Battle of Midway Roundtable

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I used to visit this website regularly:

www.midway42.org/

But as I moved from VT to WA last year I had other things on my mind so I forgot all about it for a while. Anyways it continues to be published monthly and in the last 8 months has had some interesting discussions about:

1) Mark 13 torpedoes (and other US torpedoes) including various modifications and the bureaucratic struggles over them.
2) Nagumo's confusion over the Tone#4 sighting report. Why Soryu's D4Y recon plane was launched thereafter.
3) How the gunner/observer participated in an SBD's bomb attack on a target.
4) The development of armor protection and self-sealing tanks on various naval aircraft including some of the field modifications.

Worthwhile reading.

[Yaab]

OK, Wikipedia says AO Neosho shot down three Japanese aircraft with its AA guns during the Coral Sea battle, and "Shattered Sword" says all Jap ships at Midway shot down just two (sic!) US aircraft for the whole June 4, 1942.

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and "Shattered Sword" says all Jap ships at Midway shot down just two (sic!) US aircraft for the whole June 4, 1942.

According to "Shattered Sword" all Japanese ships under attack shot down 3 aircraft on June 4, 1942 but one of them was a Zero fighter

[Yaab]

Right. I don't think WWII merchies had fire directors onboard. Am I correct?

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Mark I, Mod 0 eyeball plus "Kentucky windage" on merchies (some later naval auxiliaries had
fire control - doubtful that Neosho did.

USN flak was heavier right from the get-go than Japanese flak though and IJN a/c in 1942 had little if any armor and no self-sealing gas tanks so the Neosho claim of 3 a/c shot down may be valid.

[cardas]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

OK, Wikipedia says AO Neosho shot down three Japanese aircraft with its AA guns during the Coral Sea battle, and "Shattered Sword" says all Jap ships at Midway shot down just two (sic!) US aircraft for the whole June 4, 1942.

Though if we are talking about claims then by the same token Japanese aircraft were apparently claimed to have been shot down during the Battle of Los Angeles.

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USS Neosho did shoot down one a/c since it was hit by 7 bombs and one aircraft (presumably a suicide crash).

Apparently the Bunker C/NSFO 6 she was carrying didn't burn very well.

[Yaab]

Actually, wouldn't TK/AOs be the most stable platfoms for an accurate AA fire ? Slow speed, wide hull, low silhouette. They and Siebel ferries should probbaly score most hits in any AA contest among WW2 merchies.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Actually, wouldn't TK/AOs be the most stable platfoms for an accurate AA fire ? Slow speed, wide hull, low silhouette. They and Siebel ferries should probbaly score most hits in any AA contest among WW2 merchies.

Neosho was a naval oiler with 18 knot speed - about twice the norm for a tanker. The hull was probably slimmer to get the speed and if it had pumped a lot of fuel it would not be riding low in the water. I think the big thing is to have gunners willing to keep shooting while a Val is growing in their sights and strafing them as it dives!

[wegman58]

ORIGINAL: spence

Mark I, Mod 0 eyeball plus "Kentucky windage" on merchies (some later naval auxiliaries had
fire control - doubtful that Neosho did.

USN flak was heavier right from the get-go than Japanese flak though and IJN a/c in 1942 had little if any armor and no self-sealing gas tanks so the Neosho claim of 3 a/c shot down may be valid.

Once upon a time (summer of 1977) I was stationed on USS FRANCIS MARION, LPA-249 (reserve cruise). The French towed out a WW II DDE for a SINKEX. We had some newer ships, they all had fire control radar (a DDG2, a BROOKE (FFG-1), some missile cruiser, a RCN Iroquis. The LPA shot last. All the newer ships with the fire control radar missed the first shot. We had WW II recycled 3"/50s. First salvo - Orange Flash (we hit the thing). Gun captain was a GMG3 (E4). We had the Commodore on board. He went to bed as an E5 with a new medal (it is GOOD to impress the Commodore).

And that was with one salvo (twin gun).

It was interesting to watch a ship sink.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: spence

and "Shattered Sword" says all Jap ships at Midway shot down just two (sic!) US aircraft for the whole June 4, 1942.

According to "Shattered Sword" all Japanese ships under attack shot down 3 aircraft on June 4, 1942 but one of them was a Zero fighter

This is strange.

The early Jap AA could actually shoot down planes.

