Comments by "Gregory Wright" (@gregorywright4918) on "IJN Kaga - Guide 255" video.

  1. They worked better with wood-and-canvas biplanes, at least for takeoff. As mentioned, hangar deck space was sacrificed.
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  2.  @jimwind7589  IJN aircraft supported IJA land operations and land-based IJN bombers.
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  3. A destroyer with a "very large helicopter flight deck"... very large.
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  4. Multiple bombs hit the ship with her air group refueled in the hangars. Hundreds died fighting the fires, and more may have been trapped below deck when Abandon Ship was ordered. Plus some more wounded may have been lost in the sea before they were picked up. The scuttling would have been after all that, when it was obvious there was no way to save her but she would not sink.
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  5. Several of the Essex carriers of WW2 were modified to angled decks in the 50s and 60s with the SCB-125 upgrade program.
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  6. The USS Franklin (CV-13) lost around that number, with another 500 wounded, but survived due to much better damage control.
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  7. In IJN damage control doctrine, they did not train the whole crew, just a small dedicated section. If needed, other crewmen available could have added muscle, but not knowledge or training. Perhaps a better word would have been "specialized". USN practice was to have specialized DC teams scattered throughout the ship, but ALL the crew went through DC training and knew how to take first measures.
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  8.  @QuizmasterLaw  Most of the 800 men lost were lost in the bombing and fire-fighting. A few were trapped below decks in the engine spaces and could not get out anyway because the exits were blocked by the fires on the hangar deck. There was at least a couple hours between the order to abandon ship and the launch of torpedoes to scuttle her. There was probably a few who were lost in the sea as well, some wounded who could not swim long enough to make it to a pick-up ship.
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  9.  @tomhath8413  Their philosophy was to focus on the attack, also seen in aircraft stripped of armor or self-sealing tanks.
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  10.  @greentriumph1643  More like a Battlestar Galactica "launch all interceptors" moment?
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  11. the upper round-down of her stack? or the thing right next to the mast? might be a director.
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  12. Much smaller islands than other fleet carriers, plus weird trunking for engine gasses.
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  13.  @garyjust.johnson1436  Battleships were king of the world in 1929 - hence the tight regulation. Carriers were still flying biplanes that could only carry 250 lb bombs. There was a LOT of development of aircraft and tactics in the '30s that led to the gradual ascendancy of the carriers, but Pearl Harbor was the defining moment.
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  14.  @1968gadgetyo  Billy Mitchell?
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  15.  @RedXlV  Time pressure, probably. The Kaga hull was sitting there, scrapping the Amagi would take months, fix up the ways a few more, recast the structural members a few more, then another couple years rebuilding. And what's the likelyhood of aftershocks in the same area?
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  16.  @craighagenbruch3800  That depends on whether the hangar deck is open at the sides. US ships were; IJN ships were not (although they had some small shutters they could open). Closed hangars kept the weather out, but prevented them from warming the planes up below, so after the spot the planes had to be warmed up on the flight deck. Smoke in the side-mounted AA guns was a problem, though. And smoke still got into the landing path astern.
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  17.  @Cbabilon675  Her hangar deck was full of gassed and bomb-up planes when she took multiple large bomb hits. She burned for hours, and they said you could see her outer plates glowing orange. She was probably too burnt-out to repair - major frames and bulkheads softened and bent in the heat. You would be better off melting her down and building a new, better-designed ship from the scrap. Use the Taiho as a model, but do a better job with ventilation...
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  18.  @scottgiles7546  Presuming your question is about the Battle off Samar, the two jobs of the Taffys were ground support and local anti-air/anti-sub defense. The magazine loadouts would be prioritized towards these roles, but there is usually some anti-surface weapons "at the bottom" in case of the unexpected. There were reports of Avengers dropping anti-sub depth charges on Center Force ships because that was what they took off with. Don't know if that would go off. Torpedoes would be most useful, but they were often too big for CVEs to handle. A useful reference would be Norman Friedman's "US Aircraft Carriers - An Illustrated Design History". There is a chapter in there on CVEs; I don't remember if he lists standard loadouts, but they probably varied by campaign.
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  19.  @nx9100  USN was building on the experience of RN with Furious, Glorious and Courageous.
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  20.  @Kerndon  What matters most is the relative speed of the ships versus their sisters in the same task force. Both the cruise speed and the "flank" speed of the Ranger were several knots slower than her "sisters" like the Lex's, Yorktowns, and Essexes. She was also built lighter, as they were experimenting with trying to pack a 20,000 ton carrier into 15,000 tons so they could get more ships within the London Naval Treaty limits. The cruising speed of the Kaga was closer (but still not the same) to her sisters, so there was some limiting of the Kido Butai's "speed of advance" due to the Kaga, but they were often imposing limits anyway due to fuel concerns. When launching or recovering aircraft the other ships did throttle back a bit on "flank" speed to keep her in formation, but when under attack it was often "every ship for herself" so it did not matter. The Ranger was tasked before the war to support the Neutrality Patrol and work with the Brits, so she had some knowledge of those operations that would have been lost or needed to be transferred to other ships if she was sent to the Pacific. It just seemed better to keep her in the Atlantic, while the other Yorktowns and Wasp were sent west. Later in the war she did re-deploy once the need for her decreased, but she was kept out of the main fleet because the other ships were all rated for the same speed and better protected.
