Hits on Yamato and Musashi

[Werner]

"Tell the lieutenant he couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle." -- RADM William F. Halsey, 1941.

1944 & 45 US Naval Aviators had no practice with surface targets. Of course after action reports are inflated. Three aviators seeing the same explosion claim it for their own. At the same time, the few Japanese survivors have no clear picture of what happened, and even if they did, there is no incentive to minimize their struggle.

I think it's time for a dispassionate analysis of the damage to Yamato & Musashi.

[Jack Ray]

Both ships were attacked by US Naval Aviation and were sunk.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Werner do we have to go there?

Sinking battleships by carrier based aircraft is just plain cheating!

and where you get "1944 & 45 US Naval Aviators had no practice with surface targets" is simply astonishing!

The USN had been sinking enemy warships from air attack right throughout the Pacific Campaign, they had more operational experience at it than any other navy!

[chuck]

Werner finds it hard to abide by the fact that things and people he dislikes in fact have numerous worthy and admirable qualities. Perhaps even more than the Democrats, the French, the concept of artificially induced global warming, and the Japanese Navy in general, he dislikes Yamato in particular. So he will not rest until he rehashed this so many times until eventually when he again pronounces that "We" have determined that Yamato and Musashi were in fact sunk by splinters - 1-2 torpedoes hit merely accelerated the inevitable - other people would be too tired and annoyed to reply, thus giving him what would appear to him to be the last word.

[MartinJQuinn]

and where you get "1944 & 45 US Naval Aviators had no practice with surface targets" is simply astonishing!

The USN had been sinking enemy warships from air attack right throughout the Pacific Campaign, they had more operational experience at it than any other navy!

I think I understand what Werner meant. USN aviators, not USN aviation, had no practice with surface targets. Meaning the current crop of pilots, by and large, where newbies who might have been trained by veterans of Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign, but had not sunk many, if any, Japanese warships themselves.

In 1942, USN aviators sunk 6 Japanese carriers and damaged two more, along with at least one heavy cruiser. In 1943, most of the fighting was not between fleets, but USN aviation fighting and defending the island hoping campaign up the Solomons or supporting the Tarawa invasion, which the IJN did not seriously contest with their carriers after the Battle of Santa Cruz.

It wasn't until June 1944, during the Battle of the Philippines Sea, that a full scale fleet engagement was fought. By then, many of the experienced combat pilots in the USN had been rotated home to train the new pilots.

[Laurence Batchelor]

I think I understand what Werner meant. USN aviators, not USN aviation, had no practice with surface targets. Meaning the current crop of pilots, by and large, where newbies who might have been trained by veterans of Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign, but had not sunk many, if any, Japanese warships themselves.

In 1942, USN aviators sunk 6 Japanese carriers and damaged two more, along with at least one heavy cruiser. In 1943, most of the fighting was not between fleets, but USN aviation fighting and defending the island hoping campaign up the Solomons or supporting the Tarawa invasion, which the IJN did not seriously contest with their carriers after the Battle of Santa Cruz.

It wasn't until June 1944, during the Battle of the Philippines Sea, that a full scale fleet engagement was fought. By then, many of the experienced combat pilots in the USN had been rotated home to train the new pilots.

My point being it does not matter how green they were the US send 100s of planes against Yamato and they were bound to hit something that large eventually!

What would be a more interesting line of questioning and debate, why was there a lack of agression in the USN surface forces? particularly in the early war period.
Why did their naval academy not produce a fighting Admiral of the quality of Cunningham for instance?
Why was their a reluctance to take offence risks and also not use her battleships in the front lines?

[chuck]

What would be a more interesting line of questioning and debate, why was there a lack of agression in the USN surface forces? particularly in the early war period.
Why did their naval academy not produce a fighting Admiral of the quality of Cunningham for instance?
Why was their a reluctance to take offence risks and also not use her battleships in the front lines?

I don't believe there is any lack of aggression in the USN surface force. There may not have been the sort of fruitless and suicidal aggression characterized by the Japanese force in Surugao strait, but I know of no instance when USN surface force turning away from an opportunity to engage a comparable IJN force. There were at least 2 occasions when US used her battleship on the front line against Japanese battleships. One of which was a fairly risky move to use 2 brand new battleship in confined waters against enemies with superior light forces also known to operate battleships.

