re: Found: wreck of Yamato sister ship Musashi

My Dad was at the Leyte Gulf aboard the Destroyer Dunlap DD 384.
RIP, Pop

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The only large scale Battleship/Battleship fleet action in the Pacific was the Battle of Surigao Strait, also during the Phillipines campaign. America's WWI era BB's slaughtered Japan's WWI era BB's, but neither side had their top of the line BB's there.

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Surigao Strait featured only one Japanese battleship, the Fuso, and because it was a night action the Fuso (lacking radar fire control) could barely shoot straight. Literally they were aiming at the flashes of gunfire many miles away.

And there were plenty of them, because the US battlewagons had radar fire control and well-trained crews that fired an avalanche. The ammo usage by the US cruisers was nothing short of incredible. This was a slaughter, not a battle.

The Kirishima/South Dakota night action was under very different circumstances. It was close enough that spotlights could be used to illuminate targets, and that helped the Japanese a great deal. If Washington hadn't been there to save the day it could have been much worse.

Tsushima? True but that was in the "pre-dreadnought" era. A smaller one from that era but along similar lines was the Battle of Coronel which I bet most of you have never heard of.

It was the original Scheinhorst and Gneisenau from WW One, not Two. They crushed a British force off the coast of Chile, but used half their ammunition doing so and then got crushed themselves by battlecruisers near the Falklands later.

Read about the Battle of Samar and Taffy 3. One of the biggest mismatched in Naval Warfare, and the little guys pulled it off.

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USS Louisiana BB-71,

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That would be sweet on the Baton Rouge waterfront.

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The only downside to Jutland is it seems both admirals were more worried about losing their own fleet than destroying the others.

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Good observation, but, there is a logical explanation.

The British Grand Fleet in the North Sea that fought at Jutland was aggressive. They would not have sailed to intercept the German High Seas Fleet otherwise. The danger of mines and submarine-launched torpedoes did place a limit on that aggressiveness at Jutland.

One good tactic would have been to lure the British battleships into a trap of German subs in wait and ready to greet them with torps. That's why the British were hesitant to charge their battleships right at the German battle line.

Also, if the British fleet were to decisively lose a naval battle such that the Germans would subsequently have more battleships, the British would have lost the war. The blockade of Germany would have been lifted and the German High Seas Fleet could then partially blockade Britain and prevent reinforcements and supplies from sailing to the Western Front in France.

At Jutland, the German fleet was aggressive, but maneuvered in attempts to gain an advantageous position. Once the Germans realized that they were fighting the entire British Grand Fleet, they knew that they had to get back to port.

New research and analysis completed in the last 30 years indicates that the possibility of the British decisively losing a naval engagement that would hand the Germans naval superiority was real.

The reason for this is because the British gunpowder was too volatile. If ignited in the magazine or gun house, it would violently explode, causing the ship to blow up like Beatty's battlecruisers did (that's why he said that something was wrong with his "bloody ships"). All of the British battleships used the same faulty gunpowder! If the German battleships had been able to square off for an hour or so against the British battleships, some British battleships would surely have exploded in the same manner as their Battlecruisers exploded.

The German gunpowder did not violently explode when ignited by an enemy hit, but, rather, burned in a more controlled manner that did not cause the kind of instantaneous overpressure that would blow the whole ship sky-high.

Jutland featured exploding capital ships and the instant loss of a thousand souls. HMS Invincible exploded, over 1000 KIA. HMS Indefatigable exploded, over 1,000 KIA. HMS Queen Mary exploded, over 1,200 instantly KIA. HMS Warrior exploded, 770 lost. HMS Black Prince exploded, 800 lost.

So, this is very dramatic stuff, when you have a naval battle with so many capital ships exploding like car-bombs killing the whole crew of 1,000 instantaneously. Very interesting naval history indeed.

Aircraft-carrier naval war is dramatic, of course, but lines of steel battleships blasting away at each other from 15 miles away is also very interesting.

My great uncle was on a jeep carrier, Uss Princeton that was devastated by a single dive bomber at Leyte Gulf. she didnt sink from the damage but was so badly damaged she was torpedoed by US destroyers after all hands had evacuated. He told the story several times, was very interesting.
CVL-23

The Battle of Surigao Strait was one of a four-part act that made up the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history. During a moonless night sixty years ago on 24 October 1944 in the waters between the islands of Leyte and Mindaneo in the Philippines, the last battleship verses battleship engagement in history was fought. Before dawn on the 25 October, a way of fighting that began in the 15th Century of gunnery duels against ships, often within sight of each other, would disappear. It was also the end of the battleship as the premier capital ship, as the aircraft carrier would continue to evolve as the most dangerous vessel in a navy’s order of battle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf#The_Battle_of_Surigao_Strait_.2825_October.29LINK

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IJN. They used to shoot in colors to identify their different ships.

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That is interesting and something I learned today. Thanks.