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  21.  @joshthomas-moore2656  As the torpedo enters the water it naturally heads downward until the gyro and fins can get control and bring it back up to its pre-set attack depth. This usually involved more than 40 ft. of depth, which is about what the average depth at Pearl was. The additional wooden "fins" (looked more like a hollow box) added drag to the rear of the torpedo as it entered the water, which tended to bring its nose upward quicker and cause it to level off at a shallower depth. The wood was built thin and light, though, so it would break off after acting as a water-brake, freeing the regular fins to take over control. It was actually an idea they heard about from the RN's attack on Taranto. The wood additions to the torpedoes were a one-time modification for the shallow harbor depth and were not necessary for regular open-ocean operations. In harbor, it does not matter if you lose a little bit of speed since you have such short distances and the targets are not moving. At sea, the extra drag could affect your aim point since the enemy ships are moving and turning fast.
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  22.  @unemployed_history_major4795  The two waves of the attack were composed of full attack squadrons from alternating carriers. The Kaga's torpedo squadron was paired up with the Akagi's, and as flagship the latter would attack first. So Kaga's planes were at the end of the single line of torpedo bombers flying down the loch in front of the shipyard, and got most of the AA attention once they got going.
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  23.  @calebshonk5838  The multiple flight decks were impractical with bigger, mono-wing aircraft of the '40s. They needed a longer deck for take-off than the lower and middle decks afforded. Plus a strike package could not be assembled together with such a short upper deck. Plus the lowest deck was at main deck level, meaning it was much closer to the sea than the upper deck.
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  24.  David Carr  At the beginning of the war there was "large material losses on both sides", but as the US fleet expanded their large-complement carriers added together with new doctrine to dominate the skies, significantly reducing losses until the Japanese adopted suicide tactics, which still could not turn the tide. Unarmored decks were also much quicker to repair, and no unarmored fleet carriers were lost by the US after 1942.
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  25.  @bacardipirate1430  Blue is the shortest visible wavelength, so it scatters the most as light passes through the atmosphere.
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  26.  @johnfisher9692  The RN ask the MN for advice? Sacre-bleu...
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  27.  @bernardrubin933  How about fighting on after the war ended? The CSS Shenandoah fought on in the Pacific for several months before being told by a RN vessel that the South surrendered. They then sailed to the UK to disband but had to stay there for years because if they went home they would be charged with piracy.
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  28.  @themightynanto3158  The problem is the design of the turrets to fit the guns. Since the Krupp guns used sideways-sliding breech blocks, they needed more room between the guns than other methods (like the Walin breech, which partially unscrews and then drops down vertically). Putting a third gun in those turrets would have required widening the ship to accommodate wider turrets and barbettes. All that said, the Bismarck fell victim first to air attack, which the 15" guns could do nothing about. Once she was crippled the RN could bring up whatever they needed to pound her into submission. But if your ship is wider, some of that extra width might go into better torpedo protection. That will not help your rudder and screws, though. And a wider ship, with the same length and engine power, is going to be slower.
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  29.  @timrobinson513  You don't know exactly where the plane will lift off, and you want clear air on all sides when it does. Different planes will lift off at different distances, depending on loadouts.
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  30.  @jeff53494  The problem is keeping smoke from interfering with flight operations (and general ship operations too, but all steam ships have that problem). There was more "experimentation" early on, but the consensus seems to have been to route the exhaust together into something high behind the island rather than off to the sides (judging by the ships built into the '40s like Essex, Shokaku and Taiho). The US did use side funnels on the Ranger, Independence, and the CVEs, but was unhappy with it. All those designs were cramped so the smoke was routed out in the simplest ways, with less internal trunking. US non-nuke supercarriers followed the centralized stack, with the JFK departing slightly by having an angled stack like the Taiho.
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  31.  @borismekler  The Okha's were only developed in 1944, and their short range meant they had to be carried by bomber to attack within 20 miles. They were easy to knock down before launch and only damaged or sank a handful of ships, none bigger than destroyer.
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  32. Drach, could you comment on the issues of dealing with smoke for carriers and the pros and cons of how the IJN handled it? In an earlier Drydock you mentioned the height of the stack helped draw the gasses upward; if the stack is tilted downward, does that hurt the boiler efficiency, or do you have to waste some energy using fans to draw the smoke? Does that then get clogged up and require more frequent cleaning? Also, did the IJN have a water spray system in their carrier exhausts? Was the downward stack ever damaged by heavy weather or excessive rolling, or blocked by a large starboard roll? Since the later-designed Hiyo and Taiho (plus Shinano) had a high funnel behind the island, did they decide it was not worth it?
