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Post by William Miller on Aug 14, 2014 18:50:41 GMT -6
Yes, the Saratoga was hit by sub torps - but so was the Wasp, Yorktown, Ark Royal, various destroyers, some cruisers, some battleships, etc..etc..etc.. Point being, any ship was vulnerable to a torpedo hit - especially if the warships were almost running over the sub, as happened to the Wasp. Most sub attacks vs warships were by pure luck and chance as warships were usually hard for subs to intercept - unless crippled like the Yorktown. Point being, the TCD often mattered little if the torp (or worse, a spread of torps) was not spotted in time for any of the attacks and the sub crew fired a reasonably accurate spread of 4-6 torps at effective engagement ranges and angles of attack. Point being, for anyone to slap the Alaska for a poor TCD when so many ships were hit and/or lost with better TCD to me is faulty logic. Can a good TCD help to avoid danger? Sure .. IF.. you have enough warning, but with a reasonable spread of torps fired at close range and good firing angles the chances of escape were much lower for any sizeable ship. The best defense.. have DD escorts and air cover vs subs and keep up a reasonable transit speed of 15 knots+ if possible and zig-zag if deemed worth it. I think it should also be noted that if there was ANY good weapon the IJN possessed it was torpedoes - very hard to spot, fast, and they actually went bang. (Long range was pretty much irrelevant for an unguided weapon vs maneuvering or reasonably fast moving targets as was proven many times over). However, IJN sub commanders still needed to be in the right place at the right time with almost no idea when or if enemy warships would come plodding along to setup a reasonable attack. It was more often then not that sheer luck and chance prevailed in hitting a warship with sub torpedoes at sea. As to aerial dropped torps, trying to get a good spread from an attack under intense AA fire (and/or CAP attacks) was difficult at best - for that matter, torpedo attacks were often substituted for dive/glide bombing attacks (or kamikazes) as it got harder to get in close enough to launch a reasonable torpedo attack by air due to heavier and heavier air defenses on ships plus the IJN by 1944 had very few good torpedo pilots and planes left. Just my few cents on that topic.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 14, 2014 20:07:13 GMT -6
One of the real problems in ASW in WWII, was the sonar and lack of aircraft for inner patrols. The SBD was the best aircraft for the purpose because the rear gunner/radioman could do the spotting for the submarines. Inner patrols were done at less than 1000 feet. Unfortunately, they were conducted by the VB squadrons and there were only eighteen planes. Some of them had to be out scouting, some were sitting on the deck to replace the current scouts so that did not leave many left. They augmented them with fighters but the pilot was a little busy flying at low altitude and looking down. Which was a problem because of the wing blocked his view. On the SBD's the gunner was aft of the wing and had a very good position to spot from. As to sonar, it was rudimentary and improved over time, but was still not as effective as it probably needed to be.
As far as losses to Japanese submarines, we lost: Wasp and Yorktown(Yorktown was already damaged and moving at less than optimal speed) Liscome Bay (CVE) Logout Indianapolis (she was sailing alone at the time) Juneau (she was already damaged after Savo Island)
Hammann
Henley
Porter
That's it, that's all that were sunk by IJN submarines. The last three were destroyers, Juneau was a light cruiser and Indianapolis was a heavy. Wasp was lightly armored due to constraints of construction. She was hit near a magazine and the fires could not be stopped. Had she been a Yorktown class, I doubt she would have been lost.
The Alaska's, in my opinion, were no better or worse than our classes of heavy cruisers, since she was based on those designs. Did it make a difference? Well, we only lost one heavy cruiser during the war, Indianapolis under strange circumstances so TCD probably did not make any difference. As to the battleships, the Montana design reverted to a single rudder. If TCD was important why risk the biggest battleships you probably will ever build with a wide TCD; because they will be protected by heavy underwater armor and TPS's, along with carrier aircraft. Just guessing but I'll bet that was the reason. Just my opinion.
