Yamato and Musashi

Hi All,

The Yamato and Musashi were sister ships and the two largest battleships ever built sporting 18.1 inch guns. They became a symbol of Japans might and power taking on almost religious significance. Japan was thus, very cautious about using them for fear of losing them.

I imagine that these ships fired their guns defensively prior to being blown out of the water but my question is "Did either of these ships ever fire their guns offensively?" And if so "What were the results?"

I guess this is just a silly trivial question but it has been nagging at me.

Thanks in advance,

Bob Guercio

 

I decided to look this up and i gotta say i was very disappointed,
Nice looking ships but whats the point?

All the one anyway,the bismark would have knocked them all out.

 

really? And you base this on what? There's a lengthy thread on the subject. I advise you to read it Bob. Quite useful information.

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/11793-bismarck-vs-yamato.html





Cheers...

 

This has to be my most discussed topic ever online.

I know i'll be called stubborn and have all these useless facts and figures about armour thickness,weight of broadside rader etc but for me there is one thing that just blows all these useless figures away.

If you conceed that the first salvo to land a hit is crucial then it goes like this.
1.first salvo fires too long and second salvo lands too short or vice versa.
2.third salvo straddles and fourth salvo lands.

Ok,what the bismark had and this is often ignored is the bismark could get off three salvos a minute while the best of the rest could only manage a salvo every 30 seconds.

Therefore the bismark would land a hit after 0-20-40-60 seconds.
best of the rest lands a hit after 0-30-60-90 seconds,too late.

Also in comparison with the yamato and its armour just look see what it took to sink the yamoto and then look see what it took to sink the bismark,as seen it seems good compartmentalization(20 letters check it out)which the bismark had is at least as important as armour thickness.

 

In answer to the original question. The Yamato engaged ships in Taffy 3 off Samar. She apparently got a first salvo straddle on one of the Taffies and may have hit one later on. She also may have got secondary hits on one or more of the US tincans.

 

Not so much ignored as irrelevant in most BB engagements especially at ranges over 20,000 yards.

There's no guarantee on that and indeed once the late war US BBs often got first salvo straddles and in some cases hits.

Bismarck was rendered combat ineffective after only a few hits. Many of the subsequent ones didn't do much more than rearrange the wreckage in her superstructure. The Yamato recieved a lot more damage in any case Bismarck would have had 0 chance of surviving that many hits from late war US torpedoes.

 

Bob, to answer your question yes at least one of them fired her guns in an offensive action. Yamato did exceptionaly poor at the Battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. She landed no clear hits and spent a considerable amount of time running away from a torpedo spread fired by the US DD's. Musashi was of course supossed to accompany Yamato but was sunk in the Sibuyan Sea by Third Fleet carrier aircraft the day before.

 

I wouldn't characterize it as that bad. Like I said she apparently got a first salvo straddle on one of the Taffies (White Planes?). I'm pretty sure she also gets credit for at least one hit on one of the tincans albeit from a secondary. As for how she combed the US torpedoes that's not the ships fault.

 

But this was early in the fight, and it took her out of it. After all those years of being held back, waiting for the decisive battle that never materialized, she got only a few minutes of combat before disengaging while the rest of the force continued it's attack.

 

Indeed given the situation it probably wasn't the best command decision on the other hand the Japanese admiral was not in the best condition for making decisions either. In any case it was not a problem with the ship.

 

Here is a site which I enjoy looking at every now and then as to the "best of the bad boys" when it comes to WW2 big gun captial ships. And it does seem quite fairly presented, even though the USN comes out way ahead in most instances, it just uses the stats from each ship. Not commanders, or any of those subjective values which may alter a "show-down".

See:

Battleship Comparison

I have a feeling that the persons who have a warm spot in their hearts for the Yamato or Bismarck are not going to be happy campers.

 

Great site Clint! Yamato and Bismarck fans will most definitely not be happy... Especially since the Iowa and South Dakota rate better overall.

 

The Yamato's performance at the Battle of Samar is, at best, conjectural. There is no hard evidence that she achieved any hits at all. If you have documentation that Yamato achieved a secondary battery hit on a US destroyer, please post it; I am not aware of any such evidence. Her TROM claims a "hit" on a carrier on her first salvo at Samar, but US records show no such hits that early in the battle, nor were there any battleship caliber "straddles" early on in the fight. After the opening salvos, visibility declined rapidly and the statements of those on Yamato's bridge during the latter stages of the battle indicate her gunnery lookouts spent most of their time trying to figure out what ships were where. I understand there is some evidence in a few Japanese sources (which I cannot access) that Yamato may have accidently hit a Japanese cruiser with a shell from her main battery, but I have not been able to confirm this.

