So Kurita doesn't lose his nerve off Samar...did he have any ammo left for the transports?

[spence]

I was listening to a discussion of various "What If's" of the Pacific War when one of the audience posed the question:

"What if Kurita doesn't pull back in the Battle Off Samar, annihilates or brushes aside Kinkaid's 7th Fleet and gets his fleet in amongst the transports of the Leyte invasion?"

The main thought in response seems to have been (from J Parshall and/or J Lundstrom) that the effect would have been minimal (but flashy) since the transports were already unloaded for the most part. However the question occurred to me that Kurita had been fighting a surface battle against what he thought was the 3rd Fleet for quite some time and had been doing a lot of shooting during that time.

How much ammunition did he have left? BB's don't really carry all that many rounds per gun tube (+/- 100 isn't it?). CAs have more but also shoot them off faster. IIRC the action lasted a couple of hours - that would seem to have given his ships an opportunity to shoot off around 2/3rds of their ammo at a minimum.

Had the DDs and CAs held onto their torpedoes for use later against the transports or had they shot them (ineffectually) already against Taffy 3?

Anybody know the answers or have a good source on these questions?

[mdiehl]

Assuming he gets through Kinkaid's units, which is doubtful, the BBs had plenty of ammunition to do major damage. The consequence I think would have been massive losses of supplies and support personnel, and a scattering of the landing fleet pending the elimination of Kurita's TF by Turner's TF.

I don't know that anyone has written a "what if" about all of that. I'd start with "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by Hornfischer.

[Treetop64]

His BBs weren't the only units there. The center force consisted of four BBs, six CAs, two CLs, and eleven DDs. That is a lot of firepower - in both rounds carried and weight of fire - to bring to bear. More than enough for what was needed for cleaning up at Leyte.

Secondly, the center force was only engaged by aircraft previously. The only surface action for the Center Group took place at the famous battle itself outside Leyte.

I highly doubt that shortages of ammo was a weighed consideration for Kurita to pull out. He had an overwhelmingly powerful surface task force facing a smaller and weaker landing force with light escort. He lost effective command and control of the forces at his disposal during the battle, and likely misjudged the situation and simply pulled out too soon. I think it's just that simple.

The significant thing is that Taffy 3 sent all of their available aircraft to try and stem the tide, and Kurita probably thought these were Halsey's aircraft, and he decided it was time to get the hell out of there. Considering the hurt his forces received from carrier aircraft the previous day, including suffering the loss of the Musashi, I don't blame him!

Fog of war can be a sonofabitch...

[mdiehl]

Fog of war can be a sonofabitch...

That's the heart of it in a nutshell.

Kurita had been in a running fight for two hours, was getting the snot kicked out of his light and medium units, and all he objectively had to show for it was sinking two American DDs, one DE, and a likely kill on a jeep carrier. Moreover, he didn't really know what was over the horizon. All he knew was that southern force had been completely annihilated, and his ships were taking a beating from a.c. the same as they had the day before, and that he'd already lost one CA to surface gunfire (fired by Kalinin Bay, of all things!) and was in the process of losing more CAs.

He was not on a suicide mission, so retreating seems to me to have been a very good move given what he knew about the circumstances.

Imagine how it plays out if he stays. An hour to get command and control, four hours to do a thorough job busting up command, control and cohesion of the invasion fleet. In that time, he winds up trapped between Halsey's CVs and BBs, Turner's BBs and CVEs, and can't sink enough of the invasion TF to substantially change the outcome. So he loses everything. Sinks maybe a dozen light vessels of the invasion tf, or else sinks maybe a dozen vessels in Taffey 2 and 3.

[vettim89]

Pardon me for being the Doubting Thomas here but this is a spurious argument. Some points to consider:

1. Two destroyers and a DE had hampered Kurita's progress South considerably. There were two more Taffy TF between Center Force and the transports. If their DDs and DEs fought similary as those from Taffy 3, that would further delay the progress South

2. Are we to beleive if Kurita had continued south that Kinkaid was going to have his transports just sit there and wait for him to arrive? Even at maximum speed, Kurita was several hours away from being in the transport area when he withdrew. Surely, if the threat continued to grow, Kinkaid would have ordered "everybody out of the pool". Yes, Center Force was faster than the transports, but that was not a chase Kurita could have hoped to win.

3. Olendorf was still down south with his TF. Yes, we know AP shells were short but I think it is ridiculous to suggest he wouldn't charge North if Kurita was getting close.

4. There were dozens of DDs in the transport group. They too would have acted as a screen. If two DDs and a DE were so disruptive when Center Force was fighting Taffy three, what effect would have four or five times that number yielded?

5. Three of Center Force's CAs were either sunk or heavily damaged by the air attacks from the CVE groups. Kurita's force was already being whittled away.

The jig was up for Kurita when he ran into Taffy 3. His only hope was to slip past the screening forces undetected to get at the transports.

As to the OP, I doubt ammo would have ever become an issue. Far more drastic things would have undone Kurita before he ran ot of shells

[Treetop64]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Fog of war can be a sonofabitch...

