IJN Battleship Yamato

[Charge]

"It was to make up for other ...ummm...deficiencies"

What is that bj?

-C+

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Squire
I have to say I think BBs the tonnage of Yamato were simply beyond common sense to build. The IJN would have been better off building BBs of a tonnage perhaps 2/3 that size, say Kongo class? but 2-3 times the #. Especially considering Japan had limited heavy industry and needed to import their oil. Several surface groups with BBs are better than one, even if that one is the best. Bragging rights? sure, but not built for war.

One reason for building BBs of such enormous size was  the expectation that any US battleship built to answer that threat would have been too big to use the Panama canal.

[quintv]

The primary reason size of the Yamato class was the realization that Japanese industry could never patch U.S production of capital ships (at the time primarily battleships), so they opted for trying to build a few that would simply overpower U.S numerical superiority.


P.S

LOL at people still trying to find equality between Buchenwald and Guantanamo.  DEY ARE TEH SAME!!

[Charge]

And the bigger gun is always better which causes the superstructure to be bigger and heavier to (probably) withstand the recoil effects. The smaller deck guns need to be turreted to protect the gun crews of the huge blasts of 18" cannons which causes further requirements for superstructure because of added weight.

Before the WW2 there were treaties that all the biggest seafaring nations had to comply and those laid restrictions to weigths and sizes of guns. When the war began the treaty had already expired so the new ships could be vastly bigger than before, and notice that many warships where rather old and many had already served during WW1.

http://www.naval-history.net/WW2MiscPreWar.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_class_battleship

If the Japanese could have provided potent aircover for Yamato the ship would have been a considerable threat, maybe not on open sea, but in limited area combat as in Okinawa vicinity. But if the planes would not have got it it would have meen sunk by the US fleet sooner or later... but if it had got to Okinawa it might have had some kind of effect on Okinawa defences. But it was on suicide mission and to the fortune of US troop ships and landing craft it didn't get to them.

-C+

[storch]

what happened to Yamato was that that no matter how large or well armored no ship could withstand the onslaught of a well co-ordinated air attack.  aerial superiority was a must from the beginning of WWII until forever.  this was aptly demonstrated by the loss of repulse and prince of wales and further cemented at the coral sea.

[Squire]

No, I wouldnt not have built BBs at all for the IJN (or any other navy), just saying if they were going to... the Kongo class made more sense. Probaly cost 1/4 of what Yamato did.

Fleet CVs of @30,000 tons max (as many as they could build), Cruisers and other escorts, a sizable ASW force, and a lot of long range subs in the 2000 ton range, for use against the west coast of N. America, Hawaii, and Australia.

...and a Merchant force. They needed transports and oilers, not BBs with 18 inch guns sitting in port.

[1K3]

Isnt Yamato　「大和」 the former name of Japan 「日本国」?

[E25280]

Originally posted by Squire
No, I wouldnt not have built BBs at all for the IJN (or any other navy), just saying if they were going to... the Kongo class made more sense. Probaly cost 1/4 of what Yamato did.

Fleet CVs of @30,000 tons max (as many as they could build), Cruisers and other escorts, a sizable ASW force, and a lot of long range subs in the 2000 ton range, for use against the west coast of N. America, Hawaii, and Australia.

...and a Merchant force. They needed transports and oilers, not BBs with 18 inch guns sitting in port.

You are back to a capacity issue.  If you have a limited number of naval yards and production capacity, you can not hope to overwhelm your enemy with numbers.

I could be off base here, but if the choice was to make two super battleships in a production yard or three smaller battleships / heavy cruisers in the same amount of time (the most precious resource), I can see why super-battleships made sense to them.

Smaller may mean less steel, but does not necessarily mean you could put the excess steel to better or even productive use.

[Karnak]

Kongo class were junk.  They are Battlecruisers that were talked up as Battleships.

Japan only had four Battleships, Nagato, Mutsu, Yamato and Musashi.  All other so called battleships were actually battlecruisers.

So was the Hood.

[Irwink!]

Originally posted by E25280
Look up a 70's flick called "Cross of Iron."  It's been 7-10 years since I last saw it, so I don't remember all the details, but it is told from a German perspective on the East Front.

Pick up the book if you can find it. Vastly better than the movie, which kinda sucked in comparison having already read the book over 35 years ago.

[Widewing]

DiabloTX already pointed to this site, but, I'll mention it again....

