledge about RJW

Thank you, sir, I do my best :).

I can't claim any special or unique knowledge. I've just read damn never everything out there, because this war is a long-time fancy of mine. It's just my pet period in history. On the naval side, it just screams "What if....?" due to the obvious failures in Russian leadership and the MANY things that turned on very lucky breaks. Such as, the 1st string Russian admiral getting blown up on a mine, the 2nd string Russian admiral getting killed at the critical moment of Yellow Sea, the Japanese losing 2 BBs to mines in 1 day, etc.

However, I confess that the land side is more intriguing to me. All that "Age of Rifles"-era stuff is fascinating in itself up to the Siege of Port Arthur, and after that it was "Vauban vs. Verdun", which is the icing on the cake. How can you not fall in love with a battle wherein a naval torpedo tube was stripped from a blockaded warship, mounted on the parapet of a fort, and fired effectively at besiegers crowning the covered way?

[Bloodstar]

Thank you, sir, I do my best :).

I can't claim any special or unique knowledge. I've just read damn never everything out there, because this war is a long-time fancy of mine. It's just my pet period in history. On the naval side, it just screams "What if....?" due to the obvious failures in Russian leadership and the MANY things that turned on very lucky breaks. Such as, the 1st string Russian admiral getting blown up on a mine, the 2nd string Russian admiral getting killed at the critical moment of Yellow Sea, the Japanese losing 2 BBs to mines in 1 day, etc.

However, I confess that the land side is more intriguing to me. All that "Age of Rifles"-era stuff is fascinating in itself up to the Siege of Port Arthur, and after that it was "Vauban vs. Verdun", which is the icing on the cake. How can you not fall in love with a battle wherein a naval torpedo tube was stripped from a blockaded warship, mounted on the parapet of a fort, and fired effectively at besiegers crowning the covered way?


Heh, yes, you are right there are many unique and interesting things here... About sinking of 2 Japanese BB as I understood Russians only knew that one was sunk and Japanese have done everything to hide fact that second was also sunk as well (don't have names at hand). Togo was aware how fragile his force was and that he didn't in fact had a very big advantage in naval power... Russians were "close but no cigar" - whatever that means hehe - I mean if Japanese had some more bad luck hmmm...

It was also fascinating to read about land combat... Here you see in fact character of the nation and why they say that war is biggest art... Japanese were emerging as a nation - they needed quick victory... They were also prepared to die and show to their adversaries that they are willing to die. That's why they wasted so much lives on attacks on surrounding forts during siege at Port Arthur.
Other land battles were also very interesting and tactics and deception that Japanese used, crossing of river to suprise enemy etc...

Clock have ticked against Japanese and they were aware of it... But, getting troops through trans-baikal railroad was also painfully slow and Russians also didn't wanted long war as revolution sentiment among Russians were big, some people were starving etc...

Japanese were clever... they acted quickly and like David beaten the Goliath... but they were much more motivated for fight as well. Russian expansion was really immense at the time - Japanese were eager to take a little of cake by themself as well and Russians did in fact had a very large empire (Poland and Finland as well etc...) so in fact that loss was not so considerate in terms of land for them, but helped quite a bit Japan to emerge as a big nation.


Mario

[mbv]

There are good descriptions of the desperate Russian attemps to store coal onboard, and its effects on the ships, in The Fleet That had to Die by Richard Hough and also a brief mention in Morning Glory by Stephen Howarth. Both worth getting if you want to read up on the R-J War as is the Warner's The Tide at Sunrise which I personally rate as the ultimate definitive account of the war as a whole.

[NormKoger]

Commenting, more or less in reverse order...

"The Tide at Sunrise" is indeed the best single history of the war. This is the book that sparked my interest in the period. I was pleased when it was re-released recently after a long period out of print. "The Fleet That Had to Die" is very complete, but rather dry for my taste. The most enjoyable RJW book has to be Pleshakov's "The Tsar's Last Armada". Some folks take issue with its accuracy on some points, but I found it to be as enjoyable as a well written novel.

Excess coal and vulnerability - The primary effect that the excess coal actually seems to have had at Tsushima was to enhance the natural flammability of the ships. All the ships of this period had a previously unsuspected vulnerability: fire. Fire was _the_ big ship killer in this war. The Japanese had figured this out by Tsushima, and had pretty much come to the point of disregarding armor penetration. They did not fire a lot of armor piercing shells at Tsushima. It wasn't just excess coal that contributed to the problem. The Russian ships also had to carry all of their standard "accessories" because they wanted to be able to operate effectively at their new, distant base. Unlike the Japanese, who left a lot of this stuff at home (note to modelers: leave most of the small boats off when building models of Japanese RJW ships in wartime mode), the Russians had (literally) tons of kindling in the form of ships launches, etc., all over their decks.

