S'ok, they might have been the biggest guns ever floated but they sucked due to poor quality gunpowder and the quality of the barrels. They weren't much more powerful than the Iowa class' 16" guns.
Yamato's AP shells punched all the way through light armoured ships, exploding in the sea instead: if the Japanese hadn't retreated from Samar, Yamato's 46cm guns wouldn't do much against the Taffy-3 task force.
The recoil of these behemoth guns was so violent that they could practically knock out any crewmen on the deck, which made impossible for crewmen to operate the AA guns while the main batteries were firing. It also made the positioning of AA guns and lifeboats much more complicated for the designers.
The most crippling downside to the Yamato's guns was actually sheer inaccuracy.
This was exacerbated by the fact that they didn't have the advanced radar-guided and computer-assisted systems that Americans had, and instead had to hand-calculate out trajectories for their guns and where the ships would be, so that the Yamato couldn't fire accurately unless it stopped to fire, and then hoped that the target would keep a straight course.
In battles like the Battle of Samar, the only time Yamato even had a possibility of hitting anything at all was when Gambir Bay was already crippled and dead in the water, making it a sitting duck. (And even that shot is contested.)
The reason why the little destroyers were capable of surviving shelling from battleships for hours wasn't just because AP ammo would go through them (the AP ammo of the cruisers was going through them, they switched off of AP ammo soon enough, anyway) the battleships couldn't hit because those shells took around a minute to travel those 25-40 km to reach the target, and if the target merely turned or changed how fast they were traveling, the shot would be off. And destroyer captains aren't stupid, they're going to make as difficult a target of themselves as possible. Just plain throwing the wheel back and forth as much as possible meant a handful of destroyers and destroyer escorts could last all day against battleships. It was the cruisers who were really engaged in combat and did the real damage at Samar.
And that was generally the case in much of the rest of the war - except for night battles like Guadalcanal, battleships basically never did anything useful because no matter how heavily armored the ship or powerful your guns are, it doesn't matter if the battle is over by the time you get to effective range. EFFECTIVE range being the key term.
Anyone here read Robert Lundgren's The World Wonder'd: What Really Happened Off Samar ? The book seems to reevaluate the Samar fight and kind of turn Yamato from being practically useless at gunnery into being one of the best in terms of gunnery in the battle...
Anyone here read Robert Lundgren's The World Wonder'd: What Really Happened Off Samar ? The book seems to reevaluate the Samar fight and kind of turn Yamato from being practically useless at gunnery into being one of the best in terms of gunnery in the battle...
Didn't she maybe got one good shot in on a crippled CVE? Kongou was doing most of the killing if I'm not mistaken.
Didn't she maybe got one good shot in on a crippled CVE? Kongou was doing most of the killing if I'm not mistaken.
Apparently it's because the US doesn't have knowledge of the 18" gun (or Yamato's true size) during the war, but they do know about the 14", so they kind of attribute it to the Kongou. The book argued that Yamato actually did a LOT more than what was historically assumed (especially in what was primarily attributed to Kongou).
I read a bit of the e-book, but not naval buff myself and the book is really dense in being like AAR (salvo by salvo no less) so I'm not sure about continuing reading it...so I guess I'll post a link to a guy that did summary on Sufficient Velocity forums .
YuubariI-8Major damageHoushou-san made some onigiri so make sure you eat them.How do I eat it?That's no good! I heard all about it!! Do you plan on marching into the battlefield on an empty stomach!?Also Yamato's range is about 42km.Here,Port of YokosukaAkigumoFrom Port of Yokosuka to Comiket convention center is about 39km.
≈24 miles.TokyoComiket convention centerChibaNo, calling this a battlefield is...all done.AkigumoComiket convention centerEh? You're telling me to eat it but it's at Yokosuka naval district, right?So there was a battleship department!Breakfast? Of course we don't have any.Battleship Yamato's awesome points
Standard displacement in the battleship department
Number One
Barrel length in calibers, gun caliber, and number of guns
Number One
Armor thickness at waterline, deck, and main gun turrets
Number One
Suitability for Ponzu sauceNumber OneThe Ponzu thing is a meme. Basically someone said "I'd pour ponzu sauce over Ushio and love her tenderly" and the expression caught on.Fujoshi class first ship, Melon-chan!!
(※Pen name)By the way, the case where Yamato's shell actually reached safely to its target point:
NEVER(Second in the battleship department)
Just a couple of hundred meters less than Vittorio Veneto.
