Comments by "Gregory Wright" (@gregorywright4918) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1.  @TraditionalAnglican  I take Fuchida's statements with a large barrel of salt these days - much of his assertions have been challenged or disproved (he said he was on the Missouri at the surrender) and his hand in the after-action reports seems to have skewed some of the BDA analysis. What matters most about the likelihood of a third wave is what Nagumo knew or thought, not what the actual situation was. He did not know how bad the losses in US aircraft were, he did not know how good the IJN recon was, he did not know where our carriers were (or apparently even how many - I often read that they thought the Yorktown was still around, when she was in the Atlantic). He probably presumed that our land-based naval strike capability was at least as good as theirs, which was pretty good (think Prince of Wales and Repulse) although that had not been proved yet. He did not like the operation going into it, thinking it too risky even though he was given command. The returning fliers reported significant damage to well more battleships than Yamamoto had wished for, so Nagumo was all for heading home. I've seen some wargames of him sticking around that vary between a hard-fought victory for IJN to a loss of between 2 and 4 carriers. The fuel situation was also a concern - if those tankers north of Midway had been found and sunk, or if Nagumo stuck around long enough that they had to move south to refuel him, he might not have been able to get back at all.
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  2. Not quite a fair comparison, as Yamato was only commissioned after Pearl Harbor. But they did try to hide their size and capabilities from the Allies, expecting that surprise would increase the likelihood of victory. Their strategy was to hold them back until the Big Fleet Battle, whittling down the enemy with light forces (led by cruisers) at night and long range.
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  3. The Bigger Issue, though, was that in just about all cases, even when the US Navy suffered the worse losses, it still managed to divert or distract the IJ Navy from the Primary Objective - to stop the invasion (Savo Island - sink the TRANSPORTS, not the cruisers), land more troops, resupply cut-off troops, or bombard the airfield badly enough that it could not stop another attempt at landing more troops. Sometimes you have to deliberately sacrifice units in order to achieve a bigger objective. And sometimes you do that by accident...
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  4. It would probably have required a couple torpedoes from Albacores to slow them down for her...
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  5.  @Aelxi  The Slot was the quickest, most direct path. Once the US got Henderson field operational the IJN started getting hit by air during daylight hours. At max speed, starting from around Bougainville near dusk, you could dash down to Guadalcanal, offload something, then dash back by sunrise only if you were using the Slot. The other ways took too long in one night.
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  6.  @davegoodridge8352  The IJN did put a submarine force around Hawaii, but that was only one of their assignments and USN anti-sub measures improved as more air assets were devoted to it. IJN doctrine for subs was that they were supposed to be fleet scouts and part of the first line of attrition during main battle, so they were increasingly assigned to the Solomons and the Marshalls. Commerce raiding was not high on their list of priorities.
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  7. 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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  8.  @abrahamdozer6273  Just started reading up on Canadian military history a couple years ago after a visit to Ft. Niagara. Fascinating. I know about the Haida and the Sackville, any other recommended ships/museums?
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  9. It helps not having to plan for being away from port for more than a few days.
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  10. "400Hz that's used as DC power" - did you mean 400V?
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  11.  @bkjeong4302 Hindsight is a poor measure of justification. Those decisions were made in the 20s and early 30s, well before Taranto, Pearl Harbor, or Force Z. You have to judge them for what they knew at the time.
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  12. @Bass N Brass Harpoon became "Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations"... at Matrix Games.
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  13.  @sovietnorway8305  Their ship-borne torpedo crews don't seem to have the training and experience of their U-boat colleagues.
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  14. In Kaigun, by Evans and Peattie, they talk about the changes in battle plans in the early 1930s as the Kongos were rebuilt with more armor and newer engines. They were detached from the main battle force and added as reinforcements to the precursor night battle force due to their speed and heavy guns. They were not expected to face battleship guns, just cruisers and destroyers.
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  15. Three turrets forward would not work - the bow is too narrow to go further forward, so the only way to go would be super-firing, but that raises "C" turret up too high for good stability. So the only other choices (since the IJN had not yet mastered turrets with more than two barrels) are center turrets and aft turrets. They did center turrets in the Fuso and Ise classes, and probably learned how hard they were to fit around engine rooms. A faster ship needs more engine spaces, so ixnay on the center turrets. All that's left is aft, which also does a bit better gathering the magazine spaces for easier protection.
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  16.  @streetracer2321  The captain IS the "skipper", which is just a nickname. The helmsman would be "Helm". He is stationed in the middle of the bridge, and would rely on the OOD to give steering directions and check the sides for nearby ships. In battle, in the USN circular formation, the carrier would be the "guide" ship of the formation that the other ships would maneuver around to keep their relative positions. There would also be lookouts on either side of the bridge wings calling out nearby ships or incoming aircraft threats.
