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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 4, 2015 17:15:08 GMT -6
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Post by steel selachian on Mar 5, 2015 19:42:50 GMT -6
Finding something sunk in the open ocean prior to the age of LORAN and GPS is not an easy task; I'm not surprised it required a search.
From the footage it looks like she landed upright, or at least the bow section did (haven't heard if the hull is in one piece). Kirishima is overturned on the bottom; Yamato's bow is upright but the aft section is overturned.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 6, 2015 8:40:37 GMT -6
Finding something sunk in the open ocean prior to the age of LORAN and GPS is not an easy task; I'm not surprised it required a search. From the footage it looks like she landed upright, or at least the bow section did (haven't heard if the hull is in one piece). Kirishima is overturned on the bottom; Yamato's bow is upright but the aft section is overturned. What's interesting, is that the lat-long of the sinking as recorded is not in the Visayan Sea but in the Sibuyan Sea. A Philippine fisherman apparently had located it around 20 kms from the shoreline of Magdiwang town in Sibuyan island, Romblon.
Here are the coordinates as presented by the team, 13°6'58"N 122°31'57"E. This does not, if my memory serves me, jive with the reported location after the war. Reports, unconfirmed, say that the Musashi did not break apart like Yamato, but there might have been a crack in the forecastle. Both ships had a defect in that area.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 6, 2015 12:55:35 GMT -6
The Executive officer and Chief Engineer both survived and were interrogated by the Naval Mission to Japan. She was hit by three torpedoes on her starboard side, around frame 130 near fireroom No. 11. Those torpedoes hit in succession, Frame 130, 140 and 150. The next attack saw two bombs plus three more torpedoes on the port side around frame 143. Two of those three might have hit frame 80 and frame 110. The third attack saw one torpedo strike frame 60, starboard.
The fourth attack saw her hit by four bombs, and four torpedoes. The first around frame 70, port side; another in the same location on the starboard side and these cumulative hits caused her to flood forward and be down by the head.
The surviving officers stated that the fatal damage was done by ten torpedoes. She turned bottom-side up at 1935 hrs and went down bow first.
If she turned turtle, then the turrets would have fallen out and drifted down. She sank in about 5000 feet of water.
INFORMATION FROM "THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF: STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL ANALYSIS" 1958 Naval War College
The Main body of IJN force which Musashi was a part of, had just cleared the narrow passage between Libagao Island and Masin Island south of Mindoro at about 0734 hrs. At the start of the day, this force was fifty miles west of Mindoro on a course 090 degrees true. The air attacks commenced at 1026 hrs. Movement rate is estimated at 22 knots. The second attack commenced at 1207. The third attack commenced at 1324 hrs. Musashi was reportedly doing 20 knots at the time.
The Fourth air attack commenced at 1426 and another, the fifth, at 1500. Musashi was reported as "unnavigable." Musashi was ordered at 1510 to return to Mako via Coron Bay. The decision to retire was confirmed at 1600 by Musashi, she was at position 13 deg. - 00 min. North and 122 deg. 40 min E. in the Sibuyan Sea at a speed of 18 knots.
The main body of the IJN force passed Musashi at sunset near latitude 13 deg. 4 minutes N and longitude 122 deg. 42 min E. on a course of 120 deg. She was reportedly in danger of sinking at this time and had two destroyers standing by. This should be her last known position. If we assume she didn't drift far in the sinking state, then this is pretty close to where she was reportedly found. The difference possibly is due to the accuracy of modern GPS based equipment.
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Post by spook053 on Mar 27, 2015 17:19:32 GMT -6
Learn something new.
I had known earlier of Yamato's shipwreck discovery in the 1980's (1985?), but between then and now, for some reason, I had thought that Musashi had already been found too. Guess not.
It's a bit ironic that Musashi was found only just now. In the same way as her sister ship months later, Musashi had taken an epic pounding, perhaps the worst ever done to a warship before it finally yielding to the waves. Such a "valorous" ship would have seemed to been truly deserving to have been searched and found long before this year. IMHO.
I can only hope she will not fall victim to future souvenir-hunting diving groups, and be protected in war-grave memorial status as is deserved her. |
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Post by steel selachian on Mar 28, 2015 0:14:29 GMT -6
Learn something new.
I had known earlier of Yamato's shipwreck discovery in the 1980's (1985?), but between then and now, for some reason, I had thought that Musashi had already been found too. Guess not.
It's a bit ironic that Musashi was found only just now. In the same way as her sister ship months later, Musashi had taken an epic pounding, perhaps the worst ever done to a warship before it finally yielding to the waves. Such a "valorous" ship would have seemed to been truly deserving to have been searched and found long before this year. IMHO.
I can only hope she will not fall victim to future souvenir-hunting diving groups, and be protected in war-grave memorial status as is deserved her. She's over half a mile down (3,280 ft), which limits access to government or private entities with manned submersibles or remotely operated vehicles. Your average bubble-blowing tourist moron is literally out of his depth at a mere 130 feet; past about 180-250 good old compressed air will do some very screwy things to people (I've heard stories of guys thinking the crabs were talking to them). The list of manned submersibles capable of safely reaching depths of over 3,000 ft is fairly short; even the few nuclear subs the Soviets built for those depths took damage on deep submergence trials. Not that that won't completely stop some - RMS Titanic has been fairly banged up by salvagers and filmmakers over the years (a 20-ton hull section is a display at the Luxor Las Vegas now) - but Musashi's grave is far more secure than HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which are accessible to scuba divers and have been stripped over the years. From what I've read, it does look like Musashi split in half, possibly due to her magazines exploding after she sank. The bow was sheared off between the forward turrets and landed upright, the stern was inverted, and the midsection was largely blown apart with the forward superstructure and funnel lying portside-down in the mud. www.startribune.com/world/296172551.html |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 28, 2015 7:35:43 GMT -6
This entry is from the TRON on the Combined Fleet website:
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 28, 2015 10:14:30 GMT -6
Just an update; I was researching in the Naval Mission to Japan archives and they stated that the Yamato class ships has two design deficiencies; Lack of depth of their underwater protection systems; the connection between the upper and lower side belt armor.
