This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!
Yamato's gunnery had some notable accomplishments at Samar, including the famous "puppy being smacked by a truck" hits on USS Johnston.
I wonder how the cult would be different if Yamato had gone down in Sibuyan Sea and Musashi had committed ritual suicide off Okinawa.
I've always read that Johnston got hit by 14" shells. She continued to operate for quite a while after receiving the main battery BB hits (3 of them, I think). I wonder if she received 3 18" hits if she could actually continue to operate. I think it's amazing that she could operate after 14" hits anyway.
I suppose I'm confusing Johnston with Hoel. I wouldn't advise anyone to tell Tiornu that he's mistaken. But, everything I've read about the battle, Yamato was a non-factor, Kongo was the only one who hit anything, and Nagato tried to hit Taffy 2 most of the time. I don't remember the 4th BB.
did the shells explode or did they just go through the destroyer? Sounds amazing if three (no matter if 14" or 18") shells hit and actually explode and the DD keeps operating. [X(]
It takes hitting something substantial (lots of deceleration) to set off the base fuse in a big AP projectile.
In this instance, the rounds pass right thru with out hiting any thing substantial enought to set them off.
Still having a 14, 16 or 18 inch diameter object weighing 1800 to 3400 pounds, plow thru your ship even with out detonating, could mess you up badly.
It all depends of they passed thru something important or not.
Gregg
It takes hitting something substantial (lots of deceleration) to set off the base fuse in a big AP projectile.
In this instance, the rounds pass right thru with out hiting any thing substantial enought to set them off.
Still having a 14, 16 or 18 inch diameter object weighing 1800 to 3400 pounds, plow thru your ship even with out detonating, could mess you up badly.
It all depends of they passed thru something important or not.
Gregg
yeah and that´s what I´m thinking about because if those three shells really go booom within the inner of the destroyer I seriously wonder if the ship would stay afloat after even one hit.
It takes hitting something substantial (lots of deceleration) to set off the base fuse in a big AP projectile.
In this instance, the rounds pass right thru with out hiting any thing substantial enought to set them off.
Still having a 14, 16 or 18 inch diameter object weighing 1800 to 3400 pounds, plow thru your ship even with out detonating, could mess you up badly.
It all depends of they passed thru something important or not.
Gregg
yeah and that´s what I´m thinking about because if those three shells really go booom within the inner of the destroyer I seriously wonder if the ship would stay afloat after even one hit.
There was interesting studys of the Bismark battle that show how trajectory works. if a warship is close the trajecory is flat and the shell goes through the superstructure and makes a hole but does not explode unless it hits something massive. There was talk about defective British fuses but the holes in the Bismark was in places that would not set off the fuses. If a destroyer could set off the fuses so can hitting the water and that is not good. Battleship shell fuses were set to explode after penetrating armor. for everything else it just makes a hole.
The fuze delays on Japanese shells were literally ten times longer than in most foreign fuzes. That greatly increases the chances for through-and-throughs if you don't hit something solid. Sadly for Johnston, the shells hit a boiler and engines--all three shells detonated on board. The ship's response to the hits was more pronounced than you see in the other Samar DD large-caliber hits. The shock was so great that it snapped the master gyro frame in half, a fact so unusual that BuShips didn't want to believe it. After all, the thing was designed to withstand a shock of 2000 ft-lbs. Well, guess what...?
At the time when Johnston was hit, Haruna was not firing her main battery. Nagato also had checked fire but was preparing her secondaries to open fire. Kongo's main rangefinder was out of action, and she too checked fire before the Johnston hits. However, Yamato reported firing on and hitting an American cruiser at that time.
Now, we all know that action reports are not perfect, so there is some possibility that the timelines are sufficiently inaccurate to allow other possibilities. Nagato makes no claims of a hit during this period, and even if her chronology is shifted a few minutes, she checked fire some minutes before Yamato's "cruiser" got hit. Haruna likewise makes no hit claims and her chronology would have to be seriously off, by ten minutes or more, to match the hit with her reported gunnery. Kongo did claim hitting a destroyer, but it was about 13 minutes off.
Johnston's report describes her hits as 14in, and this is the only source for that caliber. BuShips, as I recall, didn't believe it and speculated it was actually 8in. You may recall that North Carolina was hit by a torpedo with 660 lbs of explosive...or so say the official reports. We now know the charge was 50% larger than that, but they were going with what they understood at the time. Ah, let me correct something. BuShips said the hits were 7.87in, because they thought IJN cruisers were still using 200mm guns. Sometimes intelligence ain't so intelligent. (I just made a comment on 200mm guns in another thread. I think the only ships still using the gun after 1939 were the Thai coast defenders, Kaga, and Akagi. One of the Furutakas still had its original guns but bored out to 203mm.) The BuShips claim was based on descent angles. In fact, BuShips was mistaken about the relative positions of the ships, and the descent angle they site actually favors the battleships over cruisers. Specifically it favors Yamato, who was closer than Kongo and whose guns fired at a lower trajectory at any given range.
Anyway, it's Johnston's claimed caliber that has caused historians to favor Kongo. In fact, Johnston does not say simply that they were 14in: "Ship sustained first hits which were composed of a salvo of three 14" or 16" projectiles...." Keep in mind that Yamato supposedly had 16in guns. The Johnston report actually allows for the culprit to be any of the four Japanese battleships.
If we ignore the timelines, we're left with two ships claiming hits that might be Johnston. Yamato was nearer, thus more likely to hit and better matching the estimated descent angle. The three-shell salvo favors Yamato, and we can also note the three "6-inch" hits that followed the big shells. There is nothing to favor Kongo except our disbelief that Johnston could survive three 3219-lb hits. But it sure likes she did.
Maybe further research and analysis will uncover something conclusive, but I think the evidence points to Yamato.
all three shells ignited? Wow, that makes my thinking about the effect of BB shells different, thought such a shell hitting a DD pretty much would have the effect of a 5 inch shell hitting a PT. But if a DD stays afloat after taking three of them... [X(]
I don't think AP shells had that much explosive content. I couldn't find any info about japanese AP shells, but for example Type 99 No.80 Mk 5 AP bomb (basically a converted 40 cm AP shell, used in Pearl Harbor) had only about 30 kg explosive content (out of 750 kg).
Of course inside a ship 30 kg explosive can be devastating...
just a note, from childhood
I always heard this; " Yamato was sunk after being attcked by hundreds of planes, taking dozens of hits etc etc.." basically givingthe impression that she would not have been sunk without being torpedoed numerous times ... for what its worth. again imo these ships, in hindsight for both US and Jap navies where terrible investments.
After all, which would you have one super BB or 5 cv's?
Every admiral dreams of having an unsinkable battleship. And the Yamato is probably as close to that as the Japanese could expect. A powerful surface force was seen as the only way to win the "decisive battle" that the Japanese doctrine. National pride also was built on the number of battleships you had in your fleet. I think these battleships were on the limit of the technical achievements and had to be constructed before the carriers took control of the oceans. Naval aviation grew from here for both sides could design better planes with advances in aero-engines. Until these improved planes could be made in numbers the battleship admirals held sway in all fleets.
Every admiral?
Life is tough. The sooner you realize that, the easier it will be.