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  33.  @borismekler  No one, not even the Germans, had rocket planes in 1936...
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  34.  @scottwyatt2614  Grabbing Midway was not the primary goal of the operation, it was a secondary goal. But to be successful it had to threaten someplace the US considered vital. The Aleutians were not vital. Hawaii and the SLOC to Australia were vital, and in that order. Coral Sea was fought to protect the latter; Midway was fought to protect the former. If the US had not deduced that MI was Midway, normal speed recovery from Coral Sea would have had Yorktown coming in slower and planning to take longer in drydock, with Enterprise and Hornet doing defensive patrols around PH or poking around the south Pacific. The problem for the IJN after grabbing Midway was how to support it - they were short on shipping and escorts and keeping Midway supplied would be expensive. Some analysts thought USN could have done nothing about invasion and just strangle Midway afterwards with long-range bombers and subs. In any case, supporting the whole IJN fleet in Midway waters for more than a few days was not going to happen - not enough tankers, and the atoll could not shelter all the ships in a bad storm.
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  35.  @paulramos9331  Two at bow, three at stern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Kaga#/media/File:Kaga-02.jpg
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  36. Were the other 30 fully assembled or stored as replacement parts?
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  37. @UNSCForwardontodawn Neither, actually, since their primary duty is aircraft carrier and an 8" exchange is going to wreck their flight and hangar decks. It does matter which year you are thinking, since the Kaga was rebuilt in the early '30s with all-casement 7.9" guns (slightly smaller than the Lex's, 240 lb. shell vs 260 lb.). So after that she could only fire 5 guns on each beam, and none fore and aft, while Lex could fire 8 guns on the beams and 4 guns fore and aft (at least till early '42, when she landed her 8"ers). Note also that Kaga's guns were rated to about 24,000 yards while Lex's were rated to about 32,000. Plus, Lex was about 5 kts. faster, and her fire director was much higher. Then again, Kaga had a much smaller island so would be less visible on the horizon (assuming we're talking long-range daylight engagement).
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  38. Wade McClusky appreciated it...
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  39.  @deltavee2  In the US we have pretty good shore-based crew lists. IJN had similar, but destroyed a lot of paperwork after the war to hide things. A fair number of things have been recreated or recovered from veterans testimonies.
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  40. No, not "still left alive" - that is the total number that died from the bombing, fire-fighting, and abandoning ship. Most were probably lost in the first few moments, or hopelessly trapped below the burning hangar deck. How could you get a count of how many were still alive on a sinking ship anyway?
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  41. The two waves of the attack were composed of ALL of the strike aircraft, in two groups, plus about 2/3 of the fighter aircraft. The other 1/3 were held back for CAP, and would cycle onto the decks for refueling between major evolutions (launch and landings). So the extra sorties were the CAP fighters relaunching.
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  42. They were experimenting with increasing the number of planes that could take off at one time. The downside was decreased hangar deck. When planes went metal and mono-wing, take-off length went up and the lower take-off decks became useless.
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  43. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMM72Qg6MY
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  44. You mean this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rhauQxM6F8
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  45. The IJN did use dedicated DC teams - not enough of them, not as well equipped as US or UK, and not supported by DC training for rest of crew, so when they were gone the rest were helpless.
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  46. No - one is modeled, the other is photoshopped.
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  47.  @xxnightdriverxx9576  The Glorious could have used those guns when ambushed by S&G in the North Sea in '40.
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  48. The only one converted from a real battleship, not a battlecruiser, so she was the slowest and deepest draft.
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  49. Even harder given how small their islands were...
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  50. The Kaga used 25mm Type 96 AA guns, not Oerlikons.
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  51.  @gustavchambert7072  Same thing with the USS Bon Homme Richard - still the structure there, but the repair cost is greater than the cost of building a new one. Once the keel and main frames are twisted or bent, you are really rebuilding the ship anyway.
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  52.  @Philistine47  Fair enough. Furious had gone through three iterations, with fore and aft landing decks, a ramp in between the funnels, and then then the flush-deck. There were a couple other attempts at flight decks on merchant-types, and the US had the Langley in the early 20s. Probably a lot of reports from 1916-24 of what NOT to do, and recognition that a clear deck and getting the stack gasses out of the way were top priorities. They went the wrong way on enclosed hangar and heavier guns, though.
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  53.  @borismekler  Telling men before the war begins that you need them to suicide is begging for discouragement and low morale of your own men. It was only seeing the lack of results later in the war that led them to start the kamikazes; at the beginning of the war the IJN was superior in doctrine and training and considered itself the best naval air force in the world. Plus, the US was NEVER going to "seek peace terms". She lost close to all of the pre-war carriers and half the battleships (given, they were salvaged and rebuilt), built an entirely new fleet of double or triple strength in a couple years, and pounded the IJN and Japan to scrap. From day one FDR declared were were fighting for unconditional surrender.
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