However, the nature of pacific war is such that carriers generally accompany large surface forces. It is not normally advisable to close for battleship action when one knows there the enemy is and has preponderance of aircraft carrier strength well capable of crippling the opposing force from a distance, even if Halsey the not too brilliant Bulldog did try while hanging the 7th fleet out to dry.

There were several instances when the US tried to do what Cunningham did. But the Japanese were at the time better in night action in particular and surface action in general. It was not for the want of trying that the US did not pull off a Mataphan. But the sinking of Hiei (or was it Kirishima, I could never get it straight) by Washington came close.

[Jack Ray]

I think I understand what Werner meant. USN aviators, not USN aviation, had no practice with surface targets. Meaning the current crop of pilots, by and large, where newbies who might have been trained by veterans of Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign, but had not sunk many, if any, Japanese warships themselves.

In 1942, USN aviators sunk 6 Japanese carriers and damaged two more, along with at least one heavy cruiser. In 1943, most of the fighting was not between fleets, but USN aviation fighting and defending the island hoping campaign up the Solomons or supporting the Tarawa invasion, which the IJN did not seriously contest with their carriers after the Battle of Santa Cruz.

It wasn't until June 1944, during the Battle of the Philippines Sea, that a full scale fleet engagement was fought. By then, many of the experienced combat pilots in the USN had been rotated home to train the new pilots.

My point being it does not matter how green they were the US send 100s of planes against Yamato and they were bound to hit something that large eventually!

What would be a more interesting line of questioning and debate, why was there a lack of agression in the USN surface forces? particularly in the early war period.
Why did their naval academy not produce a fighting Admiral of the quality of Cunningham for instance?
Why was their a reluctance to take offence risks and also not use her battleships in the front lines?

Regarding battleships, there were not many available early war.

Jack

[Werner]

What would be a more interesting line of questioning and debate, why was there a lack of agression in the USN surface forces? particularly in the early war period.
Why did their naval academy not produce a fighting Admiral of the quality of Cunningham for instance?
Why was their a reluctance to take offence risks and also not use her battleships in the front lines?

Because there were no Gibraltar or Malta for these ships to limp to after the battle. How would the British Mediterranean fleet have fared if the distance from Spartaviento to Malta was 3,000 miles and not 300?

[MartinJQuinn]

My point being it does not matter how green they were the US send 100s of planes against Yamato and they were bound to hit something that large eventually!

Never said Werner was right, was just trying to say what I thought his point was.

Why did their naval academy not produce a fighting Admiral of the quality of Cunningham for instance?

They did. His name was Halsey. And he wasn't the only one: Fletcher took on the Japanese head to head at Coral Sea and Midway (with Spruance) without backing down. Additionally, Admiral's Scott and Callaghan paid the ultimate price for being "Fighting Admirals".

Why was their a reluctance to take offence risks and also not use her battleships in the front lines?

First, there were a limited number of the newer fast battleships available until late 1942. The USN wasn't going to commit the slower, older battleships to the frontline, knowing that would probably be suicide. The older BBs couldn't get out of their own way, let alone a spread of Long Lances.

Secondly, once the South Dakota vaporized 20+ Japanese planes (or got credit for them, at the least) at the Battle of Santa Cruz, the fast battle wagons were fated to be nothing more than heavy AA escorts to the carriers. Besides, other than the Kongo's, the Japanese battleships never really came out of hiding until 1944.

As others have mentioned, it was not USN doctrine to commit battleships to the confined waters, such as those found in The Slot. Yet, the USN did so as a desperate measure in November 1942.

Chuck: Hiei was fatally damaged (steering gear wrecked) by San Francisco and sunk by the Cactus Airforce. Kirishima was the one who had the snot kicked out of her by Washington.

[Werner]

The pilots of 1942 were off the line by the end of the year and teaching at San Diego and Pensacola. Similarly, the 1943 crowd were CAG or air group desk jockies by 1944.

McClusky was captain of USS Corregidor and Thatch was McCain's operations officer by 1944, just as Arleigh Burke was driving a desk for Mitscher that year.

The USN was smart enough to rotate the pilots off the line after a few deployments and make them teachers and leaders.

The hundred or so planes that may have attacked Musashi hadn't practiced dropping bombs on a moving target since the shakedown in the Caribbean, and certainly had never seen the concentrated flak the Jap task force might put out.

I still think (and Samuel Eliot Morison strongly hints his agreement) that the number of hits on these two ships was greatly exaggerated.