Combined Fleet

My regards,

Widewing

[Squire]

Well, I dont know about them being junk (the Kongos), are you judging them as a line vessel thats supposed to "gun duel" a BB (like Washington), they are not up to par, but im talking more in line with a realistic WW2 fleet, where your heavy ships are going to be screening your CVs, and providing bombardment on occasion. Lets remember the whole idea of "Jutland" was not going to happen in the pacific war. Sure its an interesting "what if" debate, but I wouldnt be building them for that in real life, back then.

I still say the Yamatos were a huge expense, for a ship that was never going to do what its supporting BB Admirals envisioned, and even if it was, the idea of a "super BB" is a flawed concept, imho, compunded by the fact its produced by a nation with the smaller industry. 8 Kongos would have served the IJN better than 2 Yamato BBs. You could afford to use them, and the loss of one isnt the end of your navy.

...its still an impressive ship, not taking anything away from that. I would not have wanted to shoot it out with that monster.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by Karnak
Kongo class were junk.  They are Battlecruisers that were talked up as Battleships.

Japan only had four Battleships, Nagato, Mutsu, Yamato and Musashi.  All other so called battleships were actually battlecruisers.

So was the Hood.

Ise, Hyuga, Yamashiro and Fuso were not BC's.  They were definitely BB's of WWI vintage.  Far too slow to be classed as BC's.

[Brooke]

Originally posted by DREDIOCK
And why not hear the story as it was experienced from the other side?
Doesnt make the story any less interesting just "Das Boat" was a good story

I'd also be for a Band of Brothers type story as told from the Germans as well.

Das Boot was excellent.  I also highly recommend Downfall.

I, too, would love to see a Band of Brothers style show about German or Japanese soldiers.  Letters from Iwo Jima was sort of like that, but both Letters and Flags of Our Fathers were not nearly as good as Band of Brothers, especially in terms of depth and character development.

As for the movie about the Yamato, I'd certainly go see it -- regardless of how any other aspect of the movie turns out, I know that at least it visually looks good.  In Flags of our Fathers, a couple of my favorite parts are the brief depictions of Corsairs flying over the fleet and of them attacking at Iwo.

[E25280]

Originally posted by Squire
Well, I dont know about them being junk (the Kongos), are you judging them as a line vessel thats supposed to "gun duel" a BB (like Washington), they are not up to par, but im talking more in line with a realistic WW2 fleet, where your heavy ships are going to be screening your CVs, and providing bombardment on occasion. Lets remember the whole idea of "Jutland" was not going to happen in the pacific war. Sure its an interesting "what if" debate, but I wouldnt be building them for that in real life, back then.

I still say the Yamatos were a huge expense, for a ship that was never going to do what its supporting BB Admirals envisioned, and even if it was, the idea of a "super BB" is a flawed concept, imho, compunded by the fact its produced by a nation with the smaller industry. 8 Kongos would have served the IJN better than 2 Yamato BBs. You could afford to use them, and the loss of one isnt the end of your navy.

...its still an impressive ship, not taking anything away from that. I would not have wanted to shoot it out with that monster.

A couple of points . . . first, remember that the Yamato was built before the carrier was "proven" as a combat platform, therefore a Jutland-like confrontation was exactly what the admirals/planners of the time expected to happen eventually.  BBs were captial ships, not screening vessels.  To use your logic that screening vessels would be more useful, then BBs should not have been built at all, only destroyers and destroyer escorts.

Second, I don't think you can say they could have had 4 Kongos for each Yamato.  That is like saying that Ford should be able to convert an Explorer assembly plant and be able to produce 4 Focuses for every Explorer they used to produce.  The conversion in terms of material, personnel and support facilities just does not convert that easily.  

Finally, the "operating cost" of four smaller ships vs. one larger one is much greater.  This evening when I have more time I will try to put better numbers to this, but to use a hypothetical in terms of trained naval personnel . . . for sake of arguement, lets say the Yamato had a crew of 4,000, and each Kongo had a crew of 2,000.  4 Kongos would then require 8,000 crew, or twice as many "resources" in terms of personnel than a single Yamato.  Like I said, those are made up numbers, but hopefully you see where I am going with it.  Similarly, a single Yamato uses more fuel than a single Kongo, but I would wager two Kongos would use more fuel than the single Yamato.

Bottom line, it is easy in hindsight to say the decision looks like a poor one.  But when attempting to plan for the future, these decisions are neither easy nor clear-cut.