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  17.  @RCAvhstape  Pretty sure they burned most of those designs before the Occupation Forces landed....
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  18. Perhaps we can all meet Drach on USS New Jersey on Friday the 15th, buy a pair of binoculars from the gift shop, and throw them all into the Delaware. Then again, we could meet on the USS Constitution on the 10th and throw a box of tea into Boston Harbor...
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  19. Not just operating, but building and training was by two-ship "divisions": Akagi and Amagi (replaced by Kaga after '23 earthquake) Hiryu and Soryu Shokaku and Zuikaku Zuiho and Shoho Hiyo and Junyo Chitose and Chiyoda The Taiho was supposed to be the lead ship of three pairs of carriers, but her building was so extensive that they realized they could not build them fast enough, so they refurbed the Hiryu design for the Unryu class of three pairs instead.
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  20. You have to wonder if Coral Sea or Midway even happen then. The IJN will have to rethink why they are risking the KB needlessly and probably reorient to face west rather than east. KB retreats to Singapore for repairs, does not react to Doolittle raid, and push southward is cancelled in favor of developing plans for push westward to create more strategic room around the oil-rich DEI.
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  21. From southern England to St. Nazaire is a minimum of 300 miles, much further than a Dauntless can reach. Plus the Nazi airfields just north of there were heavy with fighters defending Brest and the sub bases. A bunch of torpedoes might be better than bombs, but delivering them was the problem with heavy fighter and AA defenses. The AA was probably heavier than a Japanese CV because it was all facing inward toward the flight path, rather than outwards around the ship.
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  22.  @mikearmstrong8483  Existential survival crisis does tend to focus the mind and cut out ideological impediments...
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  23. Good glasses.
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  24. It depended on the battle and whether there was time for another unit to search for and recover survivors. In the Slot battles the IJN was trying to get out of air attack range by dawn, so they sometimes left men behind. Most islands in the area were friendly towards the Allies and hostile towards the Axis. The US also emphasized air-sea rescue more than IJ, with seaplanes and subs dispatched as available. We still had some serious failures, like Juneau or Indianapolis.
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  25. Those theoretical drawings seem to have no concept of the space that would realistically be required for decent ammunition supply, or the issue of blast interference.
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  26.  @PalleRasmussen  The higher bow and stern deflect the wave spray better, while the lower mid-section allows the ship to flex more and lowers the height of the oars above the sea.
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  27. The IJN pulls the KB back to Singapore and re-orients westward to build a bigger buffer around the oil-rich DEI. Perhaps the Andaman islands become replacements for Midway?
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  28.  @wwb520  Radar and fire control may have altered that assumed conclusion - you can't hit what you can't see and target...
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  29.  @ivangenov6782  The difference between naval standards, being designed to take and recover from damage, and commercial standards.
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  30.  @Colt45hatchback  I think that was their theory, but they had only one data point of their own so they were less aware of the FOW factor, how things just don't go the way you planned them most of the time.
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  31. Harrison's story is a great illustration of the nature of a true Engineer - he had great ideas based on years of practical experience and experimentation, and each time he more than exceeded the requirements set down for success, he was dissatisfied with his own performance and already cooking up ideas to improve it. He is another example of the fallacies of the "design by committee" or "teamwork" mentalities.
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  32. She was often delivering aircraft to southern bases, and she still had the speed to evade most subs, though breakdowns would plague her and lead to more hits.
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  33.  @Pangora2  On land, with armor, a knight or higher nobility would want the enemy to see his status so that they would not kill but capture for ransom, while your own troops could see you easily to rally around you. The surcoat over the armor and the decoration of the shield also played a part. At sea, with everything flying around, recognizing your officers visually was important as often the noise was too loud to hear specific voices.
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  34.  @tbm3fan913  The Glomar Explorer? I thought that was scrapped....
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  35.  @JonathanSchattke  Japan did not have the oilers to support both a PH raiding force and a much slower transport force, nor did she have the logistics to support both forces during at least a month of operations far from friendly bases. There were nearly two divisions on Oahu in '41, that would have required at least three and preferably four IJA divisions, which the IJA was never going to release. Japanese wargames showed a chance that the Kido Butai might have lost up to half of its carriers to achieve the PH raid, with only a couple battleships sunk. It was a chancy affair, but turned on surprise and American unpreparedness. Invasion was non-starter.
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  36. Regarding the V-1s, they were only first used on June 13th, a week after D-Day, when the Allies were already firmly ashore. They were fired from the Pas-de-Calais area, which is just northeast of Normandy, but they were mostly launched from fixed launchers that were built to aim at London, and they were guided by crude time-and-distance calculations to when their engine cut out and they plunged to earth. So new launchers would have to be built to aim at Normandy, and new forms of guidance developed to improve the dismal accuracy they were getting in hitting a huge target like London. Once Calais was overrun, they were fired from ramps in Holland and Germany, both of which are too far away from Normandy, and air-launched from bombers, which were vulnerable to interception over France and thus often flew very low over the North Sea, again out of range of Normandy.