At the time if the Samar battle, Yamato was fitted with a "gun-laying" radar set, but the staff gunnery officer of BatDiv 1 claimed that it was not accurate in terms of deflection, and there was little confidence in Yamato's ability to fire solely by radar.

It is known that Yamato did not do well in several gunnery exercises and this may be attributable to a poorly trained and inexperienced gunnery crew. It is also known that Yamato was not able to participate in more than about five gunnery exercises which would explain the poor performance of her gunnery ratings. There have been multiple reasons given for her low number of gunnery exercises, but I have a theory that the major reason is that her main rifles could not be relined as most BB guns were, new barrels had to be manufactured from scratch, and there were not enough replacement barrels (only nine became available when Shinano was converted to a carrier) for both Musashi and Yamato to receive a complete set. Since the barrel life of her 18" guns was only something like 100-150 ESR and replacement would have been very costly and time consuming, it may be that the Japanese deliberately limited full power gunnery exercises.

 

Well according to: About the Kongo`s performence in the Battle off Samar - Page 2

But no indication where he got the info so it's problematic.

Combined fleet states (Imperial Battleships) states:

White Plains started making smoke about the time of the third salvo and this is what apparently mislead the spotter plane. Other references state that he was shot down not long after this.

 

Yes, the evidence is completely circumstantial and not very compelling. When compared to the US time line of events, it becomes even less compelling. That's why I said Yamato's gunnery record at Samar is "conjectural".

The fact is that Yamato was dependent on optical FC targeting for it's main battery, and the surface visibility at Samar was extremely poor, so it's not surprising that no hits can be proven for her.

As for her "run" to the north to avoid torpedoes, it was Admiral Ugaki who ordered her turn away from the action rather than toward it, not Admiral Kurita. This has nothing to do with the design of the ship, but was a bad command decision. On the other hand, a turn toward approaching torpedoes would have reduced the amount of time available to complete the turn, and may have resulted in torpedo hits, so it's difficult to judge.

 

White Plains was not hit during the battle so it could not have been her.

from White Plains AAR

The only ship that the "charging cruiser" at that time could be is the USS Johnston making a torpedo run. She was hit by battleship shells at about 0730 but they are claimed as 14 inch hits, and only after she launched her torpedoes at Kumano. She was most likely hit by Haruna as at the time the Kongo was busy with Hoel

 

Your first point is actually an excellent one,i almost completely forgot that the 3rd or 4th salvo could be away before the first splashes are seen.

Well radar is handy for nighttime and over the horizon but when the ships can see each other i dont see how it can be much better.
Also the ability to fire over the horizon is overhyped,the first thing a commander who sees splashes near his ship is going to do is take evasive manouvers,he'll have 30secs before the next salvo arrives.
Unless the first one or two salvos hit then its a waste of time.

I agree that the first hit is decisive but the yamato took nowhere near the damage the bismark took,the bismark took over 600 hits many of them large calibur and 15 torpedo hits and it only sunk because the germans flooded it.
The yamato only took 7-9 bomb hits and 10 or 11 torpedo hits,granted the magazine got hit.

Indeed not,i know that site for a long time but i've always thought the guy had a big bias against the bismark.Apart from that its an excellent site.

please dont anybody bring up anything about the types of steel used,type of shells etc.
I've had this discussion a hundred times.

 

So what did you learn out of those hundred times?

1. That everybody was wrong so far, but you coudn't convince them?
2. Despite getting into this a hundred times you still are unable to acknowledge?

Just one issue that "maybe" is enough to settle different views on this.

In the sealion thread you continiously forwarded that the Luftwaffe could have dealt with the RN.

How many AA guns did the Bismarck in contra to the Yamato have? So who would have survived an airstrike before any ship to ship battle would even occur? And please don't bring up types of steel used!!

Regards
Kruska

 

1.yeah,thats about the size of it,darn fanboys
I actually learned a lot about the technology,types of steel etc etc.some very knowledgeable people.

The bismarck had way too few AA guns,the death star had its weaknesses and the bismarck had hers,the propeller rudder arangement was her other weakness.
Technical Layout - Rudders & Propellers
These shortcomings were later rectified on the tirpitz.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/no21993-pic6.jpg
Bismarck's Final Battle - Part 1

 

Hello macker33,

My question wasn't about Rudders and Propellers or Bismarks final battle -Part 1.

My question was in reference to In the sealion thread were you continiously forwarded:

So how many AA guns did the Bismarck in contra to the Yamato have? So who would have survived an airstrike before any ship to ship battle would even occur? And please don't bring up types of steel used!!

After all you seriously stated:

Kruska