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Post by William Miller on Aug 15, 2014 0:00:53 GMT -6
The USN I think found that engaging and destroying the enemy beyond their ability to launch torpedoes effectively was far better then making water donuts. Considering the NJ fired at, and straddled several times, an IJN DD at Truk at around 18-19nm (a feat never achieved by ANY warship ever before or after with gunnery) I do not think a DD torp attack was a very good idea vs a battleship armed with 16" and 5" guns using advanced RFC - much less being protected by DDs and CRs, and the Alaska had guns that could easily kill any CR or DD and had the same advanced RFCs and could engage targets out to 17.5nm. The straight runner unguided torpedo attack concept was virtually obsolete by 1944 onwards due to RFC allowing ships to engage torpedo platforms (surface and air) at ranges far beyond the effective torpedo attack ranges of around 2-4kyd. Even by 1942 the IJAF/N were losing vast numbers of aircraft due to proximity fuzes and RFC for the AA guns and IJN DDs were already getting pulverized by 5"/38s and 6-8" CR guns using RFC by 1942 onwards. So did the Alaska need the ability to make water donuts and shrug off torpedo hits or was it more important to engage and destroy enemy platforms before they could get into range to be a threat? I pick the later every time. The Alaska was built to pound enemy ships at long range with gunnery, which it could do better then any ship at the time with the slight exception of the Iowas and any British BBs with similar advanced RFC. The 12" guns were very powerful, reliable, and fired lethal heavyweight shells at very long range. The SB and AA was good enough and better then any BC ever built before their time. They were also very fast and reasonably well protected. To the best of my knowledge.. I have never seen any hardcore requirements for a ship to be classed as a BC beyond any reasonable part of the Alaska design. All else was opinion, and usually biased at that. I would argue that the 12" guns on the Alaska class gave them far better firepower then the 8" guns on most any CA however. About the only CA that could have put up a reasonable fight against the Alaska was the monster of a CA the Des Moines class - now THAT was a large cruiser! The Alaska would have better range by around 3-4nm and harder hitting shells but the Des Moines would have a faster ROF.. so it would have been one hell of a fight! Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2014 8:54:32 GMT -6
I can't really put my arms around the concept of the Alaska's. In Springstyles book#3, there is a drawing S-511-6 that was a proposed Heavy Cruiser planned for 18 January 1940. She was armed with twelve 12 inch guns, displacement was 38,7000. She was the largest ship in the study. In fact, she mirrors my design of an Alaska completely. The Alaska's were ordered in September of 1940 in the Two Ocean Navy expansion . Their design was under consideration since 1938. Here is what the Navy wanted for the objectives of this design: "intermediate in size between battleships and heavy cruisers. The new ships were to carry out what were then the two primary missions of heavy cruisers: protecting carrier strike groups against enemy cruisers and aircraft and operating independently against enemy surface forces. Their extra size and larger guns would enhance their value in both these missions and would also provide insurance against reports that Japan was building "super cruisers" more powerful than U.S. heavy cruisers. In fact, Japan developed plans for two such ships in 1941--partly as a response to the Alaska's--but never placed orders for their construction ".
The Alaska's were never compartmented like the battleships or battlecruisers. In fact, they did not have the special armor or bulges that the larger ships had. They were over gunned heavy cruisers except for the extra armor which actually covered most of the hull to the end which was not a characteristic of heavy cruisers. The remaining ships in her class; Samoa, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Hawaii were all suspended by May 1942, before the Guadalcanal invasion. What did we know by that time, that caused this cancellation. Most likely that we needed numbers not 12 inch large cruisers. We needed to focus on the escorts that could be built quickly and efficiently. That carriers with large air wings and numerous scout aircraft were cheaper and much more effective at guarding the fleet along with the cheaper CVE's. I don't know, but something changed the Navy's view, very quickly.
It's interesting that by 1914, the BC concept had actually lost its real usefulness due to the submarine and the aircraft. The 5th battleship squadron could perform the scouting mission every bit as good as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd battlecruiser squadron and the BC could not help against the real guerre de course weapon, the submarine. It seems to be mirrored by the fate of the Alaska's. The aircraft could perform scouting missions well except in poor weather, but that hampered the BC also. Their primary missions were easily accomplished by cheaper faster ships, already in service or being built.