Maintenance - Each ship in the game maintains a record of "sea days". The value increases by one each day a ship is at sea, stays stable if the ship is "on-duty" (task force in port and ready to sail on two hours notice), or decreases by from 3 to 6 days for each day "resting" (task force in port, up to 25 hours required to prepare to sail). Up to 30 accumulated sea days, there is no real effect on ship performance. Anything from 31 to 120 sea days decreases ship maximum speed at sea state 0 by up to 10%. Some of the tactical scenarios in the game have ships on one side or the other suffering from extended accumulation of sea days - the Russians at Tsushima, the Japanese at Ulsan and Yellow Sea.

Major repairs ("destroyed" weapon mounts, "permanent" system damage, etc.) are only possible for ships in "resting" forces. Coaling and ammunition resupply are possible for forces resting or on-duty.

Task force coal handling is an interesting problem. While the details are a bit vague, the Russians apparently became masters at the art of coaling at sea. The German remote cruiser forces had to do this in WWI, and it gave them fits. They hated it. One of their cruisers (I don't remember which off the top of my head) had been severely damaged during repeated at-sea coalings prior to its final encounter with the British navy. Apparently, coaling wasn't a great deal of fun even under the best of circumstances. At sea, it was nightmarish. But needs must when the devil drives, and everyone who had to do it managed to rise to the occasion during the age of coal. You don't have to worry about it as a player, but the program is handling it under the hood. Each ship burns coal as it sails, but not all ships have the same range or rate of coal consumption. From time to time, the coal is shared out from ships with extra to ships with empty bunkers. So, for example, if you want to use your Vladivostok torpedo boats to raid the northern Japanese shipping lanes, you need to include a larger ship in the force to serve as a tender. Historically, the Russians used aux cruisers like the Lyena for this. You can do the same. Those big, lightly armed aux cruisers make very effective tenders for destroyers and torpedo boats on extended raiding missions.

[mbv]

Some very interesting points there. I guess the extra wood on all the Russian ships also added to splinter wounds. The increased fire risk was something I had not thought about before and would certainly have an impact where coal dust was prevalent, which would be easier to ignite.

With all the talk of increased wounds and damage I wonder how well prepared the Russians were in terms of hospital ships. Were there a number of these with the Baltic Fleet?

Thanks for the tip on Plesshakov's book. I had not bothered looking for this one as I heard it was difficult to read because his chronology is out of synch with all the other books on the subject. Sounds pretty useful though so I will hunt around for a copy.

[Rhetor]

There was one thing with the Russian Army. At the beginning of the war, almost 30% of the complement of the Army of Manchuria were Polish conscripts, sent there to serve their term with the Army. There were many Polish officers in the Russian Navy as well - eg. Szczesnowicz, commander of the "Retvizan", and Porebski, 2nd in command of the "Nowik". Many Poles fought bravely for the Tsar.
Meanwhile Japanese intelligence made contact with the Polish underground, in order to induce yet another Polish uprising against the Tsarist rule; Pilsudski even went to Japan, with somewhat crazy idea of organizing a legion of Polish POWs taken by the Japanese.

[Rhetor]

With all the talk of increased wounds and damage I wonder how well prepared the Russians were in terms of hospital ships. Were there a number of these with the Baltic Fleet?

There were two hospital ships with the II Squadron - "Oriol" (6 doctors, 12 nurses) and "Kostroma", (4 doctors, 9 nurses).

[mbv]

Thanks for the info. Rhetor. How did these hospital ships fare at the battle of Tsushima, did the Japanese respect their non-combatant status?

[Bullethead]

Excess coal and vulnerability - The primary effect that the excess coal actually seems to have had at Tsushima was to enhance the natural flammability of the ships. All the ships of this period had a previously unsuspected vulnerability: fire. Fire was _the_ big ship killer in this war.[quote]

Yup, forgot about that. It wasn't the lumps of coal themselves that caught fire in shellbursts, but the coal dust. The Russians at Tsushima were literally caked with coal dust all over, from carrying lots of excess coal out in the open and stirring it up with frequent coaling evolutions. So shells would cause secondary dust explosions and flash fires, which in turn ignited other stuff, which would eventually involve the heaps of coal lumps.

