USS Maryland at Surigao Strait: conflicting histories

[Haijun watcher]

Hello all,

I have been looking into the history of the proud American battleship, USS Maryland since I am about to start building the Trumpeter model kit of the ship.

I came across 2 conflicting accounts of her participation at the Battle of Surigao Strait.

The combinedfleet.com TROM of the Japanese battleship HIJMS Yamashiro states:

quote:
At 0351, the American cruiser screen's USS PORTLAND (CA-33), MINNEAPOLIS (CA-36), COLUMBIA (CL-56), DENVER (CL-58), LOUISVILLE (CA-28)(FF), PHOENIX (CL-46)(F), BOISE (CL-47) and Australian SHROPSHIRE open fire. Between 0353-0359, arrayed behind the flanking cruisers, Rear Admiral (later Admiral) Jesse B. Oldendorf's Battle Line, old battleships USS WEST VIRGINIA (BB-48), CALIFORNIA (BB-33) and TENNESSEE (BB-43) also open fire. MARYLAND (BB-46), PENNSYLVANIA (BB-38) and MISSISSIPPI's (BB-41) are forced to withhold fire because their obsolete Mark 3 Fire Control System Radars cannot locate a target.

The TROM for the cruiser Mogami only states she was hit by fire from the Allied cruisers, so Admiral Oldendorf's battleships must have just concentrated their fire on the Yamashiro.

Meanwhile the wiki article of the Battle of Surigao Strait states:

quote:

The other three US battleships, equipped with less advanced gunnery radar, had difficulty arriving at a firing solution. Maryland eventually succeeded in visually ranging on the splashes of the other battleships' shells, and then fired a total of 48 16 in (410 mm) projectiles. Pennsylvania was unable to find a target and her guns remained silent.


Mississippi only obtained a solution at the end of the battle-line action, and then fired just one (full) salvo of 12 14-in shells. This was the last salvo ever to be fired by a battleship against another heavy ship, ending an era in naval history

The wiki excerpt is from: Morison, Samuel E. (1956). "Leyte, June 1944 � January 1945". History of United States Naval Operations in World War II XII. Boston: Little & Brown.


So which is it really? If the TROM is to believed, the USS Maryland and the other 2 battleships without the adequate radar type weren't able to fire at all, while Morison's history says that Maryland and Mississippi were still able to fire.

I just wanted to bring this to attention to anyone in the know about the Battle of Surigao Strait. I shall be posting this at 2 other forums as well, including Tully's port.

[JTninja]

Theres a book written by Howard Sauer about the battle, perhaps that would be a good source. "The Last Big-Gun Naval Battle: The Battle of Surigao Strait". Anyone read it and could perhaps provide insight?

From Amazon about the author

"Howard Sauer was a junior officer in charge of the secondary guns on board the USS Maryland at the Battle of Surigao Strait."

[Dick J]

One of the quirks in the MK-3 radar was that it tended to "get lost" in the shell splashes and lose the actual target. When it was developed, the designers apparently recognized the potential to overwhelm the display with excess targets and so the system was "range gated". This means that the radar was set to an approximate range with a margin on either side when a target was selected. Only targets within this range gate would register. During the Guadalcanal campaign, what was found to happen was that the ship would fire on the target, the MK-3 radar would register the shell splashes as a stronger target than the actual ship target, and then that would be where the fire was directed. In the mean time, the actual ship target would turn, maneuvering out of the gated range, and no longer register on the radar. Since there were still shell splashes, the radar still had a strong "target". When fire was stopped, the "target" disappeared and was assumed to have been sunk. That is one reason that the US made claims of so many enemy ships being sunk during that campaign. Once the problem was recognized, ships with MK-3 radar became reluctant to depend on the device unless absolutely necessary to do so. During the Surigao action, Maryland chose to range on the strong "target" of her sister's shell splashes. Since West Virginia was dead on target, the splashes kept Maryland close to the action. Whether or not her fire was meaningful to this action can be debated. The other two (Pennsylvania and Mississippi) were less certain about actual targets and chose to mostly sit it out.

After the Guadalcanal campaign, ships with MK-34 or MK-38 fire control systems were quickly upgraded to MK-8 and MK-13 radar systems. The older directors were stuck with the MK-3. But that policy was shown to be inadequate at Surigao Strait. After that, ships which could, upgraded to the MK-34 fire control. (Replacing the after director on the Maryland, Colorado and Pennsylvania.) Ships retaining the older directors started switching to MK-25 radar. While these were the general trends, not all ships managed to upgrade before the war ended.

[NCMac]

Thanks to DickJ for a concise and easily understood explanation of the Mk3 and Mk8 radar systems. I'd recently been investigating these in the course of modeling U.S.S. Washington.

This too may be of interest: http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-079.htm

Mac