Bismarck vs. Yamato

Given this, and without getting into another "did she hit , did she miss" debate, you still have to rate her performance throughout the entire three hour battle somewhere between poor and deplorable.

 

Not really. The main problem that the Japanese had from what I can tell off Samar was an admiral who was sick, tired, and short on sleep. Nothing that can really be attributed to the individual ships.

 

Just my opinion here, but it would appear to me, on paper, that the Bismarck is the oldest and smallest of the two. Her armament is arguably the weakest among all "new" WW2 battleships. Her turret protection is nearly non-existent, and while it has good range and speed, the propulsion system is lacking. That proved it’s Achilles' heel in its only hostile sortie, the inability to steer by the propulsion system alone with the rudders disabled.

The Bismarck has a fine degree of sub-division and watertight compartments, which made it hard to sink. The fire control is ok, and the Kriegsmarine had the early lead in radar. But, it was susceptible to its own fire concussion and frequently went out in battle. Of course it was only involved in one sortie, and it lost its radar in that one. The Bismarck was well armored except for its turrets. So it is easy to put out of action, but hard to sink.

The Yamato on the other hand lacked gunnery radar, but with the Bismarck’s going out I don’t see how that is a disadvantage. But the Yamato also had very suspect damage control discipline, but would probably been nearly immune to the Bismarck’s main guns. It would have taken a "luck" shot by either of these ships to put the other down, or even cripple the other. Of course, this is all surmise on my part from comparing statistics and such.

 

I disagree. The admiral is not the person estimating the range and speed of the target.

 

No, but in that particular case, it was the admiral who took the Yamato out of action in an attempt to escape what he thought was a larger force.

 

On the otherhand what evidence is there that her shooting was particularly bad after that. When your targets are wildly evading and covered by squalls and smoke it does make shooting difficult. When you're evading torpedoes at the same time as well as under air attack things aren't any easier.

 

i'd pick the bismarck

 

Well, on paper the Yamato was the best battleship ever. But, its fire controls was quite bad, while I remember that I heard that Bismark had overall the better firepower than any other battleship in history (i may be wrong, since the Iowa is though to be the best battleship in every category "evar").

 

I think training would be a big deal just because you have a better weapon doesn't mean much. I think the Bismark would win its faster, and still packs a punch. The Yamato has a better range but could they really hit something that far out? I'm not sure just food for thought. Even though I bet the Bismark.

 

There isn't a whole lot of evidence that Yamato's fire control was "quite bad"

It's quite likely that you did indead hear or read this. The claim however is very dubious. For instance if you define single salvo throw weight as the defintion of firepower quality the only modern BBs that are worse than Bismarck are the Scharnhort and Dunkirk classes and some of the WWI designs have more as well.

The Japanese apparently thought so. Training also becomes a matter of when you choose them. Initially the Yamato's were training pretty hard but as the fule crunch really hit they tended not to go to sea very often. Still not sure that their level of training wouldn't be in the same ball park as say that of the Tirpitz late in the war. Note that the Yamato has 9 guns throwing hells that weigh in at over 1,400 KG while Bismarck has 8 firing shells that weigh in at 800 KG.

 

There are a number of things to keep in mind when talking of the Yamato Class ships the first is that you cannot simply look at the "numbers" and compare and contrast them with other fleet’s numbers. First off the Japanese were decades behind the western powers in armor quality, so they needed more weight and thickness to equal the protection of others. So while they had almost 35% of their displacement weight in armor, it was inferior. A comparable ship made with western style armor would weigh about 4-5000 tons less.

The Yamato design had a shortened armored citadel due to its triple turrets and compact superstructure, and while this actually saved a bit of weight it left great distances of its overall length, bow and stern, unprotected. It turned out that 46.5% of its total length is an Achilles’ heel.

The Yamato Class turrets traversed at the same speed as the WW1 Anglo-American types, whereas the new Iowa Class traversed at twice their rate, and were coupled to excellent radar fire control. Not so the Japanese, they lagged behind in radar in all fields, especially in fire control. The great inefficiency of their power plants limited their range to only 7,200 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 16 knots on "full tanks" (source; Fleets of World War Two by Richard Worth).

 

That isn't what I get out of:
Ballistic Tests on IJN SHINANO's Turret Face Armor

At the ranges these were likely to engage turret travers speed would have been of little or no significance.

On the otherhand the Yamato may have had the best optical fire control of all time.