The summary of TDS states that the poor design of the TDS prevented attainment of the resistance naturally to be expected from the employment of such heavy material. The joint connection was particularly poor. it states that a US warhead with 600 lbs. of torpex would rupture YAMATO's TDS. The amount of inboard flooding possibly might vary with depth of the hit. Thus, if the point of impact was at or below the joint between the armored sections, inboard flooding probably could not be controlled. ....
The above is an exact quote from the document in the archive. Many test and result documentation was destroyed in the fire bombing of Tokyo, so was lost. However, the designers were still available for interrogation. It would seem to the untrained person, myself, that these two ships had a defect that would cost the Japanese the ships. BTW, Shinano had the same defects and we know her fate.
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Post by sirchaos on Mar 28, 2015 17:34:11 GMT -6
It's a bit ironic that Musashi was found only just now. In the same way as her sister ship months later, Musashi had taken an epic pounding, perhaps the worst ever done to a warship before it finally yielding to the waves. Such a "valorous" ship would have seemed to been truly deserving to have been searched and found long before this year. IMHO.
Or you could look at it this way: She deserved to be found by professionals who have the means (and the will) to preserve her as a memorial, rather than being picked clean by vultures before any professionals could get a look at her. And she got that. |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 29, 2015 8:21:51 GMT -6
It's a bit ironic that Musashi was found only just now. In the same way as her sister ship months later, Musashi had taken an epic pounding, perhaps the worst ever done to a warship before it finally yielding to the waves. Such a "valorous" ship would have seemed to been truly deserving to have been searched and found long before this year. IMHO.
Or you could look at it this way: She deserved to be found by professionals who have the means (and the will) to preserve her as a memorial, rather than being picked clean by vultures before any professionals could get a look at her. And she got that. The graves of the war dead, on all sides should be preserved and left alone. It is up to the country to preserve that site. However, as Steel said, the 4000 feet of depth probably will protect it. |
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Post by kyle on Mar 31, 2015 17:26:59 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 31, 2015 20:05:09 GMT -6
Yes, it is interesting to delve into the torpedoing of the North Carolina. She was torpedoed on September 15, 1942, by I-19 who had fired six torpedoes at Wasp, three hit, one hit O'Brien, one torpedo ran out of fuel, and the other... you guessed it... hit North Carolina. Wasp was sunk, O'Brien sank on the way back to San Francisco, and NC got temporary repairs and then sailed to PH for permanent repairs. Interesting.
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Post by kyle on Apr 1, 2015 10:26:12 GMT -6
Musashi was absolutely swarmed by aircraft and had a pretty poor AA suite comparatively. Her heavy (5 inch) was OK, but the 25mm weapons the Japanese used in large numbers were not capable of downing the rugged American aircraft.
Don't misunderstand - I'm glad no more USN battleships were struck by torpedoes, but I always wonder how the torpedo protection of the South Dakota or Iowa really were. On paper they looked pretty good where the hull had room. The long bow of the Iowa class was vulnerable - South Dakota didn't have that 'long nose' though.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 1, 2015 18:09:43 GMT -6
Just some details about the results of the torpedoing of the NC. It was a 660 lbs. warhead, which was a little smaller than the size she was designed to withstand. The hole admitted about 970 tons of water and the armor above the hole cracked and the second and third decks buckled. She had to slow down to 18 knots to prevent strain on the shoring around the hole. The structural damage below turret #1 was such that the turret was non-operational and the shock disabled the main search set. It was believed that NC class could only withstand about three torpedoes on one side before stability issues entered the picture.
Another bit of information about I-19 the sub that fired the torpedoes, she also chased a 10,763 ton SOC tanker then fired two torpedoes, another went hot and had to be fired but all missed. This was December 22 1941. Two days later, she fire one torpedo at a schooner and missed but on the same day she finally hit a target, off of San Pedro. The reason she was off of the coast of California was because she was part of the group of submarines ordered to fire shells at the West Coast, which I-19 did. She is finally lost on 25 November 1943 after being depth charged by the USS Radford, at night.
As to the South Dakota and Iowa class ships, there TPS was enhanced and I am still researching their configuration.
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Post by kyle on Apr 21, 2015 9:55:22 GMT -6
I've been digging into torpedo protection systems (TPS) in general, and more specifically on battleships. One thing I find is that most ships where it was thought that the TPS was sufficient find out the hard way that it has problems. Largely due to that it becomes very hard to determine how good some TPS were - since they were never tested. The Iowa and South Dakota class (BB57) class were never torpedoed. The Richelieu and Dunkerque's were not either.
How would an Iowa class ship handle a torpedo? Is there a flaw somewhere that would only be found the hard way? No way to know. Yamato had a somewhat similar armor and side protection system to the Iowa class with the side/belt armor extending down to provide protection against diving shells. That rigid armor proved a weakness in Yamato as it displaced inward rather than deformed. For at TPS you want the metal to bend not break and the various bulkheads and spaces - some void, some filled with water or oil - to absorb the energy of the explosion. Too rigid and you run into trouble (Yamato). Iowa may have had a similar issue. That long nose of the Iowa class, designed to allow the high speed also was vulnerable. Width of the TPS is another component. How far from the vitals of the ship can you keep the torpedo explosion? The farther the better!
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