Sinking the Battleship Yamato: a case study of evolution, innovation, and revolution in the NFC South

[propagandamachine]

Damn son... 

[tiger7_88]

4 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

yep. the japanese actually had us completely outclassed with carriers early on in the war. besides the shoho and the four that went down at midway, they had the shokaku and her sister ship, which iirc were the highest capacity carriers on the open sea in the world at the time. the loss at midway (of aircraft, premier pilots, and flattops) was something japan would never recover from. they lost virtually every naval engagement afterwards. and also ironically it was the USN's shitty-ass torpedo bomber runs that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn that allowed the success at midway, since it drew all the zeros down low and allowed the squadrons of dauntless dive-bombers unmolested access to the targets.

Ironically enough, after Midway the only battles that the IJN *did* win were in and around Guadalcanal and they were... 

Surface ship battles.  The IJN Long Lance torpedoes were deadly in the difficult navigable confines of The Slot.  (Great book by James Hornfischer on this, 'Neptunes Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal'.)

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also the yamato actually had a shot at doing something useful during leyte gulf. they had basically sneaked down a strait to samar island and on the third day of the largest naval battle in human history and were poised to blast into the bay and absolutely annihilate the precarious troop landings. it was the yamato, i think the nagato, and a shitload of cruisers and destroyers that made up the task force... basically unstoppable. the USN had a couple of shitty CVLs (light carriers) and some destroyers. but they launched the most ferocious and ballsy attack of the battle, flying fighters without ammunition straight at the enemy ships, buzzing their superstructures, dropping random poo at cruisers, destroyers laying smokescreens and then charging out of it for torpedo attacks, etc. the admiral leading it had already had a crusier torpedoed out from under him leading up to the battle and hadn't slept for three days and was basically like oh fug it's the main fleet! and turned tail and fled.

it's likely he'd have gotten bombed to the bottom the next day anyway, but another couple nautical miles southwest and he'd have pulled off the biggest upset of the war and the yamato would've gone down as japan's most effective battleship in terms of kills.

 

This coming immediately *after* Halsey takes the bait and runs north to attack IJN carriers that were carrying no aircraft.  Can Halsey be condemned for his maneuver itself?  Probably not.  At that point in the war it was quite clear that the carrier WAS the premier strike weapon of both navies.  So going for the carriers was the logical thing to do.  And he had no idea and could not assume that they were just weaponless decoys.  

What he can be condemned for, however, is taking all the new construction fast battleships he had with him (the Iowa, New Jersey, South Dakota, Alabama, etc.) instead of leaving them as TF 34 to guard the exit to San Bernardino Straight.  The IJN task force including the Yamato *had* been sighted by American forces in San Bernardino, but Halsey and his staff believed they had "turned around" and retreated.  Well, they *had* turned around... but then they turned back.  Bad, bad assumption by Halsey.  Plus, MacArthur's admiral, Kincaid, didn't even have the chance to move assets north himself to guard the straight because Halsey and his staff had given him (and CINCPAC) every impression that TF 34 had been formed to do just that.  (Oh, another great book by Hornfischer on this too, 'The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors'.)

 

[tiger7_88]

18 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

he died in a plane crash on a remote island in the northwest solomons called bougainville. i've been obsessed with visiting the wrecked of his transport bomber since i was a nerdy eight-year-old who read about his samauri sword never being found. i made it my life's goal to indiana jones that poo and find it.

I wonder which Japanese soldiers family has passed down Yamamoto's sword and shoulder boards from generation to generation and kept it secret?

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/g4m/2656.html

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The nearest Japanese Army post at Aku, Lt. Hamasuna observed smoke from the crash.  At first, he believed it is was an American airplane crash and he led a group of twelve to the crash site, and was the first to arrive the following day. Next, a Japanese Navy patrol was sent to the site to recover the Admiral's body. When they arrived, they found Yamamoto's sword and Admiral rank insignia (shoulder bars) missing. They have never been located to this day.

 

[PhillyB]

13 minutes ago, tiger7_88 said:

Ironically enough, after Midway the only battles that the IJN *did* win were in and around Guadalcanal and they were... 

Surface ship battles.  The IJN Long Lance torpedoes were deadly in the difficult navigable confines of The Slot.  (Great book by James Hornfischer on this, 'Neptunes Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal'.)

This coming immediately *after* Halsey takes the bait and runs north to attack IJN carriers that were carrying no aircraft.  Can Halsey be condemned for his maneuver itself?  Probably not.  At that point in the war it was quite clear that the carrier WAS the premier strike weapon of both navies.  So going for the carriers was the logical thing to do.  And he had no idea and could not assume that they were just weaponless decoys.  

