re: Found: wreck of Yamato sister ship Musashi

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But, of course, WW2 naval history is extremely interesting and I hope that I've written nothing to suggest otherwise.

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Because of this thread, I ventured over to the largest battles in history Wiki. From the Battle of Philippine Sea.

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The American F6F Hellcat fighter proved a capable weapon. Its powerful engine generated superior speed, and its protection and firepower made it rugged and deadly. The Japanese were still flying the A6M Zero, which though highly maneuverable and revolutionary during the early stages of the Pacific War, showed its age by 1943 standards as being underpowered and fragile, and quickly became obsolete in 1944. In addition, the D4Y "Judy", though fast, was also fragile and easily set afire. The Japanese naval airmen were also largely inadequately trained. The Japanese preparation programs could not replace the quality aviators lost during the past two years of the Pacific Campaign. Flying against the well-trained and often veteran U.S. aviators, it was a one-sided contest. The Americans lost fewer than two dozen Hellcats in air-to-air combat, and garnered nearly 480 Japanese kills, 346 of those carrier aircraft on 19 June alone.

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20:1 Kill Ratio.

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The story of the German Far East Naval Squadron based in Tsingtao China is fascinating.

Did the two German ACs have any chance at all to beat the British Battlecruisers, in your opinion? My reading of the situation gives them no chance.

Thanks for contributing to the conversation, foshizzle. I can tell that you have some professional-level knowledge of these topics.

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Thanks for the kind words. I agree the German fleet was doomed once Spee rejected his captains' advice not to raid Stanley. That said, I believe their best chance was to have pressed the initial attack while Sturdee's squadron was at anchor instead of running.

For example, if they'd survived long enough they might have gotten close enough to aim 6 and 8 inch shells at the bridges of the immobile battlecruisers. If successful, they would still have been pounded by the British guns but the rest of the fleet could have escaped. Pure conjecture of course, but I think it would have maximized the chance that some of the ships would make it back to Germany.

ETA: I don't know if the fact that the British hadn't yet raised steam would have impacted their ability to operate the guns. I suspect not since otherwise the German commanders of the time would certainly have known that and pressed forward.

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I don't know if the fact that the British hadn't yet raised steam would have impacted their ability to operate the guns. I suspect not since otherwise the German commanders of the time would certainly have known that and pressed forward.

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I also don't know whether the hydraulic systems that operate a big ship's guns are dependent on that ship's boilers being fully up to steam. It's a good question.

Graf von Spee was a good man. We are back to discussing the interesting aspects of World War One naval war ! The stories of the German East Asia Squadron, Graf von Spee and the Raider Emden will tickle the fancy of any Bluejacket.

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Correct, but my the time of Pearl Harbor she was a target/training ship.

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there is an overturned hull beached just north of battleship row visible when landing in HNL, I was told that was what's left of the Utah? maybe not?

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The Japanese naval arm produced some damn fine pilots. The problem was that it was slow and they were very very picky about who was trained. Once with the fleet they stayed with the fleet until they were KIA. Which happened in droves at Midway. Eventually they lowered the standards and shortened the training cycle which left them with half trained pilots in combat squadrons.

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This. By the time of the Mariannas Turkey Shoot, the Japs had lost the majority of skilled pilots.

They were losing them at a faster rate than they could be fully trained. Which is exactly what led to the Turkey Shoot. It doesn't matter the status of the A6M - even though it was sorely outclassed (and before anything is said about the Zero being severely outclassed, take a minute to think about the F4F Wildcat...) - if there weren't any pilots who could use its capabilities.

It really boiled down to skilled, veteran pilots going up against newbies.

The Japanese were not trying to conquer the US in WW2. The whole purpose of Pearl Harbor was to hurt the US Pacific fleet bad enough to cause the US to stay out of the Pacific theater, and hopefully out of a formal war.

Not to mention if the Japanese had used their submarine fleet to attack merchant vessels as ours did vs. having orders to ONLY engage US warships, then the Pacific campaign might not have turned out the way it did.
If not for what happened at Midway,(which could EASILY have been a nightmare for us instead of the Japanese,) we may have never had the opportunity to build a Pacific fleet that could safely venture out of San Fran Bay.


(Just saw Spiffs comments above. He said it much better than I attempted here)