[quote]The Japanese had figured this out by Tsushima, and had pretty much come to the point of disregarding armor penetration. They did not fire a lot of armor piercing shells at Tsushima.

I was under the impression that this was more by accident than design. The Japanese were making their own shells by the RJW, and they used a type of picric acid explosive, then a common shell filler, that they called shimose. Although used in AP shells, it was really too shock-sensitive for that, often exploding on impact with anything. IOW, the AP shells often acted like HE, which is why picric acid fell from favor later on. Luckily for the Japanese, this happened to be beneficial at Tsushima because most of the exposed areas of the Russian ships were unarmored due to their overloaded condition. In addition, these shells tended to break up in low-order explosions when they hit the water or light structure, often scattering burning globs of explosive over the target like so many incendiary bomblets.

Compare the effect of shell hits on the Russians at Yellow Sea and Tsushima. At the former, apart from the lucky shells that killed the admiral and jammed the flagship's helm, none of the Japanese shell hits, and there were many of them, did significant damage. But these were the same shells that devastated the Russians at Tsushima. The different results have to be a function of the different condition of the Russian ships in the 2 battles.

From time to time, the coal is shared out from ships with extra to ships with empty bunkers.

So, can commerce raiders capture and bring along the colliers they happen to encounter? And can they coal from the bunkers of other merchants? Inquiring minds want to know ;)

[Neutrino 123]

Thanks for the info. Rhetor. How did these hospital ships fare at the battle of Tsushima, did the Japanese respect their non-combatant status?

The hospital ships didn't do too well for the Russians. The Japanese actually spotted the fleet by locating Orel, which had all its lights on in observance of standard civilian procedure. After the battle, the Japanese ignored the status of the Orel and captured it (maybe the other hospital ship too, I forget the specifics).

[NormKoger]

So, can commerce raiders capture and bring along the colliers they happen to encounter? And can they coal from the bunkers of other merchants? Inquiring minds want to know ;)

No, that didn't happen in the RJW. It was common in the early stages of WWI, where German cruisers ended up with little retinues of captured colliers. Unlike the Germans, the Russians were operating in heavily patrolled waters, fairly close to base. Standard practice was to put a prize crew aboard captured steamers with orders to proceed to Vladivostok. The cruisers has plenty of range to operate in the Sea of Japan without worrying about coal. And given the presence of an aux cruiser with the torpedo boats whenever they sortied into Japanese waters, I suspect the plan was to put a prize crew from the cruiser aboard with orders for Vladivostok, and recoal as necessary from the cruiser. Not many coalings would have been needed for the missions the tb's actually ran, into the waters off northern Japan.

Never fear, when we do WWI you will be able to assemble gaggles of captured colliers to your heart's content. I will have to add logic for long term accumulation of damage from coaling at sea.

[Bullethead]

Never fear, when we do WWI you will be able to assemble gaggles of captured colliers to your heart's content. I will have to add logic for long term accumulation of damage from coaling at sea.

Good enough :). I was kinda jumping the gun on this, but it seems like an idea that would have occurred to somebody during the RJW.

[Rhetor]

The hospital ships didn't do too well for the Russians. The Japanese actually spotted the fleet by locating Orel, which had all its lights on in observance of standard civilian procedure. After the battle, the Japanese ignored the status of the Orel and captured it (maybe the other hospital ship too, I forget the specifics).

The "Kostroma" was briefly detained, but then released. She was one of the few ships which returned to the Baltic.

[rick614]

I would think re-coaling at sea would have been a horrible job under the best
of conditions. How would you transfer coal from ship to ship at sea? I would
think lines between ship and maybe filling large bags and moving them across that way.

Refueling at sea would have been maybe the only thing that the US Navy had on the Japanese at the start of WWII. I remember reading that the Pearl
Harbor attack fleet even thought they sailed a far northerly route to avoid
shipping ran with no heat to save every drop of oil they could because they
were unsure of their ability to refuel at sea.

[Rhetor]

I would think re-coaling at sea would have been a horrible job under the best
of conditions. How would you transfer coal from ship to ship at sea? I would
think lines between ship and maybe filling large bags and moving them across that way.

That's roughly how the Russians did it.