Here is some info from the Java Gold blog concerning the dive-bombing action on 20th Feb., 1942 off Java. Obviously, the battle took place over two days (19-20th Feb., 1942), so the Japs were alert on day two.

https://thejavagoldblog.wordpress.com/2 ... mment-1957

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"Galusha peeled off and went after the moored ships. At least 30 A6M Zero’s were scrambled from the nearby airfield and a fierce dogfight developed with the escorting P-40’s. This left the bombers a relative freedom to attack; Galusha dove at the moored vessels while Backus went for the incoming ships. And Summers picked what he thought was the largest incoming warship of them all. Unlike the day before, the alerted Japanese defenses now threw up an immense amount of AA fire and two A-24’s fell victim to it.

2nd Lt. Douglas Tubb was probably hit because his A-24 never recovered from its 12.000 feet dive and went straight into the sea, taking its pilot and air-gunner Pvt. D.S. Mackay to a watery grave. 2nd Lt. Richard Launder and his gunner Cpl. L.W. Lnenicka aimed for what they thought was a cruiser. They really pressed home their attack and after scoring two hits, Launder pulled up and streaked across the harbor at 15 feet above the water. The lonely plane was raked by Japanese ground-fire that shot away an oil line. Half blinded by the spraying oil, Launder managed to escape and ditch his damaged plane in the sea, about eight miles from Den Pasar and about half a mile offshore."

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So the Jap early-war flak wasn't deficient per se and only failed at Midway due to the number of attacking aircraft.

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So the Jap early-war flak wasn't deficient per se and only failed at Midway due to the number of attacking aircraft.

The 25mm AAA was a terrible AA weapon. With 4 round "clips" per barrel it required reloading every few seconds. When the entire diving time of a divebomber is measured in a minute or so the reloading time was an interruption of fire that could very likely prove fatal to the firing ship. One needs to remember that the 25mm could fire all it wanted BUT it could only hit something at 7000 ft or so. Ask yourself how long it took a diving divebomber to go from 7000 ft to 2000 ft. I can't say but it sure as heck wasn't long. And once a divebomber had gone into its dive that is all there was to "defend" the ship. The heavier AA did not have a proximity fuze so the shell had to be set to detonate after a timed interval (after leaving the barrel). As such it was completely useless once dive bombers had entered their dive.

I wouldn't draw any great conclusions from the description of the attacks in the article. From reading the article it would seem that the Japanese got lucky on Feb 20. Even then one of their claims might well be because those A-24s did not have the greatest of maintenance (or training) while at Malang so the controls (or the pilot) may have simply frozen up.

[Dili]

Well any small AA is practically useless against dive bombers we just have to look at ceiling they can reach. The 40mm changed this since was a medium caliber.

Edit. 25mm gun had 15 round clips, it could achieve real 120-130 rpm like the 40mm, but the mount was bad in following targets and the range and damage that could do was obviously less then 40mm.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: spence

Mark I, Mod 0 eyeball plus "Kentucky windage" on merchies (some later naval auxiliaries had
fire control - doubtful that Neosho did.

In 1938, the AA armament mandated by the General Board for all auxiliaries was 4x5in/38 guns and a Mk37 director. Due to shortages in guns and directors after Pearl Harbor, of the T3-S2-A1 AOs like "Neosho", only three received that armament: "Cimarron", "Platte" and "Salamonie". "Neosho" was originally intended to receive the same armament, but had eventually one 5/38 and four 3/50, which was the standard for all subsequent AOs.

[spence]

Well any small AA is practically useless against dive bombers we just have to look at ceiling they can reach

Except for the fact that that was all the IJN had to defend with at all. The IJN heavy 5"/40cal couldn't fire at all against a dive bomber once it had started to dive since each individual shell had to have its timed fuze set to a specific time (out of the barrel). Actually one shell (random) could have its timed fuze set correctly but the dive bomber changed altitude (the time out of the barrel) so rapidly that no other shell would have its fuze set correctly thereafter or previously. The VT (proximity) fuze changed that and the results drastically changed the effectiveness of the 5"/38 of the USN.

The Japanese did not detect the USN carrier dive-bombers at Midway until they had entered their dives: so according to "Shattered Sword" IJN flak shot down three planes all day long on 4 June (including the attacks by the torpedo-bombers and the Midway bombers and one of them was an A6M2). The 25mm AAA was not a good weapons system.