Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Battle of Samar (Alternate History) - Bring on the Battleships!" video.

This was a great discussion of the alternative outcomes. I suspect this was the last battle the Japanese would have had any chance of winning, as long as winning means "we sunk more ships that you did". In terms of the overall outcome of the war, the shipyards were pouring out huge numbers of the Fletcher class and their bigger and more dangerous brothers, the Sumner and Gearing classes. Vast numbers of Cleveland light and Baltimore heavy cruisers were still coming down the ways, not to mention the fearsome Iowa class. US carriers, from escort to fleet types, were also being commissioned and stationed in the Pacific, so any Japanese warship could count on meeting not only generally superior US surface ships but being swarmed by hundreds of US aircraft. As a final blow, the British Pacific Fleet shows up in January, 1945 with four more modern battleships, six fleet carriers, fifteen light carriers, and eleven excellent cruisers. This doesn't even take into account all the other smaller ships. The combined US and British logistic trains meant almost any ship damaged in battle could either be put back in service in a few days or made ready to sail to a rear repair area for heavier work. Japanese ships damaged really depended on whatever a crew could scrounge for repair work, all the while trying to remain camouflaged and dodging constant air attacks. By early 1945, very few ships were able to run the gauntlet of US subs to get back to mainland dockyards, and most of those they did were further damaged or sunk by allied air attacks. One can only wonder about the state of morale of many Japanese sailors in 1945. The Japanese were well and truly stuffed long before the events of August, 1945.
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It wasn't just surface search radar. It was also radar fire control systems, something the Japanese completely lacked. The Yamato's radar was only a surface search set. All the "old" battleships and most of the cruisers and destroyers were equipped with varying numbers of Mark 37 GFCS directors tied back into the Ford 1A computer and Mk 6 Stable Element, all being controlled through the plotting table in the Combat Information Center. The only hope for the Japanese was to drive into as close a range as possible. The US GFCS radars were only about as effective as Japanese optical directors at close range. The further the range, the more rapidly the Japanese would be smothered by the radar controlled gunfire from US fleet. Even the Long Lance didn't have the advantages they did two years earlier as improvements in sonar and radars on the US were able to detect the firing and path of the torpedoes while broadcasting the data to the other ships in the fleet. Even this advantage was negated by rainge, so closer range on the part of the Japanese gives them their best chance of survival wile damaging and sinking US ships.
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@dogofthedesert6642 Good points. I think Drach was just modeling the slugfest, but, even with Taffy 3, it was the aircraft from the escort carriers of Taffy 1 and 2, responding to the calls for help from Taffy 3, and their near suicidal attacks, that helped convince Kurita he was under attack by the main US fleet. It was the aggressiveness of the DD's and DE's that helped convince Kurita that he was under attack by cruisers of the main US fleet and the battleships would be just over the horizon. While the US had technological advantages, it was the training, morale, and fighting spirit of the USN that turned that battle. Kurita was trying not to lose the war in a day while the men and ships he was opposing fought like they were trying to win it in a day. Had Kurita actually been opposed by the entire force of Admiral Oldendorf, the slaughter would have been horrific.
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@jackbharucha1475 While the battle had Anime Fletchers doing their parts, let us not forget the DE Samuel B Roberts, the redoubtable "Sammy B". A ship meant for convoy escort, with primitive fire control compared to the Fletchers. A ship with a mere single triple of torpedo mount because it was only supposed to fire them unopposed at a submarine. A ship that had a design speed of 24 knots yet achieved 28.7 knots while chasing shell splashes. Even more than the Fletchers, the Sammy B was the real hero of this battle.
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@f12mnb Indeed, as was the difference between fighting when you're the last line of defense compared to the first line of offense. There were now enough US carriers to bring an overwhelming number of planes into any daylight battle. Admirals no long had to husband carriers so some would remain in the fight. The technological advances in radar and fire control in the two years between Savo Island and Leyte Gulf had improved by orders of magnitude. They were better hardened against battle damage, more reliable and less prone to breakdown, and our radar and sonar operators became world experts in interpreting the signals. Our TBS radio and fighter coordination were second to none. We finally had torpedoes that would run where they were aimed and explode when they hit something. All of this negated the night fighting skills of the Japanese and exposed their ships as if they were fighting in daylight. The Japanese, now worn down after continuous defeats, were the ones back on their heels. In their hearts, the Japanese knew the Navy was doomed, and that affected their fighting spirit. Never underestimate the effect of morale, good and bad, on the outcome of battles.
