Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?" video.

... and more than 2 Pearl Harbor Attack's worth of USN aircraft (both waves)...
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@celebrim1 There was exactly 0% chance the US would not intervene. USN was already escorting British convoys up to half the Atlantic, forward-deploying its Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor, putting an oil embargo on the Japanese (after they took over the French Indochina) and getting the Dutch to follow suit. Finally where was the Pearl Harbor in WW1, yet US intervened when it suited them. The notion that the US public opinion ever had any meaningful impact on a US decision to go to war is a nice propaganda story for domestic needs, but anyone with eyes and half a brain can see that there is nothing more to it than that.
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(conveniently forgets hundreds of US aircraft constantly attacking the Japanese surface fleet which had no air cover during the action)
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The USS Johnston Kumano was sunk by US Avenger torpedo bombers in Santa Cruz days after the battle of Samar was over 🙄.
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@newhallgeorge1 Some didnt. Many did. Chokai, Suzuya and Chikuma's sinkings are a testament to that fact.
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@tremedar US entry to WW1 came an entire year after the sinking if the Lusitania which was a British-flagged ship smuggling a sizeable quantity of war material and on a register of Armed Merchant Cruisers and the Germans issued a warning that thUS citizens travelling on British ships do so at their own risk. US entry to WW1 had nothing to do with it, the fact that a number of Americans lost their lives in the sinking merely served as a propaganda rallying cry once the descision to go to war was made.
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If I were a pilot of one of the 2 Pearl Harbor Attacks' worth of USN aircraft that attacked the Japanese Center Force during the battle, sank a Battle of Savo Island's worth of Japanese heavy cruisers and were consequently the REAL reason the Japanese retreated, I'd feel a little ticked off being left out of the report...
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The USS Johnston Damaged. Not sunk. Check the facts on wiki, combinedfleet or wherever you like. Kumano survived and/or endured several attacks by planes and submarines after she took Johnston's torpedo before finally being sunk by aircraft at Santa Cruz. As for your insults - you need to have a certain reputation in order to be able to insult me...
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@kungkungz1321 1) you can sink a destroyer with general purpose bombs or depth charges and also set off the torpedos on cruisers or start fires on battleships if you get lucky. Also you can wreck superstructure, kill any crew not protected by armor, damage unarmored parts of the ship such as bow or stern degrading the ship's speed or steering capacity. While the US pilots may not have been aware of all these facts, if you throw enough GP bombs at the enemy sooner or later you will simply get lucky. 2) The USN in this battle did not have the task of sinking all the Japanese ships. Just to protect the transports and survive. Mission kill on the Japanese fleet = victory. 3) the Japanese on the larger ships were NOT AWARE of the kind of ordinance the attacking planes had (or whether they had any - when seen from afar, or in case of TBFs with internal weapons bays in any case). Therefore they maneuvered to avoid incoming aircraft which were making attack passes, thus degrading their on anti-surface accuracy, messing up formation and tactical planning. 4) CLAIM is just that. A claim. Japanese records credit air attacks for setting off Chokai's type 93 torpedos. There is no consensus wheter that hit was even scored or whether it caused any significant damage.
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@steveconrad1525 A more informed observer would, however note the massive program of naval construction US started not long after that incident. Countries don't just rush into war after an incident. They prepare thoroughly and only then attack.
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Forgets the 850 aircraft that swarmed the Japanese fleet...
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In reality the battle consisted of the Japanese fleet desperately trying to dodge the incessant air attacks by 850 USN aircraft (4x more than the Japanese used to attack ships at Pearl Harbor, not to mention late war USN planes at Samar carried on average heavier payloads - even if not always the kind of payload optimal for attacking battleships) while, in breaks between those attacks, attempting to close in on the US CVEs retreating into squals covered bravely by a few DDs and DEs.
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ALSO-RAN ! In some cases (like the Yamato) they very well may have since the powerful blast of her main guns would kill or maim any exposed crews of the nearby open 25 mm AAA guns which were needed to defend the ship against the ongoing air attacks (normally their crews would go below decks or to otherwise shielded positions away from the guns when the main battery was in operation). The airstrikes (and even dummy passes for that matter) forced the Japanese to change their course radically, messing up rangefinder solutions, masking certain turrets etc.
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ALSO-RAN ! No I am merely dispelling the notion (spread around by US propaganda) that it was just a few destroyers vs what was left of the Center Force after the Palawan Passage and Sibuyan Sea... In fact the planes were decisive.
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ALSO-RAN ! Taffy 3 included many of the attacking planes for starters.
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@draconon7072 You presume way too much about me...
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@Steve Campbell And just how many Americans were killed by the Zimmerman telegram? 🙄
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@Steve Campbell Zimmerman's telegram was a clear sign that Germany became very much aware that USA was about to intervene on the Entente side anyway and that Germany was desperate to find allies to counter the USA. Had they had any doubts they would not have proposed the alliance to Mexico since risking to provoke USA to enter the war on the Entente side in 1917 was absolutely the LAST thing Germany needed. Sorry, man it is you who are dense. You need to use logic, not just repeat your country's propaganda narrative that you are being fed with.
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@Steve Campbell You bought a propaganda spin. A few undisputed facts (Lusitania sinking and the Zimmerman telegram) interpreted completely the wrong way by messing up the priorities as well as causes and effects. Decisions to go to war are not made BECAUSE of the public opinion. They are made due to geo-strategic and economic reasons, (often mid and even long term ones, at least as perceived at the time the war is declared by the declaring country). Once such a decision is made preparations are being made as best as possible (we are talking expansion of the armed forces, enormously expensive orders of materiel) and the media employed to spread war-mongering propaganda about a just cause and the target country is portrayed as the big bad enemy. Willing cannon fodder is far cheaper than the one you need to drag kicking and screaming into the war (cough Vietnam after 1967 cough). And finally the same propaganda often tries to leave the domestic populace with the impression it was their will to join the war whereas in reality they got played. Finally the same narrative is added to that country's history books. But others see it more clearly so after a few centuries the truth displaces the propaganda.
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@amerigo88 He actually used to be an agressive cruiser commander.
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