Calling all Yamato (大和) and Musashi (武蔵) fans

[MalX]

But you compare 20 or more torpedoes with the few that sank Prince of Wales and Repulse ! Yamato was miles stronger..

All ships are vulnerable to air attacks, but there wasn't much the Japanese could do because if Yamato was deployed more often and the Americans knew of it in advance, then she would've been sunk earlier on. Yamato attracted too much attention and therefore any planned counter-attack on her, would ONLY have consisted of loads of aircraft or Battleships all at once, her enemy was therefore her sheer size.

the way i see it, is that Yamato would either have been avoided by the Americans (and shadowed) until more ships were available in say 36 hours, or attacked straight away only if they had a large fleet at their disposal. because i would never send an Iowa on her own to take on Yamato would you, i would send in three or more.

so many died on Yamato/Bismark because these ships were designed to take loads of continual punishment, but her crew couldn't. you would have been better off stationed on one of her escort Destroyers, because you would've either been sunk very quickly and maybe survived, or not sunk at all.

[bucketfoot-al]

All valid points.

In fact there were 6 USN battleships steaming north to engage Yamato should she manage to survive the aerial attack on April 7, 1945. None of the them were Iowa-class, but with the American radar guided fire direction it wouldn't have mattered. Still, a lucky shot or two (think "Hood") could have caused mass casualties on the American side. The way it went down, the USN lost 12 planes and just 10 pilots vs. Yamato, Yahagi, 4 destroyers and 4000+ men on the IJN side.

A senseless slaughter.

The loss of over 3000 out of her crew of 3300 on Yamato was magnified by the fact that she exploded after capsizing, killing instantly hundreds of survivors in the water and who had gathered on her overturned hull.

Bismarck's massive loss of life, OTOH, was magnified by the feckless British decision - based on unconfirmed rumors of U-boats in the area - to abandon hundreds of German sailors in the water. I know war is hell, but that was a gutless decision.

[MalX]

many of the Yamato's original crew chose not to sail on her final mission, remembering what happened to Musashi and also some of the Japanese senior Naval staff tried to talk the Emperor out of this suicide mission. So they knew Yamato would not make it to Okinawa, Yamato was detected by submarine almost straight away.

the Americans chose not to send in battleships, maybe because mass air attack is far more efficient with far less loss of life on their side.

you're right about Bismark, but the main point here is, the more heavily your ship is armour plated the more people on board will be killed.....which seems odd....this is because you'll attract a far more murderous and sustained attack than if you were on POW/Repulse and sunk quickly. if you compare the torpedo damage to all 3 battleships this would have been roughly after Yamato's 1st attack.

Yamato also attracted a massive aerial attack because the Americans knew how hard Musashi was to sink, the Japanese knew this too, ``the Americans will send a massive amount of aircraft against us, well before we reach Okinawa, we dont stand a chance, this mission will be a total waste of life``............. or similar

they say Yamato exploded because of the Beehive shells, but maybe not, maybe the fire inside her rear 6'' turret spread upwards into her magazine, via her magazine hoists as she rolled over

[bucketfoot-al]

Ok, I am adding some comments in reply to quoted sections from your last post. Sorry if this comes off as snarky, but you are repeating some things that are erroneous and it falls on me to clear up your confusion:

You wrote: "many of the Yamato's original crew chose not to sail on her final mission, remembering what happened to Musashi and also some of the Japanese senior Naval staff tried to talk the Emperor out of this suicide mission"

Actually, very few members who were given a choice refused to go. They almost all went to a man, and many cadets were anguished that they were ordered to leave the ship prior to the mission. Ditto with the float plane pilots who were sent back to Japan the morning of April 7, once the ship had made it into the open sea. They begged to be allowed to stay and fight/die with their comrades.