 

Neither is there any evidence that it was any good. And if you use the term "Fire Control" in the broadest sense to include the proficiency of the crew, then there is ample evidence that it was "quite bad".

Do you have any documentary evidence for making this claim?

The USN technical Mission report on Japanese surface fire control generally rated it somewhat behind that of the RN and USN and said in particular that, "Japanese stable verticals and gyro work for fire control seem to be vastly inferior".

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/prim...Reports/USNTMJ-200F-0023-0085 Report O-31.pdf

The Japanese apparently never expended much effort on gunnery training for Yamato. When the Yamato was first commissioned, it became the flagship of the Combined Fleet under Admiral Yamamoto. But after observing Yamato's gunnery exercises a few weeks later, Yamamoto is so disgusted with Yamato's gunnery that he transfers the flag back to Nagato and orders additional training for Yamato.

Just what was the level of Tirpitz's gunnery training late in the war? If it was comparable to the Yamato's gunnery crew in late 1944 or early 1945, it would have been pretty bad.

 

The armor on the turret faces isn't what was being described by Richard Worth in his book Fleets of World War Two, on page 181 he states;

"Protection constituted and adequate 35% of displacement, with armor concentrated in lavish thickness; the 25.6-inch turret faces rate as the toughtest protection ever mounted afloat. However, Japanese armor was decades behind foreign standards, and other problems lay in the details of protection and weaponry."

Now, I may have mis-read that portion or something. But what I took away from that was the turret face armor was excellent, but the rest of the armor was sub-standard. Perhaps I mis-interpreted his meaning, I read the section you provided, and that too references turret face armor specifically as well. Not the overall armor quality, but only a single sub-set/portion of the armor scheme.

If I am in error, I apologize to all.

 

Well I'd consider the first salvo stradle off Samar as evidence of a pretty decent fire control.

The length of her baseline and qualitiy and size of her optics. Certainly there were problems. I believe for instance that the Japanese had at least one more set of people in the chain than the US did. Not familiar enough with the German or British practice to compare them.

My understanding is that everyone esle's stable verticals were significantly inferior to the US ones if they had them.

Certainly they didn't expend very many rounds. However that's not quite the same as training. It's not clear to me how much of the latter they did.

I don't think I've ever heard that Tirptiz fired in practice rounds once she was sent to Norway. Doesn't mean she didn't but later on when she was damaged and just sitting in the fjord I seriosly doubt her crew did much training except perhaps for AA work.

 

My reading of that sentence would be more where and how the armor was apportioned rather than the quality of the armor. For instance Japanese cruisers tended to have very little armor on their turrets.

 

I would qualify that with the statement, "IF it happened." Also good FC isn't characterized by the ability to get a single straddle; it is, by definition, the ability to consistently produce straddles and hits.

An FC system is like the proverbial chain; a weak link anywhere can, and does, negate the value of all the strong links. The Japanese did exhibit some good naval gunnery, especially early in the war. But in every navy, there are good gunnery ships and poor ones; the Yamato, according to all the evidence we have, cannot be said to be ranked among the former category.

That's my impression, as well. However, the Yamato's stable vertical's, according to the Technical Mission report, seem to have been one of the weak links in her FC system

That's true. However, dry firing drills do not instill the same level of confidence nor produce the same level of skill that actually firing a round and hitting a target does. And we have no record, that I'm aware of, of how frequently the Yamato's gunnery crew were drilled. Sometime, in the latter half of 1944, gunnery radar was installed on the Yamato. The Fleet gunnery Staff officer stated that at Samar, the gunnery crew was not really proficient in it's use and had very little confidence in the radar. That would seem to indicate a lack of practice with it.

That seems to have held for the Yamato as well. The Japanese, however, considered the Yamato an active fleet unit and the indications are her crew did practice various gunnery evolutions while she was at Singapore in 1944. But by that time in the war, the IJN did not have the superbly trained crewmen that they started the war with. They were receiving replacements from the reserves that had little practical experience in their rates.

 

True but given that the Japanese observer and US observers on the CVE's both reported the salvo landing close there's a pretty good case for it. As for consistency how many times did Yamato fire and how good a fire control solution did she have given the range, smoke, squals, and maneuvering? I submit there is little evidence that she was a bad shooter after she finished working up (ie after the additional training Yamamoto required).

Simply put we don't have much evidence either way.