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@MrTScolaro OI'm not confusing anything. The Japanese radar, even though it was the most advanced in the fleet, was still no match for the SJ and ST radar on the Sealion. However, the Japanese radar was capable of seeing Sealion running on the surface. the problem was the IJN had long ago run out of experience radar operators, and picking out the tiny pip of the Sealion, running with her decks mostly awash, would have been difficult for an experienced man, and impossible for the hastily trained operators on the Nagato. The radar on the Kongo had broken down before the sinkings so she was basically blind, only realizing and attack wa suderway because of the explosions heard from the Nagato. the attack was successful mainly because the Japanese ships weren't zigzagging. If they had been, it's doubtful that any, or more than one, torpedo would have hit Nagato. The second salvo at Kongo missed because her lookouts saw the torpedoes and turned hard away. The sinking of the Urakaze was a lucky accident as the salve aimed at Kongo ran on and hit Urakaze. So, to be clear, I was never claiming that Japanese radars were superior to those carried by the latest US subs like the Sealion. They would have been good enough in the hands of experienced operators, something the Japanese didn't have by late 1944. Japanese radars were also fragile and constantly breaking down, not unlike our own. The difference was Japanese operators didn't know how to fix them when it happened. We did, and they had plenty of spare parts to work with. Japanese ships had almost no spares. One bad tube with no replacement and the radar was out of service until they could reach port, assuming there were any of that tube available at all. Late war US subs not only had superior radar with the best operators in any navy, and had also developed superior attack tactics. Combine that with a Japanese fleet sailing at just 16 knots and not zigzagging and the stage was set for a Japanese disaster.
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@CleveAneki Yes, the Brooklyns, while useful ships, were nowhere near as useful as a Cleveland. Clevelands were commissioned with the latest in radars and fire control equipment while the Brooklyns had to wait until they went in for major refits. The Boise didn't get modern radar and GFCS installed until 1945. Phoenix was mostly upgraded during post battle damage overhaul during 1944 but still didn't have the latest directors. She did, however, have eight 5"/38 guns in twin turrets, a big improvement over the eight single 5"/25 she had previously. As you said, shell handling was improved in the Cleveland class, they had faster and more powerful rammers, and the turrets were able to traverse and elevate more quickly. All that meant a rate a fire fast enough that the broadside of a Cleveland was 120 rounds a minute with 12 barrels, the same as the Brooklyn with 15 barrels. They had 12 5"/38 guns compared 8 5'/25 guns on the Brooklyn, much better close-in AA armament, and the modified superstructure gave them better fields of fire. People get seduced by the Brooklyn having five triple turrets compare to the Cleveland's four, but almost any admiral would take a Cleveland over a Brooklyn when it came down to a fight.
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0400 cst...time for a Drach upload!
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@gokbay3057 I haven't read about a Fletcher being misidentified as an Atlanta. There are enough spotting differences that it would take some inexperience lookouts to make that mistake. There were problems when the Sumpters showed up since their three twin 5" turrets on the centerline, and arrangement that did lead to misidentifications with the Atlanta class. I assume by DDE you meant the 5" gun armed DE classes like the John C Butler class. Their gun arrangement was such that they were occasionally misidentified as DDs. One such instance was the Battle off Samar.
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@horatio8213 No Fletcher was able to rape anything when it came to Yamato. No torpedoes came close to her off Samar and she withdrew with the only damage being three bomb hits the previous day that put her down by the bow but still fighting. She never fired another shot at a surface ship after that, being sunk by a combination of bombs and torpedoes. The skipper of the Yamato was a lot more concerned about seeing a swarm of Avengers than Fletchers.
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@horatio8213 Yamato had the most advanced radar in the navy at the time. She wasn't blind unless it was knocked out by battle damage. I guess your anime Fletchers could swarm Yamato, but they never did in the Battle off Samar, or any other battle, for that matter. Yamato was only ever hit by a submarine torpedo. All the surface ship torpedoes fired at her missed. Aerial torpedoes are smaller and carry less explosives than a surface ship or submarine torpedo, but that is irrelevant when you can launch waves of a hundred Avenger torpedo bombers to really swarm a ship.
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@horatio8213 You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Show me a link that says the Yamato radar was "obsolete". The 13 GO Dentan radar,while not quite as as sensitive as US radars, was still sufficient for the joab, It could detect a battleship from 20-25 km and a target as small as a surfaced sub at 7 km. It detected the Olendorf's battleship squadron at nearly 50 km. The 22 GO fire control radar could detect a BB at 30 km with a bearing error of 0.5 to 3 degrees. Again, not as good as US FCS, but good enough. The Japanese were constantly monitoring our radar emissions. They had excellent electronic knowledge and developed transmitters in the VHF and UHF ranges specifically to jam our radars. It wasn't until the introduction of centimetric radar that the Japanese, like the USN, weren't able to produce effective jammers until the end of the war. Unlike the USN, the factories that were going to produce the jammers were being bombed into oblivion, so very few ever reached the fleet. The chief Japanese limitation wasn't the quality of their radar, it was that lack of a good PPI and CIC. That didn't allow the Japanese to take advantage of their radars in combat conditions. Do some actual study about WWII radar systems before you post any more made up stuff.
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@richardlinter4111 You are correct. t was the Ford Mk 1 in use until the end of the war ans was upgraded to Mark 1A postwar. The Mark 1A reference was both slip of the finger and slip of the mind.
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@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Let me know if you hunt up the title. I'd be interested in reading it. The Japanese had many problems understanding and building reliable radars so I wouldn't be surprised if the story was true. I will say that they were making great strides with radar by August 1945, and it's one of the reasons they became so successful with consumer electronics in the 50's and 60's.
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@johntillman6068 Who mentioned Sherman's? What context was in mentioned compared to Gearing's? This thread is over two years old with 21 replies, so some detail is helpful.
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