I know this is way off the subject ( looks like it went that way anyway) I do a lot of naval wargaming. Through the years I have found 2 Iowa's are needed in dealing with 1 Yamato. I also believe that at the end of the war high ranking officers confermed this. As far as surface actions were concerned,yes the US navy wanted a day action. The results of the Sybian Sea action at night at the Leyte Gulf engagement confirms this. The old battleships with radar were effective when they engaged the Yamashiro. We ambushed,had the T crossed and only 3 out of the 6 BB's did anything. No wonder Lee was worried. The new BB's were set up for escorting the CV's as was said. Very little time was given them for a surface engagement. As Sean Conneryt said in Hunt for Red October Halsey was an Idiot. That could have been the engagement of the big boys at San Bernadino Straight.
I am in the process of moving and getting married. I will try to get that site to you in the future. The U.S.S. Iowa was also made in 1/72nd scale but,was bought by some one privately. See if I can get some pictures of her also.
This should allow the rest of the ships on the Yamato's side free to attack if the Yamato is attacked by everyone on the opposite side.
"Through the years I have found 2 Iowa's are needed in dealing with 1 Yamato." I don't believe in Yamato's fire control, nor do I believe in her shell's reliability. I think Iowa is more likely to hit, and when she does have her shells work properly. If everything were to work, then obviously Yamato would have an edge. I'm just not a believer.
Maybe you are right. The one thing the Yamato does have over the Iowa's is armour. At least 25 inches thick on the turret faces. I do not have the stats. in front of me but I think all around the Yamato has more armour in all vital areas. Just more fuel to the fire.
(Without looking, to verify) I recall that the quality of that armor was pretty poor. Spots here or there notwithstanding, overall I believe that the IOWAs (as well as SOUTH DAKOTAs & NORTH CAROLINAs, at least) were much better protected than the YAMATOs. Fire control was a huge advantage in favor of the IOWAs, as well as plenty of other US battleships. Especially US radar, which worked well even in conditions of poor visibility. One doesn't need to sink a ship to mission-kill it. Sensors, antennae, directors, etc. can't be armored. You can't hit what you can't see, & whomever hits 1st, from longest range, can blind their opponent before he gets a chance to return the favor. Even if all else were equal, the US advantage in fire control was overwhelming in its own right. As for effectiveness in the hobby, YAMATO vs. IOWA is about a push, at least far as the ships themselves are concerned. YAMATO is a little bigger, IOWA is a little faster; I'd give the overall edge to IOWA, since the speed advantage can be used more effectively than the marginal increase in reserve buoyancy (which really does nothing more than keep you afloat longer, damaged). If it's taking 2 IOWAs to deal with 1 YAMATO, I'd put it down to a pretty good YAMATO captain, or else a couple of pretty poor IOWA captains (maybe both?). As is often the case, the captains' skills matter more than anything else. I've dispatched a YAMATO 1-on-1 (with little or no help) with my NELSON more than once. JM
JM, Dan was talking about needing a 2-to-1 ratio in wargames, not in the hobby. Big difference there. In the hobby, I'd take anything from USS Montana and Alsace on down to HMS Thunderchild and James Bond's Stealth Boat against a Yamato. In General Quarters III, I'd rather be in a battleship than a torpedo-ram.
Just like football teams from other eras pitted against each other. All we have is computer simulations,naval war gaming, and our opinions. Armour was bad on the Yamato? It was never hit by a 16 inch 50calibre shell. The Iowa was not hit by an 18 inch shell. We are not ballistic experts nor armour experts. So we can offer only opinions
Halsey was an idiot. They asked for his resignation (or they would fire him) for a good reason. He was marked as saying the Carrier's "were the future" on many occasions and even proposed that the standard type be scraped to
Ohh I forgot to add. Conways out lines the "fast BB" as nothing more than a fad. They say the Montana class showed this clearly.
I have always thought that Admiral Spruance should have been at Leyte Gulf and Admiral Halsey at the Great Marians's Turkey Shoot. Spruance would have guarded the straights and Halsey would have gone after the Japanese with no reguards to his flanks.
To say that carriers had weaknesses is not very intelligent. Which the BBs had a few thousand yard fighting distance....Carriers could drop 1k bombs on ships hundreds of miles away. I think that difference is important to see, and if you looked at the pacific war at all, you'd know that the war was won by carriers.
