Forum: Yamato

[Guest]

I tend to think of BB then break it down to pre and post dreadnought, super dreadnoughts, fast BB. In each one of these has all of its classes. I tend to look at it as an evolutionary process. That is why I am a little confused on your take Werner, working in bio sciences, you guys break things down similarly. I see all your points, but I just don't agree. Been a nice discussion though.

[chuck]

I tend to think of BB then break it down to pre and post dreadnought, super dreadnoughts, fast BB. In each one of these has all of its classes. I tend to look at it as an evolutionary process. That is why I am a little confused on your take Werner, working in bio sciences, you guys break things down similarly. I see all your points, but I just don't agree. Been a nice discussion though.

I tend to think of battleships as Pre-dreadnought, Pre-Jutland Nevadian dreadnought, and Nevadian dreadnought. Furthermore, I regard the Nevadian transition to be something which is merely good for informative classification, not directly indicative of immediate and dramatic increase in capability. I don't think dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts are very clearly distinct, nor are slow BBs and fast BBs.

[Werner]

I tend to think of BB then break it down to pre and post dreadnought, super dreadnoughts, fast BB. In each one of these has all of its classes. I tend to look at it as an evolutionary process. That is why I am a little confused on your take Werner, working in bio sciences, you guys break things down similarly. I see all your points, but I just don't agree. Been a nice discussion though

To my mind, to erect a "genera" for a particular generation of equipment, the equipment within that genera ought to have much more in common with the other members than with nearby genera. In this case, the USN "Treaty" battleships are all of the same generation because they have nearly identical machinery (turbines, reduction gears, boilers and steam conditions), structure (method of framing and arrangements of armor), controls and armament.

From Friedman, it is pretty obvious that the USN post 1906 battleships divide into the pre and post Portsmouth Conference Dreadnought ships, the Standard Type, and the 1920 ships (which were not built except for Lexington and her sister).

After the holiday, they are all in the same generation. The discussion of the ships' design process makes this clear.

W

[chuck]

"South Dakota was, after all, an attempt to accomodate 16-inch protection on the 35,000 ton North Carolina design (which was protected against the 14-inch originally planned). "

Werner, where do you come to this conclusion????? South dakota was a response to Congressional screams of agony over the cost of the North Carolinas, a more compact engineering plant with a smaller citadel, they sacrificed some speed and range to do it.

Marty

I believe South Dakotas were considerably more expensive than North Carolinas, not to mention less satisfactory.

[Werner]

South Dakota was a very uncomfortable sea-boat with a tendency to pitch alarmingly and a harmonic especially aggravated by long Pacific swells. She was also much stiffer than North Carolina, transmitting the ocean's force more thoroughly to all stations. On the other hand, the change in skegs and the location of the armor shelf ameliorated the longitudinal thrust vibrations so problematic in North Carolina.

It's interesting that USN operators seldom complained about the sailing comfort of their ships, probably because few USN officers and men had experience with good sailing ships like Northampton. USN lend-lease DEs were hated by British crews for their awful comfort in any kind of sea, but few USN crews complained, mostly out of ignorance.

With their vastly greater experience sailing on rough seas, British designs were almost always more comfortable and drier, until the massive topweight additions midwar.

This still seems to be the case, judging from the performance of the Spruance, Ticonderoga and Burkes. Ticos' berths are fitted with seatbelts in a nearly futile effort to keep personnel from being flung to the deckhead in any kind of weather or maneuver.

W

[Guest]

Still the best sleep you will ever get is on a ship pitching from a good head sea.

zach b

[range clock]

I voted as end of the road . When she was designed she may have been thought otherwise , but by the time she sailed on her final mission the Japanese goverment should've known better. But on the other side of the coin what could the Japanese goverment do ? Expend valuable manpower scrapping her, and even then to what purpose? To use her guns on a coastal defence emplacement of the homeland ,that was never going to be attacked? Even if the Japanese had taken the whole of the Pacific and the USA was reduced to a holding action . I personally believe that the main impetus for the Manhattan project was the fear of Nazi Germany developing a nuclear weapon. Therefore the Pacific campaign had no influence on this. And so come the summer of 45 ,no matter how much territory the Japanese had taken or how many lives had been lost, somewhere a lone B-29 would be dropping the world's most deadly cargo.

[Werner]

CombinedFleet.Com's page comparing treaty battleships

W

[GWB]

Werner, the Combined fleet page is the "biggest baddest" comparison, it's very "American centric" oriented and isn't just treaty battleships, Iowa and Yamato are included. Nevada and Pennsylvania should be included in any comparison to measure what Yamato was designed and built for.

Marty

[RNfanDan]

Until recently, I didn't give Yamato much credit, other than its stupendous size and admittedly good looks, as well as its obvious defensive prowess. My respect for the ship has since been elevated, though not for reasons many would readily appreciate.

What changed my mind was the ship's (and its siblings Musashi and Shinano) superbly-engineered hull form. As sea-boats, these vessels were far ahead of their day, in terms of their "slipperiness" through water and in their hydrodynamic efficiency. Propelling some 69,000 tons through the seas, larger than any other warships then afloat, Yamato and Musashi could make the same 27 knots with engines only about 25% more powerful than those of their contemporaries, the British KGV class, which displaced about half as much.

