Model Forum / General / Models / May 2008

Yeah, but you have to admire the concept of making 18 inch diameter
"San-Shiki" giant shotgun shells, like the Yamato had.

Pat

that's seemingly universal. germans did it and even some americans.
don't forget captain smith.....he could have left in one of the cutters, in
fact, he was supposed to lead the rescue from one.
and ismay got sh.t for his entire life afterwords. why didn't you go down with
the ship, mr ismay? even when he was an old man.

I finished a rather interesting battle history of the IJN in WWII recently. I
also just got through Miracle at Midway. One of the things that truly
disturbed me was this desire to die with thier ship from the lowest rank to
the highest. It was insane! You had experienced leaders and sailors developed
over a decade or more just throwing themselves away. It just doesn't make any
sense at all, thier loss denied the IJN of any further use. I sometimes get
the impression that when USN or RN ships went down it tended to make the
survivors smarter and warier, both excellent traits in command rank.

The other thing I got was the Japanese may have good ships and men and good
tactics at least at night, but the entire strategic command structure was
hopelessly flawed. Thier plans were unneccesarily complex, often splitting
thier forces in an attempt to create clever flanking moves that turned up
nothing. They also allowed no contingency plans for setbacks or reverses.

This is so clear in MaM. They split thier capital ships up into ridiculous
fleets hundreds of miles apart. Nagumo could certainly have used the
additional AA protection of Yamamoto's group. And there was no possibility of
risking these ships, we had few enough planes to handle the job at hand. And
sending the invasion force separately is also questionable, weren't they
spotted first and gave the game away? They should have just pulled them
altogether ala the 3rd/5th Fleets for mutual protection. They had several
carriers that were not committed to the schwerpunkt of the whole thing,
Alaska indeed what were they thinking? I'm sure it looked swell on paper.

And they had done no what if planning like what if we are spotted before we
are supposed to, what if the CVs sortie early and are already there, what if
somehow we lose a few CVs. The shock on Nagumo's staff and the other senior
leadership was paralyzing, they got zapped because they couldn't make up
thier mind if Midway or the carriers were more important. And after they
found out they seemed utterly absent of a single coherent thought between the
bunch of them.

I am convnced that they could have taken Midway in spite of the loss of the 4
carriers. We were really just holding on by then having lost many aircraft.
And it is unlikely we would have caught them flatfooted a second time in one
battle. They had sent cruisers in to bombard Midway but then dithered and
recalled them. If they'd had even 2 of the smaller carriers with Zeros for
CAP to protect the fleet, they likely could have flattened Midway's defeneses
with their BBs and CAs and pulled it off anyway. There seemed some uncertainy
as to which objective was supreme, sink the US CVs or take the island. They
could have really made a stink if they had, resupply might not have been that
easy but what could we have done about it? Yorktown was gone, Hornet's air
group was a shambles, Enterprise had no torpedo bombers left, just
Dauntlesses and Wildcats.

I have come to the conclusion that Yamamoto whatever his good qualities were
was not a great strategic or tactical thinker. Nagumo was far to cautious and
tended to dither at the wrong moment. You might even say they did us a favor
knocking out the BBs and forcing us to rely on the CVs. And missing the oil
storage and repair facilities? We were able to repair and refuel just six
months later enough ships to break thier backs at Midway. Yeah PH was
brilliant, but it was a surprise and most surprises succeed because the
victims aren't expecting it especially when you aren't at war with anyone.

Ah well, just one man's opinion.

Frank

It saves him from having to explain what exactly happened to the four
aircraft carriers he started out with?
If I were Admiral Nagumo, I would have considered going down with the
the ship being the easy way out.
It took a lot of courage on his part to return to Japan after a debacle
like Midway.

Pat

This was a culture that lived to someday prove their service, devotion, love
and loyalty to their Emperor (and thus Nippon itself) by falling on their
own swords.

I'm surprised ALL of them didn't try to go down with the ship.

WmB

When they fired the san-shiki shells it knocked out everyone on the
exposed light AA gun positions on the deck, and even badly shook up most
of the crew in the enclosed turrets. Enclosed turrets weren't limited to
the Yamato class though; some of their carriers had them also. In that
case they were only on the side that had the funnel (s) on it, so I
presume that fresh air was blown through then to keep the smoke out.
Yamato topped out with 24 x 5" AA guns and 152 x 25 mm ones in July of 1944.
When she was sunk, she had lost two of the 25 mm ones.
Though impractical, it sure was a ferocious looking monster of a ship:
http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/japan/battleships/yamato_page_1.htm
...like a whole fortress had put to sea.
It's amazing that they were capable of keeping the construction of two
ships of that size completely secret from the outside world.

Pat

I watched a recent movie on the Yamato last year.  As gruesome a depiction
of her and her crew's death as one would imagine. From what the living
survivors recount, the butcher's bill on the decks of the Bismarck was
equally horrendous by any and all measures.

WmB

No kidding. It isn't just historical illiteracy. It's this banal expectation
that we are supposed to be "perfect" and if we are not than we are worthless.

Personally since perfection is generally unattainable it is to me a sign of
weakness, laziness and a general desire to agree with the hip and cool folks
of the day, who frankly should be hung as traitors, but that's a different
thread.

Frank

You'll be happy to know that that I'm out of here before I can be
suspected of treason and need to be executed for it. :-D

Pat