Coal was a horrible fuel for the crews - to feed coal into the furnaces, dozens of men had to shovel it from the bunkers. The more coal burnt, the farther they had to shovel it, as the nearest bunkers became emptied. If the vessel ran at high speed, people would faint of exhaustion while shoveling.
The "Cats" could make 27, even 28 knots, but imagine what it was like for the stokers.

[Dogbert]

In "Warrior to Dreadnought", the author mentions that bits of coal could also sometimes jam the watertight doors (which would have to be left open much of the time to move more coal into the bunkers near the furnaces).

[mbv]

Just thought everyone might be interested in this pic I recently bought on Ebay showing coaling in progress at sea on a UK warship of the period. Norm if you could model in this detail in a patch that would be great :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Misc%20Warships/Coaling.jpg

[FJ88]

Somewhat related to this, when you increase a ships speed, does that have the effect of pulling away men from the guns and damage control thus slowing down the rate of fire and rate of repair?

I noticed men were indeed modeled and I assume each hit has the effect of wounding and killing of men and things like turrets exploding and boilers being pierced has a rather dramatic effect on casulty rates.

[Bullethead]

Just thought everyone might be interested in this pic I recently bought on Ebay showing coaling in progress at sea on a UK warship of the period. Norm if you could model in this detail in a patch that would be great :D

That's a great pic! Shows the dirt and grime involved to perfection :). Look how the religiously holy-stoned deck is nearly black, as are most of the sailors involved. And all their sooty footprints across the steel blast ring on the deck. Also interesting that they did it from astern like this, which makes a lot of sense. This would have been a very slow process compared to oil UnRep, because of the need for small loads, time to load and unload the basket at each end, and the empty return to the collier. I imagine that if they'd tried to steam in parallel all that time, they'd have parted the lines or gotten into hull interaction nightmares long before the job was done.

I think, however, that the pic is maybe a US BB. Looks like Oregon or Indiana in fact. I'd be really surprised if it wasn't.

[mbv]

I think, however, that the pic is maybe a US BB. Looks like Oregon or Indiana in fact. I'd be really surprised if it wasn't.

You may well be right, it is actually a postcard with no added details on the back. Any idea why the turret appears to be covered in a tarpaulin ?

[NormKoger]

Somewhat related to this, when you increase a ships speed, does that have the effect of pulling away men from the guns and damage control thus slowing down the rate of fire and rate of repair?

Hmmm... No. The thing that really draws crew away from other duties is firefighting. If there are on board fires, crew are drawn from all other duties. Rate of fire and general damage control are most strongly affected. Fire is also the great killer of crews. A large fire will kill crews even more rapidly than the most devastating hail of incoming shells.

I noticed men were indeed modeled and I assume each hit has the effect of wounding and killing of men and things like turrets exploding and boilers being pierced has a rather dramatic effect on casulty rates.

Powerplant hits do tend to cause additional crew losses. Turret explosions tend to be limited to the crews serving the weapons affected, although if the magazine becomes involved the issue of crew casualties tends to become irrelevant.

...a postcard with no added details on the back. Any idea why the turret appears to be covered in a tarpaulin ?

It has the look of a permanent fixture, doesn't it? The only reason I can think of for that kind of cover would be that something on the turret (perhaps at the base) did not seal out water. (or coal dust?)

[FJ88]

Hmmm... No. The thing that really draws crew away from other duties is firefighting. If there are on board fires, crew are drawn from all other duties. Rate of fire and general damage control are most strongly affected. Fire is also the great killer of crews. A large fire will kill crews even more rapidly than the most devastating hail of incoming shells.






This does not seem right. From what I have read when ships were moving along at high speed men had to be pulled away from other duties to fuel the furnaces.

It also just makes logical sense.

Increased speed = More Steam = Hotter fire = More coal being shovled onto the fire = More men in the chain moving coal from storage into the fires


I have read cases of a few battles where ROF was greatly reduced due to the need for men to stoke the fires and keep the ship moving at high speed.

With the advent of oil for fuel a few British sea officers said that the greatest advantage was not higher speeds and eaiser fueling, but that men would no long be needed to fuel the fires with coal.

[Neutrino 123]

I thought that only the coalers were actually assigned to the coal duirng all times (I could be wrong...), with all of them assigned during a battle. They could then get to maximum speed by working hard, but when they started to get tired, new coalers were not added from other crews. Only the speed was dropped (one often reads about maximum speeds being unsustainable, especially during the WWI battlecruiser battles).