This was a remarkable achievement and, in my view, speaks very highly of their designers and builders, who produced these results many decades before CAD and computer simulations existed!

All the arguing over who-could-hit-what-and-when aside, Yamato also had some of the best optics and gunnery-ranging equipment in existence. Even the superb German optics of the Bismarcks, were not better (although the German fire control systems, and apparently those of just about every other navy save possibly the Italians, were superior).

That's where I'm at, now....this could change as I delve deeper into the IJN, which I am only just beginning to seriously research.

[Lesforan]

Hello Again

Glad to see this thread revived. I'll try to keep my clutch engaged.

I voted for Yamato for being the "end of the line". After going back to the beginning of this thread, and trying to evaluate what has been said, I've come to the following conclusions:

Yamato-class ships did indeed have a state-of-the art hull form (externally). The hull form used on Yamatos influenced the current supertanker hulls, some of which I am told are constructed in the same drydock Yamato was.

Internally, Yamatos would have been better off without the longitudinal bulkheads. If built without these, I still do not think these ships would have survived the pounding they took.

Yamatos probably belong in the final generation of superdreadnoughts.
I say this because of both their advanced hull design and their armament.
The Iowas were not built in response to the Yamatos: the Americans, I have read, did not realize the Yamatos were equipped with 18" guns until
postwar. That the size of the main guns was an advantage was rather doubtful: When Yamato had the chance to use her big rifles, she was unable to hit anything, even at moderate range.

The USN response to the Yamatos was the Montanas. They were not built because they were not need by then. A design I feel has been greatly underrated was the Alaskas. They came on the scene after they were needed, earlier in the war they would have been a good counter to the German battlecruisers.

The Iowa-class ships, as good as they were, were something we probably could have done without. Their most useful role was as fast carrier escorts. We had plenty of firepower in the North Carolinas and South Dakotas. Fast carrier AA defense could have been handled by Atlanta-class cruisers.

I don't know why the Japanese built the Yamatos, if they were going to keep them such a secret. Of all people, the Japanese should have known the value of carrier forces. They would have been better off if all three ships had been completed as carriers, and by that I mean attack carriers, not aircraft carrier depot ships as Shinano was.

I think the Yamatos (especially Yamato herself) suffered from the "National Treasure" syndrome. By this I mean that the ship, although cloaked in secrecy, was considered by the IJN as too much of a national icon to risk in battle. Ironically, this atitude contributed to its loss through poor gunnery performance. On its day to shine in glory at the Leyte invasion beaches, it failed to score a single hit on the Americans. Halsey's
nightmare was a massive Japanese air attack on the invasion fleet and beaches. What occured instead was an even worse nightmare: heavy Japanese surface units off the beachead with nothing close to equal to counter them with. Only the near-suicidal counterattack by light USN surface forces saved the Americans, not by Japanese losses, but by the Japanese commander losing his nerve at the critical point of the battle.

Fortunately, this "National Treasure" syndrome seems to be fairly rare in practice. A couple examples that come to mind are the Spanish reluctance to committ its lone battleship, Pelayo, to combat until the war was already lost (1898), and the Argentine decision to pull their carrier away from the theatre of combat in the Falklands. To thier credit, the British refused to succomb to this syndrome by committing their "National Treasue" the HMS Hood, to combat when it was needed.

[chuck]

The USN response to the Yamatos was the Montanas.

Montanas were not "America's response" to Yamato. Montana was conceived when US had no idea how "super" Yamatos were, and was pretty confident that Yamatoes were very ordinary and roughly comparable to South Dakotas.

Instead Montanas were "America's Yamato", conceived as the sole super battleships in the pacific to outclass all ordinary Japanese battleships, to attempt to do to Japan what in reality Japan had already done to us with their Yamatos. Montanas were not a response to a supership, but our own rendition of the supership strategy.

[Werner]

Exactly. Both Yamato and Montana are each country's idea of the battleship unrestricted by treaty.

Perhaps the real difference is the order. Three or so Yamatos vs five Montanas as a reflection of the ability of each country to produce warships. The order for Montanas is even more impressive when you compare the "Two Ocean Navy Act" ships of 1940 to the "Circle Urgent" demands of the IJN.

THE PERMANENT STRENGTH OF THE NAVY IN COMBATANT CATEGORIES

The permanent authorized strength of the Navy today, in battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines is 5,299 480 tons.

This compares with a strength of 780,000 tons of under-age ships and 300,800 tons of over-age ships as of December 31, 1932. The present strength is almost five times the treaty allowances granted by the Washington Treaty of 1922 and the London Treaty of 1930.

The figures given for the permanent strength of the Navy do not include the many bills passed from time to time since 1940 authorizing auxiliary aircraft carriers, destroyer escorts, several millions of tons of auxiliary vessels, landing and district craft, and other small craft needed for the prosecution of the war. Since June 1940, 10 bills have been enacted by the Congress authorizing the construction of 9,225,000 tons of auxiliary and landing craft of various types.