Imagine how it plays out if he stays. An hour to get command and control, four hours to do a thorough job busting up command, control and cohesion of the invasion fleet. In that time, he winds up trapped between Halsey's CVs and BBs, Turner's BBs and CVEs, and can't sink enough of the invasion TF to substantially change the outcome. So he loses everything. Sinks maybe a dozen light vessels of the invasion tf, or else sinks maybe a dozen vessels in Taffey 2 and 3.

This is a good point. Had Kurita stuck around he would have been trapped. With strong and numerous American surface units eventually able to block his movements to the south and - by this stage - a very, very cheesed off Halsey steaming fast and tossing aircraft his way from the north, and possibly east, Kurita would have had nowhere to go. Despite the criticism, pulling out when he did probably turned out to be the smartest thing he could have done.

But those tin cans did give his cruisers a pounding! One of the proudest actions in U.S. naval history.

[sventhebold]

My sister in-laws mothers brother served on the Johnston. He survived the initial attack but went back down inside to rescue his friends and never made it out. She still goes to a place where there is a memorial plaque to place flowers.

[Treetop64]

ORIGINAL: sventhebold

My sister in-laws mothers brother served on the Johnston. He survived the initial attack but went back down inside to rescue his friends and never made it out. She still goes to a place where there is a memorial plaque to place flowers.

~S~

[Sakai007]

My grandfather was aboard a DD with Halsey chasing the Japs north when this was going on. My thought is that, even if the invasion force had been hit by Kurita, by the time he was thinking of pulling back, he would have been in a USN sandwich with no hope of escape. It would have been even more beneficial for the US then how history played out. Between all the DDs kicking around and the serious amount of air power Halsey had at his disposal, every single ship would have been sunk and Kurita more then likely killed with them.

[Shellshock]

Admiral Kurita later produced a range of excuses for his disengagement decision. After three days and nights without sleep and having had one flagship sunk from under him (losing his staff in the process), he said his mind was extremely fatigued. He claimed a judgement of exhaustion. He talked (unconvincingly) about a signal of American warships off to the north which he wished to engage, of which no record can be found.

It could be there was no good solution for Kurita. Pressing on would merely have meant throwing away the lives of his officers and crewmen without accomplishing much at all in terms of damage to the Allies. Time was running out, or rather had run out, for the IJN, but it was a case of having thrown the dice and lost by the time Kurita was able to engage the CVE's off Samar. There was no sense sacrificing his men, because the result for the IJN would be the same, either way. At least they wouldn't be killed under his watch. He also may have imagained (for a while) that he had sunk a few fleet carriers in the bargain and that was enough for one day.

[spence]

The battle lasted almost 3 hours from the time of initial sighting until Kurita broke off the engagement. If his BBs were firing only half the time they likely used up around half of their total main gun ammunition even with a rate of fire of 1 round per tube every 2 minutes (some of their magazine capacity was used for those giant AA rounds too). The IJN cruisers were more closely engaged and maintained a higher rate of fire but they carried more shells per tube so what was their status?
I might add that if Oldendorf's BBs were short of AP ammo after a battle that lasted (for them) only a quarter of the time it's pretty hard to swallow that the Japanese didn't also have a problem with ammo).

I served on a couple of DD type ships. We didn't carry any 5" AP type shells. For a surface engagement 5" AA Common (non proximity fuzed) ammo was specified. It was more or less considered semi-armored piercing. DDs carry lots of shells but the IJN DDs were using their ammo (presumably like AA Common) against aircraft and surface combatants and quite likely used lots of it.

Only as a "what if" is the state of the IJN magazines after fighting Taffy 3 is relevant. He would not have cleaned up at Leyte Gulf if most of his guns/torpedoes were silent because they had no ammo left when he got there. It would be interesting if data on ammo expediture or magazine status is hanging around somewhere.

(Incidentally arguing that Kurita would have died rather pointlessly had he "succeeded" is a rather curious take on Japanese military operations and tactics. If logic had much to do with the IJ approach to war a negotiated end to the war would have been made before October 1944. Maybe Kurita didn't receive specific orders to commit suicide but it was only a few months after that Yamato and Co received exactly those orders.)

[mdiehl]

Maybe Kurita didn't receive specific orders to commit suicide but it was only a few months after that Yamato and Co received exactly those orders.)

About 5 1/2 months later.

But consider. Operation Ten-Go (Yamato & co's suicide mission) clearly was explicitly a suicide mission, and even then, several of the IJN chiefs (esp. Adms. Ito and Oi) were quite loud in protesting the waste of ships and men. So it is not as though "Not frittering away your assets" was uniquely Kurita's concern.

Also, it was really the Leyte battles that illustrated in the most undeniable way that the Japanese were outclassed on and above the water. Operation Sho-Go was supposed to be the big "decisive battle" fleet engagement from which the aggregated Combined Fleet would emerge victorious, and still operational, from a crushing defeat on American forces.

Instead, what the evidence showed to the IJN staff was that the IJN had been surpassed in every aspect of combat on, under, or over the water. With USN DDs capable of winning counterpunching contests with Japanese CAs, there wasn't a reasonable hope for Kurita on the day of battle, nor for the IJN staff once they learned what Kurita learned, of winning that big battle. It proved that a "decisive victory" naval battle in 1944 was no longer possible for the IJN.