From my reading the big point of stable verticles is they allow you to maintain a fire control solution even with quite radical maneuvers. If we are comparing Yamato to any but US battleships the same critisim would likely apply to them. In any case it's more likely to come into play in a multi ship engagement particularly one where torpedos are fired. (Sounds like they could really have used it off Samar now that I think of it).

Indeed but can't much the same be said of Tirpitz. Both the Germans and the Japanese were reluctant to use radar because they didn't want to give away their positions. The US and British chose otherwise. Perhaps part of it was since by the end of the war even PT boats had radar it's use didn't really compromise things much where any axis ship at sea was going to atract a lot of attention.

 

The US observers, as I recall, reported a salvo of BB-sized shells landing close, but that doesn't mean it was a straddle (Yamato reported a "hit", not a straddle), and with three other BB's present, it doesn't mean the salvo was fired by Yamato. In my opinion, your "pretty good case" is pretty weak.

We have plenty of evidence that Yamato was a poor gunnery ship earlier in the war. We have plenty of evidence the Yamato's gunnery crew didn't get many practice shoots. We have the testimony of the Japanese Fleet gunnery staff officer that Yamato's crew wasn't proficient with her gunnery radar and had no confidence in it. And finally, we have the evidence that Yamato's crew, shortly after the opening salvo's at Samar, lost sight of the targets and had no idea of where either the American ships, nor the Japanese cruisers were in relation to herself or each other. Given that we have no conclusive evidence that Yamato hit anything at Samar with her main batteries, I'd say that all the evidence we do have supports the idea that she was a poor gunnery ship and her FC system was deficient compared to other Japanese ships and US ships.

I'd sure be willing to entertain any evidence that you have that Yamato was a better than average gunnery ship.

I think that's a bit of an over simplification of their role, but it is true of the WW II American stable verticals as far as it goes. However, it is not true that RN, or for that matter, German stable verticals were as deficient as Japanese examples. And the advantage is not only in play when torpedoes are present. Clearly, a BB which has the ability to maintain it's own firing solution while maneuvering radically, has a tremendous advantage over an enemy BB which must steam on a more or less stable course in order to maintain it's firing solution. The radically maneuvering BB will easily throw the enemy aim off, while continuing to hit it's own target; this should be obvious.

That argument doesn't hold much water; in a gun battle both sides are aware of the presence of the other, so there is no advantage to shutting down one's gunnery radar. The Yamato apparently failed to use her gunnery radar because her gunnery crew had no confidence in it, or perhaps it wasn't working. Either way, it seems the addition of radar did little to enhance the Yamato's FC system at Samar.

 

Given the pilots report in combination with the report from the US ships it looks pretty strong to me. I'll try and remeber to look up some more info later today.

We do? What? Looking at the TROM at: Imperial Battleships
8 August Yamato launched
16 Dec commissioned
30 March 42 deficiencies noted in gun crew and additional training required
May she's Yamamoto's flagship.
Now if we compare this to Bismarck from: Bismarck Operational History
24 Aug (40) commisioned
May (41) completes trials and training

IE work up times are pretty much the same. Is there any record of her shooting poorly after this?

Agreed, but this doesn't in and of itself mean she couldn't shoot well. Especially if we are looking at the equipment rather than the crew which is where we started out.

But I was talking about optical fire control. They obviously had more experiance and trust in it.

Which is not really a problem with her fire control.

How many rounds did she fire and under what circumstances? While this provides little evidence that she was a good gunnery ship it also at least with what has been presented to date provides little evidence she was a poor gunnery ship. Indeed other than possible splinter damage two US BBs fired quite a few rounds at Nowaki and didn't hit her. I would argue however that that engagement actually speeks rather well of their gunnery.

I have not maintained that there is strong evidence that she was a better than average ship. The action of Samar does provide some very limited evidence of that as well as possible evidence to the contrary. My postion is that there is equally very little evidence that (at least after she was fully worked up) that she was a poor gunnery ship.

What's the source on this? I haven't read much about it other than an article pointing out the superiority of the US design.

Radical maneuvers still effect gunnery just not to the same extent. There's also the question of if this feature would really be used. The test which demonstrated just how well this functioned were post war from what I've read.

But they had no confidence in it because they hadn't trained much with it. One of the reasons they hadn't trained much with it is that the Japanese tried to limit transmissions. Certainly once you are in battle trying to hide your radar emmisions doesn't make much sense but if you don't use your radar until your in battle it's a little late to start. In Tully's new book on Surigao Strait there are some acounts of the southern forces use of radar while transiting the straits. My impression is that they had made little use of it up until that time.