[FJ88]

I thought that only the coalers were actually assigned to the coal duirng all times (I could be wrong...), with all of them assigned during a battle. They could then get to maximum speed by working hard, but when they started to get tired, new coalers were not added from other crews. Only the speed was dropped (one often reads about maximum speeds being unsustainable, especially during the WWI battlecruiser battles).


The way I understand it their was a dedicated coaling crew that could get the ship to cruising speed.
Anything past that required more men to move coal faster and thus get the boilers hotter.

Every man was trained to shovel coal under all conditions since that was probably the single most important job in a ship until they began using oil.

Also in combat you had been being struck down by splinters or outright blown to bits by shells so holes began to form in the coaling crews thus the need for yanking men away from their other duties.

And the older a ship gets the engine loses efficiency. Thus the same amount of coal as before would net you a lower speed.
It took more coal and higher temps to drive the ship at the same rate as when the engine was brand new.

[Bullethead]

Any idea why the turret appears to be covered in a tarpaulin ?

I've been wondering about that ever since I 1st saw the pic. Looks to me like the canvas covers all openings in the turret--the only place not apparently covered is the solid part of the roof. But all sighting hoods, gun openings, and presumably the turret/barbette joint are covered.

Like Norm, I have to assume this was to keep something out of the turret. As in those days most turret openings had nothing blocking them (no glass in the sighting hoods, or canvas boots on the gun tubes), and I've never seen a pic with such canvas on a turret before, I assume water wasn't the problem. Therefore, my best guess is that the canvas in this pic was intended to keep out coal dust, mostly because the only time I've seen it is during coaling in this pic.

I can understand why coal dust in a turret might have been a problem. Firing the guns would kick up any coal dust in the turret, suspending it in the air. Then, when you opened the breech to reload, any escaping hot gas could set off a coal dust explosion or at least flash fire, which would scorch all the crew plus maybe set off any charges in the turret. I bet even with the canvas, they hosed the turret out after coaling, just to make sure. They didn't have much, if any, electrical systems in the turrets in those days, so I doubt the water would have caused any problem.

[Bullethead]

The way I understand it their was a dedicated coaling crew that could get the ship to cruising speed. Anything past that required more men to move coal faster and thus get the boilers hotter.

I think you're forgetting 1 important aspect of shipboard life: it goes in shifts (watches). As I understand it, the number of stokers in 1 watch's crew could shovel enough coal to maintain cruising speed, but you had 2 or 3 times that many stokers aboard, depending on the size of the ship. In a BB or cruiser, I'm sure they had 3 watches, but DDs and such would probably only have had 2. Anyway, if you needed fire for sustained max speed, you'd just have to wake up the other 1 or 2 watches to get the extra manpower required. Of course, in battle, it was all hands on deck anyway, so then you'd definitely have the people.

Also in combat you had been being struck down by splinters or outright blown to bits by shells so holes began to form in the coaling crews thus the need for yanking men away from their other duties.

I don't think this was what normally happened. Each man aboard has his battle station and chain of command within it, and all are doing something vitally important to the functioning and continued survival of the ship. So some department head, such as the engineering officer, couldn't just pull ammo humpers off their job to fill his own ranks. That's a command decision and would take the skipper or the XO, somebody superior to both the involved department heads, and with a better view of the over-all situation, to make such a call. IOW, not something likely to happen except in exceptional circumstances.

Besides, when the black gang starts taking casualties, the ship has a lot of other problems which make the possibility of replacing snipe casualties from other sources extremely unlikely. For instance, the snipes work below the waterline, so if they're dead you've got water coming in, and any spare hands (such as survivors from disabled gun mounts) had better be working on that or everybody's going swimming.

More to the point, however, damage in engineering spaces sufficient to kill snipes usually means major steam leaks in there, which make the compartments uninhabitable. OK, so you turn a few valves in the other compartments to shut off the steam leaks in the damaged areas, helping the surviving engineering plant and allowing folks to go back in the damaged compartments. However, at the time of the RJW, before welding had really been invented or at least made portable, I seriously doubt that broken steam lines could be fixed short of replacing large sections of big pipe. That would have taken way longer than the duration of the battle, so the compartment and its equipment was effectively out of action permanently. The reduction in the size of the overall engineering plant, therefore, would have reduced the required number of crewmen to run it at full remaining capacity. The crew being allocated on a by-compartment basis, the losses in the damaged compartments would have had no effect on those remaining, and any survivors would have increased the crew available in those compartments still functioning.