After that, all the IJN had left was to choose between preserving a fleet-in-being versus suicide missions.

They chose.... poorly.

Rather than faulting Kurita for learning where the IJN stood and saving men and material I find it more supportable to blame Kusaka for ordering a repeat of the effort in 1945 with even lower prospects of success.

[MarkMohrifield]

According to what I read in Hornfischer's The Last stand of the Tin Can Sailors Kurita apparantly ordered a "general attack" instead of organizing the ships into a battle line. This decision was compouded by sending the destroyer divisions to the rear. Furthermore, Vice Admiral Shiraishi noticed sometime around 7:16 that the americans were not cruisers or full-sized carriers, but destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers, but did not relay to information up the line. Would altering any of these things affect the outcome of the battle?

[Treetop64]

Maybe.

Frankly, Kurita's forces were having a hard time dealing with the DDs and DEs already in front of them. How would getting the message "we're facing destroyers and escort units" change how the Japanese ships were already fighting? I suspect confirmation that Kurita already knew he was facing light units is shown by his ordering a general attack, instead of lining his guys up for coordinated fight against a heavier opponent. You wouldn't do that if you knew that you were facing a dedicated surface task force.

[MarkMohrifield]

Frankly, Kurita's forces were having a hard time dealing with the DDs and DEs already in front of them. How would getting the message "we're facing destroyers and escort units" change how the Japanese ships were already fighting?

Dunno, that's why I'm asking.[:)] Switching to more appropriate ammunition, maybe? Or had that already happened at that point?

I suspect confirmation that Kurita already knew he was facing light units is shown by his ordering a general attack, instead of lining his guys up for coordinated fight against a heavier opponent. You wouldn't do that if you knew that you were facing a dedicated surface task force.

The book claims that the Japanese lookouts mistook the escort carriers for Essex class carriers and the destroyers for Baltimore class cruisers, with the result that Kurita thought that he was engaging part of the Third Fleet.

[spence]

The whole point of the Japanese response to the Leyte invasion was to bring Japanese guns/torpedoes to bear on the American invasion fleet.

Ships have a limited supply of ammunition. Without a resupply following the Java Sea battle USS Houston and HMAS Perth ran out of effective munitions (they were shooting starshells at the enemy ships towards the end) during their abortive Sunda Strait escape attempt.

Having fought a two+ hour surface engagement off Samar (to say nothing of defending themselves against the preceding days airstrikes) it would seem quite possible that Kurita's fleet might well have been incapable of performing the assigned mission due to low ammunition supplies unless specific conservation measures had been ordered (and were adhered to) during the surface engagement. In my readings about the battle I recall no mention of any IJN torpedo attacks on Taffy 3...perhaps that is because the IJN ships had been ordered to conserve torpedoes for later use or perhaps that's because the torpedoes attacks that were made by IJN ships were ineffective.

In so far as I am concerned Kurita was screwed from the get-go no matter what he tried to do. An offhand, unsubstantiated claim that his big guns would have blown away the transports is not credible. If no actual orders were issued to conserve ammunition then several hours of surface combat might well have pretty near emptied his magazines. Just perhaps he might be forgiven his apparent timidity if by the end of his fight with Taffy 3 he was looking at nearly empty magazines and thus had no hope of achieving what was his actual mission against the transports.

I think it would be an interesting line of query but don't really know where to look for the data.

[Sakai007]

It is interesting to me how he entered battle with the US DD's and DE's in such an unorganized fashion.

Was his opinion of American surface fighting capability so low that he figured he could go about the battle any old way and still win the fight?

Would learning that the enemy they faced was not cruisers and fleet carriers, but destroyers and jeep carriers, and they were still having a very difficult time have hurt morale so badly that holding back that information was the best decision at the time?

If Kurita had gone into the fight like he was facing a qualitatively equal adversary, with a proper line of battle for starters, have had any effect on the outcome of that one engagement? And if so, would this have changed the overall situation on his end of the battle plan enough to pull off even a tactical victory? (I realize a strategic victory was absolutely impossible, even with divine intervention, for the Japanese at this point)

I have my own thoughts on these questions, but I would love to hear you all sound off before I do.

[ilovestrategy]

ORIGINAL: Sakai007


Was his opinion of American surface fighting capability so low that he figured he could go about the battle any old way and still win the fight?

I have always felt that the Japanese held this point of view all the way to the end of the war. After all, they thought their code was unbroken all the way to the end. And they really did not pay much attention to protecting their supply ships even though American sub activity was on the rise.

And let's not even talk about the shoddy preparations for Midway, especially with Yamamato ASSUMING that the Americans would have to be coaxed out of Pearl.

So yes, it would not surprise me if his opinion of American surface fighting capabilities was that low.


Edited to my typical poor American typing skills. Do Europeans ever have typos? [:D]

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: ilovestrategy


Edited to my typical poor American typing skills. Do Europeans ever have typos? [:D]

Clos too nefer.

[adsoul64]

olmost nefer