A tour of the off-limit areas of BB USS Iowa

[mako88sb]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Wow! as u probably know the Iowa ia particular interest of mine but the footage of the command center and Harpoon firing console-the "blue light special"; a very revealing tour. As old as it is it still looks pretty good! Love the analog(not digital) firing controls! Many thanks for the link.

Your welcome. Magnificent looking ships that's for sure.

I should clarify about my second link that has the South Dakota class BB's coming out pretty favorably compared to the Yamato's. This is of course a comparison with the guy doing the analyzing having access to post war information that of course wouldn't been available to everybody during the war. I don't know how well the USA had figured out the Japanese fire control system used on the Yamato.

[Commander Wallace]

Awesome video and tour of the Iowa. Really interesting material here. I liked the second link showing the comparison between the various Battleships.

Thanks for posting the links and material.

[mako88sb]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

Awesome video and tour of the Iowa. Really interesting material here. I liked the second link showing the comparison between the various Battleships.

Thanks for posting the links and material.

Yes, those comparisons are pretty interesting although, of course all pretty hypothetical seeing as one-on-one engagements were pretty rare. I don't know if you clicked on any of the blue numbers in the detailed information section? Some great stuff mentioned there that contributed to his comparisons.

That site, btw, is just one small part of the main website set-up about the Japanese navy during WW2. I believe by one of the co-authors of "Shattered Sword". Here's the main site and I know I spent quite a number of hours on it when I first stumbled across it. Tons of very interesting material that's for sure:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by mako88sb

Your welcome. Magnificent looking ships that's for sure.

I should clarify about my second link that has the South Dakota class BB's coming out pretty favorably compared to the Yamato's. This is of course a comparison with the guy doing the analyzing having access to post war information that of course wouldn't been available to anybody during the war. I don't know how well the USA had figured out the Japanese fire control system used on the Yamato.

Yamato’s nine 18-inchers could throw a 3,200-pound shell out to 26 miles, while Iowa’s nine 16-inch guns could propel a 2,700-pound shell 24 miles. Even though Japanese shells were less effective than American ones, the range advantage should belong to Yamato. Yet the real issue was even hitting the target in the first place. Given World War II fire control systems, the chance of hitting a battleship moving at 30 miles per hour from a distance of 25 miles is very small.
For his analysis, Parshall assumes that both battleship captains would close the range to less than 23 miles. At that distance, both the Yamato’s and Iowa’s guns could penetrate each other’s armor. “That’s why I say there’s a lot of luck involved here,” Parshall explained. “Iowa’s fire control is better. But if Yamato gets lucky and gets in the first hit or two, and they’re doozies, it could very easily be game over for Iowa.”

"As part of its quest for qualitative superiority, Japan trained its battleship crews (with greater range guns) in long-range shots to achieve such devastating underwater hits. “The chances of any given shell giving us a good underwater effect is pretty low,” Parshall noted. “But if you throw enough shells up in the air, strange things can happen. And after a while, odds are, they probably will.” As with the underwater shot that damaged Bismark from a 14" shell from Prince of Wales landed short, dove through the water and penetrated the German battleship below her more lightly armored waterline...While Yamato was thickly armored everywhere, Iowa’s armor was thicker over her more vital areas. However, as Parshall points out, only America could afford to build battleships with hulls and interiors constructed entirely out of tough but light Special Treatment Steel, which meant that U.S. battleships could be smaller and lighter (and faster-27 knots vs 33) for an equivalent amount of protection. Additionally Yamato's seam welds between upper and lower armor belts were inferior.

Japanese fire control radar was poor (but better optics and night scopes), while American fire control radar was the best in the world.
“In a 1945 test, an American battleship (the North Carolina) was able to maintain a constant [fire control] solution even when performing back to back high-speed 450-degree turns, followed by back-to-back 100-degree turns,” This was a much better performance than other contemporary systems,” he continues, “and gave U.S. battleships a major tactical advantage, in that they could both shoot and maneuver, whereas their opponents could only do one or the other.” The newer Japanese systems such as the Type 98 Hoiban and Shagekiban on the Yamato class were more up to date, which eliminated the Sokutekiban, but it still relied on 7 operators. In contrast to US radar aided system, the Japanese relied on averaging optical rangefinders, lacked gyros to sense the horizon, and required manual handling of follow-ups on the Sokutekiban, Shagekiban, Hoiban as well as guns themselves. This could have played a role in Center Force’s battleships' dismal performance in the Battle off Samar in October 1944.