(Again, not bothering to look to be sure) I'm pretty sure that the US tested some captured Japanese armor after the war & found it to be pretty poor vs. the contemporary US stuff. I believe testing included firing 16" AP at it. I seem to recall a photo of a big plate of Japanese armor, with a big hole in it, that's still displayed somewhere (Philadelphia, maybe?). Football team comparison between different eras is a red herring. In any given era, the equipment, coaching, nutrition, conditioning, etc. is going to be pretty consistent for all teams. Any kind of advance that a team makes doesn't stay proprietary very long due to the openness of sports. It's a whole different ballgame on the world scale. While Wilson may provide all the footballs for the NFL, & every team plays with the same ball & uses similar formations & plays, each country develops its own equipment, trains its own soldiers & sailors, & develops its own strategies & doctrines. You don't get the same sort of movement of "players", "coaches", etc. between nations that you have between sport teams, colleges, etc. that tends to "homogenize" sports. The real point is that the US & its allies did prevail in WWII, despite being saddled with "inferior" equipment, "idiots" in command, etc. I know it's fashionable to claim that the Axis nations had the better generals, admirals, ships, tanks, aircraft, infantry rifle, etc., on & on. Yet, somehow, the Allies ended up winning WWII - go figure! Alternate history "what ifs" are pointless. The only "score" that matters was posted in September, 1944. JM
Carriers had (& still have) huge weaknesses. Hint: The cruisers, destroyers, frigates, minesweepers, & (in the day) even battleships in a CVBG weren't/aren't there for the Friday night movies on the flight deck! They were/are there because a carrier was/is extremely vulnerable to attack if an enemy can get a weapon close to it. That is, in any book, a "weakness". A carrier is/was extremely capable offensively, making it extremely valuable. At the same time, it can't defend itself very well & needs a lot of help. What's not very intelligent is to claim or expect that any system has no weaknesses. Your enemies are sure to point them out. JM
"I'm pretty sure that the US tested some captured Japanese armor after the war & found it to be pretty poor vs. the contemporary US stuff. I believe testing included firing 16" AP at it." This is true. I know for a fact that 16" AP was tested against a faceplate from Shinano, and could only be penetrated from a specific range, with the IJN ship having a specific list. The faceplates were pretty good, but I am not sure off the top of my head what Yamato's immune zone looked like against the 16"50.
"To say that carriers had weaknesses is not very intelligent. Which the BBs had a few thousand yard fighting distance....Carriers could drop 1k bombs on ships hundreds of miles away. I think that difference is important to see, and if you looked at the pacific war at all, you'd know that the war was won by carriers." The crews of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau should have read this before they blew the Glorious out of the water. Carriers actually did have quite large weaknesses, which you would know about if YOU read anything about the Pacific War. At night time, when the planes couldn't fly, a carrier task force looked to it's surface components for protection. If Halsey had been in charge at Midway instead of Spruance, he might have over pursued, and ended up running into Nagumo's screen (which had two battlecruisers) which would have chopped those carriers into kindling. Carriers were also very vulnerable to submarines. Wasp, Eagle, Shokaku, Taiho, Shinano, Unryu, Ark Royal, Courageous...the list goes on and on of carriers bagged by subs. Gambier Bay was sunk by the cruiser Chikuma. I already mentioned Glorious being sunk by gunfire from the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. As for other weaknesses, they didn't have much "staying power" for a fight. About 3 days of continuous operations AvGas is all they carried. Torpedo magazines usually carried enough fish for 2 maximum effort strikes. They certainly couldn't take the kind of punishment that a battleship could take. T So yes, while carriers were indeed powerful assets, and key to winning the war, they were certainly not without weaknesses. So, in the future, were I you, I'd try to refrain from making comments such as "...and if you looked at the pacific war at all...". It's quite possible you haven't looked at everything yourself.
What was the distance they fired the rounds at this armour? As far as my comparison of football teams. My 1960 type Packers would stand little chance of competing against the 300lbers of today. Fuzzy Thurston weighed only 262lbs as an offensive lineman. I have heard comparisons of football being a war. He threw the bomb ect. Enough of this I am going to be married in a few days. The heck with this.
I don't know. I wasn't there. Not that it matters: As somebody correctly pointed out, I'm not a ballistics expert. What I recall reading was that shortly after WWII the USN tested captured Japanese armor using what I must assume were probably the best metallurgical tests of the day, including firing at least 1 contemporary battleship round. Since they probably didn't have a whole lot of material to work with, & would have been interested in conserve what they did have, I presume that they picked parameters (including range) that were considered at the time to be what would provide the best data (I also don't know how many test rounds were fired at their own US armor, but I'm betting it wasn't a whole lot, either, & probably with a similar setup). The results that I recall reading indicated that the Japanese armor was not particularly impressive when compared to US armor of the same time. Again with the red herring. 1960s Packers vs. 300 lb-ers of today would be relevant if we were discussing 1930s Japanese technology vs. current USN ships. But that's not what's being talked about. We were discussing contemporary battleships of WWII, particularly US vs. Japanese. Now, 1960s Packers vs. 1960s Bears or 1960s Browns or 1960s Colts, etc. would be relevant. The players, equipment, rules, plays, etc. were comparable for all involved. Enjoy your wedding, & especially the life that follows it. JM