No single power, or indeed combination of powers could hope to meet this expansion.

[Lesforan]

Chuck, Werner,

Yes, that is right. The Montanas were more of an equivalent to Yamatos than a response to it. After all, Yamatos were thought to be 16" gun ships.

If the Yamatos were being kept as a "fleet in being" to tie up Alled resorces (in the way Tirpitz did), then one would think the Japanese would want the world to know what they had. I think more likely was that the Yamatos were considered by the IJN to be "superweapons" to surprise the Allies with. This would explain the extreme secrecy surrounding their construction. Sometime later they became "National Treasures", sacred cows too precious to be risked in combat until the war had already been lost.

Not to digress too far off the thread, but I have to agree that the nuclear bomb was developed in a hurry to beat the Germans to it. By any standard, Japan had lost the war before its use, but it did save the Allies (including my own father, who had been withdrawn from Europe for training for the invasion of Japan) a costly invasion. In this way, its use saved Japanese lives as well. But I think the real reason for using the bomb against Japan was to provide an object lesson to the Soviet Union.

[chuck]

Chuck, Werner,

Yes, that is right. The Montanas were more of an equivalent to Yamatos than a response to it. After all, Yamatos were thought to be 16" gun ships.

If the Yamatos were being kept as a "fleet in being" to tie up Alled resorces (in the way Tirpitz did), then one would think the Japanese would want the world to know what they had. I think more likely was that the Yamatos were considered by the IJN to be "superweapons" to surprise the Allies with. This would explain the extreme secrecy surrounding their construction. Sometime later they became "National Treasures", sacred cows too precious to be risked in combat until the war had already been lost.

Not to digress too far off the thread, but I have to agree that the nuclear bomb was developed in a hurry to beat the Germans to it. By any standard, Japan had lost the war before its use, but it did save the Allies (including my own father, who had been withdrawn from Europe for training for the invasion of Japan) a costly invasion. In this way, its use saved Japanese lives as well. But I think the real reason for using the bomb against Japan was to provide an object lesson to the Soviet Union.

Yes. During the war the yamatos were hoarded as a nasty surprise to be unleased at the decisive battle. Japanese martial tradition place a great deal of emphasis on achieving final victory through patiently and carefully preparing for and skillfully conducting one single decisive battle. Everything prior to the decisive battle were part of the grand strategy designed to ensure the decisive battle occurs on the mast favorable terms possible.

[Werner]

There is still a school of thought that the Japanese surrendered not because of the atom bomb, but because of the large Soviet Army prepared to march into the home isles.

The USN had looked at their own 18-inch/48 for Montana, which had been in inventory since 1922. The characteristics of this gun offered no advantage over the 16-inch/50 of Iowa with the "superheavy" shell. The choice was a simple matter of logistics.

You can still see the 18-inch gun at Dahlgren in the museum yard.

[chuck]

There is still a school of thought that the Japanese surrendered not because of the atom bomb, but because of the large Soviet Army prepared to march into the home isles.

I don't think a nation half prepared to fight to the last infant against the US would be more cowed if the US troops were replaced by Soviet troops.

[Werner]

If the USA had not used the Atomic Bomb, would Japan still have fought to the bitter end? The USA and The Commonwealth would have occupied the southern half of Japan by the end of 1946, but the USSR surely would have taken all of Japan north of Tokyo. This condition may have existed until the late 1990s and Japan would experience more political uncertainty than she currently tolerates.

What a different world that would make.

How could the Korean war be fought without secure B-50 bases in Japan? Certainly the only hope would be a huge Navy off the Korean coast.

Would the Red Japanese have coordinated an attack on positions in South Japan with the Korean War?

It seems like WW.III was probably narrowly averted by the exact sequence of events in 1945.

[Werner]

There is still a school of thought that the Japanese surrendered not because of the atom bomb, but because of the large Soviet Army prepared to march into the home isles.

I don't think a nation half prepared to fight to the last infant against the US would be more cowed if the US troops were replaced by Soviet troops.

My readings insist that the Japanese were more terrified of Japan under Bolsheviks than a Japan nearly exterminated by Allied invasion.

The Japanese were scrupulous throughout WW.II to avoid antagonizing the Soviets. They viewed their system as a cancer which would be nearly impossible to irradicate once introduced into the Japanese culture.

[chuck]

The Japanese were scrupulous throughout WW.II to avoid antagonizing the Soviets. They viewed their system as a cancer which would be nearly impossible to irradicate once introduced into the Japanese culture.

They were merely trying hard not to creating a second front. They were not more terrified of the Russians than the Americans.

When they were first deciding where their first front should be, they were not shy about contemplating a continental strategy and going after the Soviet far east. What turned their sights away from the Russians was the get-rich-quick allures of the islands of Dutch East Indies. Had the army won the day, the Japanese may well have stabbed at Siberia instead and the 1941 German Moscow campaign turned out very differently.

I think the battle of Moscow was a close enough thing so that Japanese intervention in Oct-Nov 1941 would have decisively changed the outcome of the German 1941 campaign, and the whole picture of the post war world would have looked a lot more different as a result than a post-war partition of Japan resulting from any 1946 campaign.