The emperor did not order the suicide mission, it was hatched in response to his offhanded comment to the Chief of Staff of the IJN while being briefed on the defense of Okinawa: "Where is the navy? Have we no more ships?" This comment led Admiral Toyoda and his naval brass to hatch the insane ten-ichi-go plan. The plan was so ludicrous that RAdm Ito, commander of the Yamato Task Force initially refused to carry it out, necessitating the Vice-Chief of the IJN to fly to Kure and hold a meeting aboard Yamato with Ito and his staff, where he told them that Yamato would be a decoy that would draw away American planes from the aerial kamikazes flying from Okinawa. Ito then reluctantly agreed, but his officers were furious that Admiral Toyoda, IJN Chief of Staff, would not be leading this final mission of the war personally.

You wrote: "the Americans chose not to send in battleships, maybe because mass air attack is far more efficient with far less loss of life on their side."

Repeating my earlier post, in fact the USN sent 6 battleships to intercept Yamato in the event she didn't make it through the aerial attack. They were steaming north at battle speed and were only a few hours away from Yamato when she was engaged by the carrier planes.

You wrote: "they say Yamato exploded because of the Beehive shells, but maybe not, maybe the fire inside her rear 6'' turret spread upwards into her magazine, via her magazine hoists as she rolled over"

Yamato's forward main "B" magazine blew up first and tore the ship in two right behind the #2 main battery - that blast probably was caused by shells striking the bulkhead after she capsized, the large caliber main IJN shells were notoriously sensitive, in fact something like 4 or 5 Japanese battleships that capsized in WW2 blew themselves up almost immediately (including Musashi which blew herself up after sinking). About 5 seconds after this massive blast there came a second blast of the aft secondary magazine which just blew wider the hole on the bottom made by Lt Stetson flight's 6 torpedoes, but otherwise did not cause further break up of the ship... this is based on survivor accounts and examination of the wreck ...

[MalX]

hi
that's ok, i havent studied Yamato's history for years so i've forgotten so much and even right now, i'm very busy building WW2 aircraft before I start my Hasegawa Yamato sometime next year.

Even if Yamato had survived the air attacks...a big IF, she would still have received serious damage and probably enough to reduce her speed by a massive amount, not a hope in hell against 6 battleships, but to be realistic, the aerial attacks would have carried on till she sank...

what makes Yamato stand out, is not only did she look awesome, but that she took far more punishment than any other ship could.

Musashi sank at the bow and went right under before rolling over, but what is really interesting is how far she sank before exploding ????

[bucketfoot-al]

Musashi's survivors were lucky she "waited" to blow up, or else there would have been very few of them left (as in the case of Yamato...)

[MalX]

http://www.ussflierproject.com/tags/musashi-wreck/

this link is a good one, the wreck of Musashi is at 3800 feet.

a survivor cleared her deck (still just afloat) and swam 130ft before she exploded, so she probably exploded very close to the surface, but deep enough for him to survive.

i imagine it would have been a similar massive explosion to Yamatos......plus it's a similar sinking too, long and drawn out with a huge number of torpedo strikes

[bucketfoot-al]

Thanks, nice link. I got the depths of Yamato & Musashi's final resting places mixed up for a moment ....

[MalX]

Thanks, nice link. I got the depths of Yamato & Musashi's final resting places mixed up for a moment ....

i dont know which ship i prefer............it used to be always Yamato, but i think she looks better without the AAA along her hull side, unfortunately i cant modify the Hasegawa kit back to 1944, well not without ruining the deck

if you google ``Musashi sinking`` you should find a few survivors stories, it's interesting to note that the torpedoes that sank Yamato were maybe ???? newer versions and more powerful, than the ones that sank Musashi, but i cant confirm this, because all it sais is ``more powerful than earlier torpedoes``

[bucketfoot-al]

Yes, I've also read (it could even be earlier in this thread) that by April 1945 the USN were using a TorpEx charge that was more powerful than 6 months earlier ...

[baseballbrat]

Any Yamato movie footage ever been discovered?
To my knowledge, I haven't seen any?

[bucketfoot-al]

Any Yamato movie footage ever been discovered?
To my knowledge, I haven't seen any?

Same here. Have not seen any footage of the Yamato Class. Probably all lost as a result of USA bombing and/or destruction of top secret files by the Japanese at war's end ....