Fascinating. In both cases, practicality and actual combat experience, superseded theory.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 15, 2014 12:00:23 GMT -6
I've researched the loss of Wasp and they are directly attributed to her design flaws. After the construction of Yorktown and Enterprise, there was still 15,000 tons left from the London Naval treaty. The Navy attempted to put a full airwing on a ship with 25% less displacement. So, how do you do that? The areas of a ship that contribute the most weight are hulls and machinery, and armor. Whereas the Yorktown's had 120,000 shp machinery, the Wasp had 75000. In order to maintain the same speed as the rest of the carriers, armor had to be sacrificed. The Navy states that she was built without armor. That maybe true but I suspect she was outfitted later, possibly. As was pointed out in a piece I found, this was a time in the Pacific where damage control procedures were still being remodeled and revamped, a bad time to be torpedoed. Other design deficiencies included a slower speed, 29 knots, gasoline lines running outside the hull along with stability issues. If you see a picture of the Wasp from the starboard side, you can see the pipe running diagonally along the area amidships. That is exactly where the torpedoes struck. Instructions to the captains was that she had the stability of a merchant ship and loading fuel, stores and aircraft must be done carefully as to not overload her. All in all, a poor design just waiting for destruction, and everyone but the general board knew it. She was launching her inner patrols and CAP on 15 September 1942 when at 1444 a lookout spotted three torpedoes three points off of the starboard beam, that would be about 51 degees on the starboard side. She was turned hard a starboard but two torpedoes struck in the area of the gasoline tanks and magazines. The blasts ripped the deck, sending fully loaded aircraft down into the hanger, detonated more ammunition for the AA guns. Her possible lack of torpedo protection and armor to save weight due to restrictions probably cost the Navy the ship.
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Post by spook053 on Aug 15, 2014 16:25:42 GMT -6
I would argue that the 12" guns on the Alaska class gave them far better firepower then the 8" guns on most any CA however. About the only CA that could have put up a reasonable fight against the Alaska was the monster of a CA the Des Moines class - now THAT was a large cruiser! The Alaska would have better range by around 3-4nm and harder hitting shells but the Des Moines would have a faster ROF.. so it would have been one hell of a fight! Thanks. Good catch, I've been pondering on the what-if's of that class if it had gotten into the WWII game.
Heck, I'd think even the mightiest of the IJN BB's would had a challenging time with a Des Moines class, once the latter had closed enough in range. It doesn't help when such a "smaller" opponent can throw enough shell weight in a given timeframe, and with reasonable accuracy, that can turn your rangefinders and other superstructure topsides into wreckage or nearly so.
One thing to be remember, of course, was that for the main of the WWII surface ships, firing the main battery usually compelled maintaining course. Thereby, even for more maneuverable ships, they still had to steer straight while firing. IIRC, it was the USN introduction of the Mk 13 radar (1944-45?) that allowed course changes while plotting fire.
(Yeah, I know, preaching to the choir.......)
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Post by William Miller on Aug 15, 2014 20:02:58 GMT -6
Closing thoughts, I need to get back to work here.
Note, I am in no way saying we even needed the CB Alaska class - only that it was the most lethal "BC" type ship ever built, and that BCs deployed FAR more often with most navies then any BB with the only exception being the USN which built BC type ships far too late and had enough fast BBs to go around. For all intensive purposes the USN never really needed any more new BBs as the CVs/CRs/DDs/SSs did the bulk of the workload for winning the Pacific War, and after the Essex class started deploying the Pacific War was totally over for the IJN. Was the CB Alaska like all other capital gunnery ships in most ways? No.. however, could it do the general role of a BC effectively well? Absolutely, and with the above context that was all that was required of it. It was a damn shame they were not finished during the early 1940s as it would have been a heck of a sight to see them in action.
Take care everyone and thanks for the chat.