Bottom line: as with the battle of the Denmark Strait and the subsequent huntdown of the German Battleship: luck is a major factor- when you get into battle, plan 'A' is no longer in effect....an errant big shell that turns torpedo can literally 'undermine' your expensive top armor...Edge to Iowa imho; especially in a preferred nighttime engagement in which an astute calculating American commander would have the advantage. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-ultimate-battleship-battle-japans-yamato-vs-americas-13737 & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_gun_fire-control_system

[mako88sb]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

[COLOR=orange]Bottom line: as with the battle of the Denmark Strait and the subsequent huntdown of the German Battleship: luck is a major factor- when you get into battle, plan 'A' is no longer in effect....an errant big shell that turns torpedo can literally 'undermine' your expensive top armor...Edge to Iowa imho; especially in a preferred nighttime engagement in which an astute calculating American commander would have the advantage

I thought these were pretty interesting too:

The Japanese 18.1"/45 reigned supreme as the most destructive piece of naval ordnance ever mounted afloat. However, its ballistic performance was not particularly inspiring, and the performance of its Type 91 shells was inferior to the norm, partly because they were optimized for underwater trajectories 7. Immediately below it in terms of power is the US 16"/50. Good ballistics, and superb shells, give this gun a tremendous whallop, and in combat terms I rate it as the equal of the Japanese weapon, largely because of its shells. Below that, in an upset, comes Richelieu's 15"/45, as the best all-around 15" gun, and feel the most useful in an actual combat situation. The Italian 15"/50 was an enormously potent weapon from a raw power perspective, but it sacrificed a lot in order to achieve that performance, and had decidedly inferior shells. I should note, though, that I am still investigating this particular gun and her shells in more detail; the information available on her shells is rather spotty. Bismarck's 15"/47 shell is 10% lighter than the French and Italian, although her cyclic rate is attractive, and her guns were very accurate. At the bottom of the spectrum, King George V's 14" gun clearly doesn't have nearly the oomph necessary to compete with the rest of these guys.

It is important to note that better high muzzle-velocity does not necessarily equate to better performance against horizontal deck armor. For instance, guns like Richelieu's and Vittorio Veneto's have tremendous ballistics at short range, but they are comparatively lousy at penetrating deck armor. Why? Because these guns fire their shells at very flat trajectories, and shells coming in at flat trajectories tend to ricochet. It's very tough to get any sort of penetration at obliquities above 70-degrees. This means that flat trajectory weapons don't start getting effective deck penetration until they are much farther away and their shells start coming in at a decent fall angle. The end result is that guns that have poorer ballistics make up for it (to a certain extent) at longer ranges against deck armor because they must fire their guns at higher elevations for a given range, and therefore loft their shells higher, and consequently hit decks with the benefit of gravitic acceleration from a greater height. The battleship that benefits most from this is South Dakota. Her 16"/45 has a muzzle velocity of only 2300 ft./sec., and thus she has to heave her shells very high to get them out to range. But her shell weighs 2700 lbs, and thus has better deck penetration than Yamato or anybody else. Note, too, that the Americans worked out the ballistics and range tables for firing the Iowa's 16"/50 weapons with reduced charges (three charges instead of four) which would still allow for great range (given the 50-caliber barrel), but would also require greater elevation for a given range, and thus provide greater striking power against deck armor. I have not tried calculating these figures, but they would tend to make the 16"/50 even more powerful against deck armor, and would make the Iowa a very formidable long-range foe.

Then of course the info about just how superior those 5" guns combined with proximity fuses were for anti-aircraft.