[ijnfleetadmiral]

SUPPOSEDLY there is a DVD that showcases all the prewar IJN footage (the stuff seen in countless documentaries), but it's all been remastered and cleaned up. There's some wartime footage on it as well, apparently, and one of the scenes is filmed at Truk. Yamato makes a cameo background appearance for like 10 seconds; I imagine if you blink you'll miss her.

[MatthewB]

SUPPOSEDLY there is a DVD that showcases all the prewar IJN footage (the stuff seen in countless documentaries), but it's all been remastered and cleaned up. There's some wartime footage on it as well, apparently, and one of the scenes is filmed at Truk. Yamato makes a cameo background appearance for like 10 seconds; I imagine if you blink you'll miss her.

That is a DVD I want to get.

I hope that someone posts a link (to buy or see).

MB

[Doug Hallet]

Musashi's survivors were lucky only in the short run. The majority of them (at least 500) were dropped off in Manila during the retreat from Leyte and were incorporated into the Naval base commander's forces as infantry. When the Army commander retreated into the Luzon jungles to fight a delaying action that lasted the rest of the war, the naval commander decided to stage a last-ditch defense of Manila, causing thousands of civilian casualties including a number of atrocities. The Japanese force, including all the Musashi survivors, were killed almost to the last man.

[bucketfoot-al]

Here are two favorites sung by "The World's Greatest Entertainer", Al Jolson, in the late 1940s on his Kraft Music Hall radio program:

White Christmas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXqGTae00fU

Christmas Dreaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxMLiMQhBmw

[redoctober27]

So I'm thinking about redoing the hull on my yamato.. other than the Tamyia 1/700 kit ... which is the most accurate and detailed kit?? I bought this one from fujimi , which is on the way .. is this the best kit out there?? http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10312067
Thanks!

[Bill Gormley]

I'm currently building Tamiya's new Yamato kit and I have a few questions I'm hoping folks can help with:

First, are there any rigging diagrams available? The photos of the Kure model posted earlier in this thread are excellent, but it's difficult to "zoom out" and get an overall sense of things.

Second, the kit provides flags for the bow, stern, and mast. Per the kit, the bow and stern flags were flown when the ship was at anchor whereas the flags at the mast were flown while underway or in battle. Is that correct? Would flags have been flown at the bow and stern at the same time? And which of the two flags and pennant provided for the mast would have been flown at the same time? Any combination of the three or are they situation and/or time frame specific?

[Sutho]

I'm currently building Tamiya's new Yamato kit and I have a few questions I'm hoping folks can help with:

First, are there any rigging diagrams available? The photos of the Kure model posted earlier in this thread are excellent, but it's difficult to "zoom out" and get an overall sense of things.

Second, the kit provides flags for the bow, stern, and mast. Per the kit, the bow and stern flags were flown when the ship was at anchor whereas the flags at the mast were flown while underway or in battle. Is that correct? Would flags have been flown at the bow and stern at the same time? And which of the two flags and pennant provided for the mast would have been flown at the same time? Any combination of the three or are they situation and/or time frame specific?

I have got some large photos I took personally when I was there in November. Took them on a Canon EOS 6D. The files are just over 3MB and are 5472 x 3648 pixels. PM me with some sort of email address as I can send them from my online storage.

[baseballbrat]

I'm currently building Tamiya's new Yamato kit and I have a few questions I'm hoping folks can help with:

First, are there any rigging diagrams available? The photos of the Kure model posted earlier in this thread are excellent, but it's difficult to "zoom out" and get an overall sense of things.

Second, the kit provides flags for the bow, stern, and mast. Per the kit, the bow and stern flags were flown when the ship was at anchor whereas the flags at the mast were flown while underway or in battle. Is that correct? Would flags have been flown at the bow and stern at the same time? And which of the two flags and pennant provided for the mast would have been flown at the same time? Any combination of the three or are they situation and/or time frame specific?

I have got some large photos I took personally when I was there in November. Took them on a Canon EOS 6D. The files are just over 3MB and are 5472 x 3648 pixels. PM me with some sort of email address as I can send them from my online storage.

Is their anyway I could also get the files sent to me too? I have been looking for highly detailed images of rigging for quite awhile now. Just can't find any good clear shots.

I can PM you my email address.

Jim