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Post by William Miller on Aug 15, 2014 20:28:19 GMT -6
Quick thought,
I have stated in the past to some that the BC Alaska could be a serious, and likely very destructive threat, to the BB Yamato.. now many might go "not a chance in hell!". Really? With anything less then perfect visibility the Yamato would not even have a target and the Yamato mediocre radar could only reach out to around 20kyd and was nowhere near as effective as advanced USN radars by 1944-1945. The Alaska radar could see, track, AND target out to around 40kyd+ vs such a massive radar blip and the guns could reach out to around 37-38kyd. Yeah sure the Yamato guns could fire farther... but their odds of hitting anything, especially moving fast and maneuvering, beyond around 25kyd was remote to the extreme. I would note the longest ranged HIT(s) during WW2 was around 26.5kyd and that was a lucky shot vs a large target. The NJ straddled a target using similar FCRs as the Alaska at 36-38kyds vs a DD target several times over near Truk. Imagine the better odds of hitting a 70,000 ton BB!
The Alaska would NEVER have to sink the Yamato, nor was that EVER a requirement to win a naval battle.. EVER. All Alaska had to do was hammer the Yamato upper works to hell and cause fires and at extreme ranges there was a chance the 12" heavyweight shells could possibly punch through some areas of the horizontal armor protection with plunging fire. It would not be a pleasant experience for the IJN sailors getting pelted by 1,140lb shells on a relatively slow 27 knot (best speed) massive target of a ship with possibly nothing to shoot back at - especially since the Alaska could easily maintain extreme range at leisure. I would also note that the Helldivers were dropping 1,000lb SAP bombs with far less velocity on the ship causing a good deal of damage before she was sunk so it would not be a hard stretch to believe that high velocity 12" shells could do some nasty things to the Yamato.
The chances of the IJN returning the Yamato to port after such a beating would have been slim.. worse yet, it would have taken several to many MONTHS to get her back at sea with few dockyards that could even service that monster, and in turn taking up massive resources to do it - and that is saying if she ever deployed again, not like the Yamato and Musashi did much to start with except prove how great they were for being bomb and torpedo sponge targets. So did it matter if the Alaska sunk her or just spanked her all day with shells? Not really. Most warships throughout the age of naval history were not sunk solely by gunfire anyways and yet many naval battles were won with gunfire as they proved pretty damned effective at screwing up enemy ships if they suffered the bad side of the fight and many never returned to fight again.
Point being.. the big giant guns of the Yamato were only valid threats IF they could find, effectively track, and hit the target. However, I would remind everyone that those big fat ships hardly ever deployed and their on the job training/experience vs surface targets was minimal at best. Yes, they had excellent rangefinders but hitting a 38mph target like the Alaska at beyond 30kyd using only optics (if they could even detect her that far out) would have been questionable at best.. and at night or dawn/dusk conditions or other low visibility conditions very likely impossible. Obviously it goes without saying that the Iowas or the NC/SD with updated FCR systems would have almost certainly been a no brainer for a victory and the Alaska was as capable of hitting long range targets as they were. To make matters worse the advanced FCRs allowed the USN ships to do wicked evasive maneuvers and still retain a good target track.. even the best IJN ships had no such capability, if they maneuvered their gunnery accuracy would plummet and target range changes were much harder to track with optical only gunnery - especially at longer ranges.
Once you punch out those FCDs on the Yamato.. she would have been nothing more then an on the job target training. There are many examples of gunnery accuracy becoming virtually worthless when the FCDs were knocked out in a naval gun battle and even though big guns were not the most efficient method of sinking a ship they were damned effective at mission killing one and very possibly rendering a ship ineffective for the rest of a naval campaign due to lengthy repairs - if they ever made it back to port at all.
All big gun ships had one primary purpose in life.. hit a moving target at sea with gunfire. If they could not do that then they were useless in combat. It was as simple as that. All the "bigger badder armor" arguments in the world have never changed that simple fact of naval warfare and punching out the eyes of a ship was often far easier then punching through the belt and deck armor. The ship that got hit the hardest first in naval combat... usually lost the fight, and more often then not that usually happened to the ship that could not hit back effectively.
Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 16, 2014 11:12:49 GMT -6
Highly improbable action between Yamato and an Alaska class large cruiser, to be sure. The Alaska's, as you know, were designed for carrier protection. They would most likely be cruiser leaders in the cruising formation. As such, she would be accompanied by at least two Essex class carriers, with well over 200 first line aircraft with scouts in daylight out to 200 miles. At night, the carriers and associated escorts would probably open the distance and use radar to guard the formation. She would probably also be accompanied by at least two fast battleships like the North Carolinas or South Dakotas, both classes with long range search radar and 16 inch 45 caliber guns which put them in a better position to tackle the Yamato class battleships.
The only remotely possible scenario that I can see is if the carriers were detached for whatever purpose and the cruisers were left in the region to possibly guard an amphibious landing such as at Leyte Gulf or even Guadalcanal. However, the Japanese never showed a propensity to use the slower Yamato's, 27 knots, in such situations preferring to use the Kongo's.
As a real naval commander, I would not risk my ship in such a situation when a golden BB could end it all for myself and my crew, no matter how bad I felt the Japanese gunnery was. It wasn't that bad and their Type 98 fire control system based on excellent rangefinders was accurate.
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Post by William Miller on Aug 16, 2014 13:20:10 GMT -6
I never said the action was "probable", much like it was improbable for any of the fast BBs to engage the Yamato as they also had CV support. No optical rangefinder system in the world at the time could "accurately" shoot a maneuvering/fast moving surface target at 30-32kyd+ .. especially if the target was evading as needed. You simply cannot match an optical RF system to a Mk13 RFC system.. there is no comparison at all unless the range gets down to around 26-28kyd or less, and still the RFC has a serious advantage in terms of faster range change updates, salvo spotting, and motion tracking. If the best "hit" was 26.5kyd was optical (and if that shot goes to the S&G by some accounts they also had very good RFs and well trained crews) vs a large target and the best straddles (multiple) was at 36-38kyd vs a much smaller target moving at 35+ knots using RFC I do not think it would take much to figure out who would get hurt first - and most often.
At pretty much any visibility below 30-32kyd the Yamato would likely never see, much less accurately track, a long ranged target at all. The IJN was at a severe handicap in terms of radar gunnery technology, especially by 1942 onwards - and it was not even a contest by 1944. . Good example was the Washington vs the Kirishima at night.. the Kirishima had no idea who was shooting at her until it was FAR too late and that was at point blank range. Even the Scharnhorst had no idea the DoY was firing at her until it was too late. The golden BB only applies IF you can see the target, track it reasonably well, and hit it. It was not just about excellent radar vs optics either - the USN warships had some of best track/plotting, and stabilized, systems for engaging surface targets in the world at that time. So unless the Alaska captain was a total blubbering idiot and failed to use that extended range advantage.. it would have been a very one sided fight. The ONLY chance the Yamato would have had is in extremely good daylight conditions and even then the range has to drop to below around 26-28kyd for her to have any reasonable chance of a hit at all while the Alaska would start firing at around 37.5kyd - and likely avoid getting too close to retain the advantage. To say that the Alaska commander would not put up a fight I think is false also.. if the the Samar or Surigao engagements were any example, which I might add the IJN showed poor shooting skills during Samar and likely had no idea of the gauntlet they walked into at Surigao. If CVs were around... well why not cheat if you can, but if they were not then I am quite sure the Alaska would have done what she could.
Now again, would the Alaska sink the Yamato? No very likely not.. but she very likely could have rained shells on the Yamato and caused considerable damage with almost near impunity at extreme ranges even in daylight, and it would hardly even be a contest in anything less then excellent visibility conditions. In the end it would not have mattered much if she sank or not as with enough damage the Yamato would have likely at best never deployed again due to being stuck in a shipyard for months, or at worst sank on the way home due to other reasons, as happened to the Hiei. All I am saying is that the Alaska would have been a serious threat, even to the biggest BB ever built - with good reasonable, historical, and extrapolated evidence to back it up.
Thanks.
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