The damage control officer of Musashi committed seppuku after the first wave of attacks. Does that say she was already finished? If so, any further hits were a waste of ordinance on a doomed ship.

As far as fighting admirals, don't leave out Ainsworth & Merrill. Commodores like Francis X. MacInerney, Arleigh Burke, Frederick Moosebrugger and Arnold True all deserve laurels.

The master of surface tactics should not be neglected: Willis A. Lee.

[MartinJQuinn]

The damage control officer of Musashi committed seppuku after the first wave of attacks. Does that say she was already finished? If so, any further hits were a waste of ordinance on a doomed ship.

IIRC, Musashi had special 18inch shells for AA defense, which the Japanese had high hopes for. However, her main director was taken off line after the first attack and they were unable to use these shells effectively. Not that it would have mattered...

I'm more curious as to why Yamato seemed to be "spared" (relatively speaking) while Musashi was pummeled during this phase of the battle. That alone buttresses Werner's argument - more experienced aviators may have targeted both of the giants, instead of piling on Musashi.

[ar]

Would not there have been a percentage of experienced aircrews making up the air groups after 1942?

The damage control officer of Musashi committed seppuku after the first wave of attacks. Does that say she was already finished? If so, any further hits were a waste of ordinance on a doomed ship.

IIRC, Musashi had special 18inch shells for AA defense, which the Japanese had high hopes for. However, her main director was taken off line after the first attack and they were unable to use these shells effectively. Not that it would have mattered...

I'm more curious as to why Yamato seemed to be "spared" (relatively speaking) while Musashi was pummeled during this phase of the battle. That alone buttresses Werner's argument - more experienced aviators may have targeted both of the giants, instead of piling on Musashi.

[ChrisC]

Musashi had special 18inch shells for AA defense, which the Japanese had high hopes for.

Every Japanese main gun type had a special anti-aircraft shell, the san-shiki. They made pretty explosions in the air but were pretty worthless. Not sure if any other ship besides Musashi used them as they could cause severe damage to the barrel.

[Guest]

I'm more curious as to why Yamato seemed to be "spared" (relatively speaking) while Musashi was pummeled during this phase of the battle. That alone buttresses Werner's argument - more experienced aviators may have targeted both of the giants, instead of piling on Musashi.

Experienced aviators would find it better to focus on one single tough target to maximize the chance of taking it out, rather than disperse the force of the attack onto multiple individually tough targets and increase the chance that all those attacked will survive to be repaired and fight again. Even such as it is, it is clear that the total force of the massive attacks delivered against the Mushashi only somewhat exceeded that ship's capacity to absorb them, as the ship lingered on and was underway for several hours after the last attack was spent. This seems to validate concentration of attack.

Next time when the USN aviators took on the Yamato class, they absorbed the lesson of the attack on Mushashi well. Not only did they concentrate the attack on Yamato(there being no choice as Yamato was the only major target), but they concentrated on just one side of Yamato.

[Werner]

There were a few pre-war aviators still behind the stick, but they were unit leaders or develolping experimental tactics.

For example, Edward O'Hare was developing night-fighting tactics when he was shot down (probably a friendly-fire kill) in November, 1943.

Ask yourself:

• How many aviators were there in 1941?
• What was the attrition between 1941 and 1944?
• How many aviators were there in 1944?

... and you will see for yourself the number would be highly diluted even if they were all kept on the line.

[Guest]

Musashi had special 18inch shells for AA defense, which the Japanese had high hopes for.

Every Japanese main gun type had a special anti-aircraft shell, the san-shiki. They made pretty explosions in the air but were pretty worthless. Not sure if any other ship besides Musashi used them as they could cause severe damage to the barrel.

They were used by Japanese cruisers as well as battleships. There are many pictures taken from attacking US aircraft during Leyte Gulf which show numerous San Shiki shell bursts from cruiser as well as battleship calibers. San Shiki bursts are easy to distinguish - There is a large puff of light colored smoke where the shell casing burst to release the incendiary submunition, and the smoke puff forms the tip of a cone made up of numerous white smoke trails left by the individual incendiaries as they continue down range. No other Japanese AA shell burst this this.

The Japanese were not the only ones to develope special and ineffective AA shells for large caliber guns. Tirpitz was also equipped with special 15" barrage shells which was equally ineffective.

- Chuck