What he can be condemned for, however, is taking all the new construction fast battleships he had with him (the Iowa, New Jersey, South Dakota, Alabama, etc.) instead of leaving them as TF 34 to guard the exit to San Bernardino Straight.  The IJN task force including the Yamato *had* been sighted by American forces in San Bernardino, but Halsey and his staff believed they had "turned around" and retreated.  Well, they *had* turned around... but then they turned back.  Bad, bad assumption by Halsey.  Plus, MacArthur's admiral, Kincaid, didn't even have the chance to move assets north himself to guard the straight because Halsey and his staff had given him (and CINCPAC) every impression that TF 34 had been formed to do just that.  (Oh, another great book by Hornfischer on this too, 'The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors'.)

 

i'm glad i'm not the only one that geeks out about leyte gulf :) halsey took out the shokaku and a could destroyers iirc, which was significant, but japanese aircraft were virtually nonexistent at that point. none of IJN's task forces in the engagement had any kind of fighter cover.

i remember halsey taking those battleships with him but i also remember the south dakota in particular going apeshit in a gun battle at some point... were they involved in the surigao strait prior to that? it's been years since i read about any of this

edit: and didn't they sink the nagato? wasn't that like the only battleship to be sunk by another battleship in the entire PTO?

double edit: IJN's night fighting and torpedo game was on point. if they could've pulled off more disruptive engagements like the solomons campaign they might've done some real damage... but by mid 1943 the u.s. had established enough airfields across the pacific (and carrier dominance) to strike japan just about anywhere. had guadalcanal happened a year later the IJN fleet would've stood no chance of getting anywhere near the slot without being bombed to oblivion in daylight (or torpedoed by the burgeoning USN sub ops en route.)

[PhillyB]

3 minutes ago, tiger7_88 said:

I wonder which Japanese soldiers family has passed down Yamamoto's sword and shoulder boards from generation to generation and kept it secret?

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/g4m/2656.html

 

pacific wrecks is a great facebook follow btw

[tiger7_88]

12 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

i'm glad i'm not the only one that geeks out about leyte gulf :) halsey took out the shokaku and a could destroyers iirc, which was significant, but japanese aircraft were virtually nonexistent at that point. none of IJN's task forces in the engagement had any kind of fighter cover.

i remember halsey taking those battleships with him but i also remember the south dakota in particular going apeshit in a gun battle at some point... were they involved in the surigao strait prior to that? it's been years since i read about any of this

edit: and didn't they sink the nagato? wasn't that like the only battleship to be sunk by another battleship in the entire PTO?

The USS Washington and the South Dakota were the primary participants (along with a group of destroyer escorts) in the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.  The Japanese force in the battle was the battleship Kirishima and a group of cruisers and destroyers.

The South Dakota was a hard-luck ship in that battle, taking a lot of hits and being overall ineffective.  The Washington, however, using their up-to-date radar-assisted gunnery, just laid into the Kirishima.  The Kirishima sank the next day.  As far as I know, that battle was the only battleship vs. battleship battle in the entire Pacific war.

Edited December 24, 2015 by tiger7_88

[tiger7_88]

13 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

i remember halsey taking those battleships with him

"Where is TF 34?... the world wonders"

A fateful but fitting decoding error.

[PhillyB]

damn, whose ass got sunk at leyte then? i remember a japanese bb getting completely torched (literally, it burned as a hulk and then sunk.) it wasn't mutsu, she got torpedoed late in the war. nagato was never sunk it turns out

[tiger7_88]

4 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

damn, whose ass got sunk at leyte then? i remember a japanese bb getting completely torched (literally, it burned as a hulk and then sunk.) it wasn't mutsu, she got torpedoed late in the war. nagato was never sunk it turns out

The Yamato's sister ship, the Musashi, was sunk by American aircraft in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea prior to the IJN Central Force entering San Bernardino Strait. 

[ThPantherFan]

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

Where's your works cited page? 

It was 299 pages short of being a thesis. 

[PhillyB]

48 minutes ago, tiger7_88 said:

The Yamato's sister ship, the Musashi, was sunk by American aircraft in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea prior to the IJN Central Force entering San Bernardino Strait. 

nope, i was thinking of the Fusō. a torpedo hit ignited an oil fire and she burned for hours before apparently blowing up and splitting in half. however it was destroyer torpedo runs that did the job, not battleships, which wouldn't engage until the latter part of the action at surigao strait

[tiger7_88]

13 minutes ago, PhillyB said:

nope, i was thinking of the Fusō. a torpedo hit ignited an oil fire and she burned for hours before apparently blowing up and splitting in half. however it was destroyer torpedo runs that did the job, not battleships, which wouldn't engage until the latter part of the action at surigao strait

Yeah, the great thing about the Surigao engagement was that several of the battleships that had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, raised, and refurbished were present at that battle, crossing the Japanese task force's "T".

[PhillyB]

17 minutes ago, tiger7_88 said:

Yeah, the great thing about the Surigao engagement was that several of the battleships that had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, raised, and refurbished were present at that battle, crossing the Japanese task force's "T".

yep i think it was largely the west virginia that kicked kirishima's ass

[tiger7_88]

1 hour ago, PhillyB said:

yep i think it was largely the west virginia that kicked kirishima's ass

Yamashiro.

The Kirishima was sunk by the USS Washington at Guadalcanal.