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  37. @JZ's Best Friend I doubt the IJ Army would be better - they tended to leave units to starve or fight to the death. Their leaders seemed even less competent and more wasteful than the IJN, judging by battles like Nomonhan and Imphal.
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  38. Drach said she had one of only two sets existing at the time - wonder where the other was...
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  39. Mitchell was a bit of a maverick in the USAAC (AAF was created during WW2), agitating both fighter advocates as well as some bomber advocates, but his venom seemed to target both Army generals and Navy admirals who did not believe his fantastic claims for big multi-engine bombers (which he wanted to concentrate in a separate, third service ala RAF). He was more influential in the early 20s, while the "Bomber Mafia" emerged in the late 20s and early 30s (and I believe it was ground Army guys who labeled them). I think the no-drop-tanks thing was attributed to Hap Arnold and the big-bomber guys around him, but people like Kenney and Chennault were fighting a rear-guard action against them and experimenting with them well before 1943. They were in use with multiple other countries like Japan and Germany before 1940, but not needed much in Europe early because the range of battle was shorter. I would certainly not attribute the "Fighter Mafia" to MItchell; that seemed to emerge more like in the 60s and 70s calling for lighter air superiority fighters compared to the heavier ones like the F-4 and F-100s that were doing poorly in Vietnam. And they had little influence on the development of successors to the B-52 as that was a SAC thing rather than a TAC thing and the "bomber will always get through" was disproved back in 1940-42. The reason the B-1 and B-2 (and B-21) have not really replaced the B-52 is different - they are designed for different roles, the former for penetration (by speed or by stealth) to break apart the enemy IADS while the latter complemented them as a high-capacity "bomb truck" once the IADS had been broken apart by the former.
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  40. Fascinated by your description of how Gary Staff analyzes hits to the German ships. I would be very interested in a book that looked at WW2 capital and cruiser-level ships, analyzing how the armor and general protection schemes (especially torpedo) held up to actual damage. I've seen individual narratives on some ships, like South Dakota, but no comprehensive analysis that compares the actual damage to the design systems and asks the question "how did the design compare, and how did it work out?" Most especially if it compared different countries solutions, like the Italian's Pugliese torpedo-defense system versus the other countries. Perhaps this question would be better asked in a "General Books" video, but it was your description of Staff's book that crystalized my thinking. Any ideas?
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  41. One large dose of criticism really goes to the IJN love for "distant cover" where forces are scattered about and take hours to come up in support if needed (like Java Sea or Midway). Judging by the way junior initiative was stifled at Etajima and in non-com positions, I suspect there was no IJN counterpart to Newport and the Fleet Problems where the USN allowed junior officers to criticize seniors in the after-action reports.
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  42. I'd like to see where you are getting these comparative numbers for industrial capacity in the 1930s. Realize also that Germany dedicated itself to rearmament earlier than the others, so more industry was pumping out tanks and guns and airplanes while UK industry was still making cars and refrigerators. And don't forget to add the Commonwealth industrial capacity to the UK as well. Canada for one contributed significantly.
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  43.  @Destroyer_V0 The Long Lance was effective because the enemy assumed they were safe and did not change course. They were hideously inaccurate at long range and had to be expended in great numbers to get hits. They had the bonus of being very hard to spot because they did not leave big air bubble tracks behind them. Also the IJN used the tactic of launching torpedoes first and holding gunfire back until the torpedoes hit; the USN would go to gunfire first and lose the element of surprise. They learned the IJN tactic the hard way and used it to great effect later, like in Burke's battles.
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  44.  @bgclo  Another good source on that would be "Seacoast Fortifications of the United States" by Emanuel Lewis.
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  45. Realize that the Med fights were 1940-41, while the Pac fights were 1942-44, so there is a time gap that allowed a next generation of planes to replace. Plus the Brits made the prewar decisions to allow the RAF to control aircraft and pilot development in the 20s and early 30s, and the armoured flight deck carriers that carried half the air groups of IJN/USN carriers. Plus you have the Americans and Japanese watching early European battles, learning some lessons and pushing aircraft developments.
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  46. Italy had no interest in the Pacific, and France had only a little. Neither would have been able to build anything that could threaten a Yamato.
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  47. Honest Ed's Used Destroyers - for Sale or Lend/Lease...
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  48.  @RangaTurk  My understanding was that the three New Mexicos were all on the East coast with the Neutrality Patrol, while the Colorado was in major refit in Puget Sound. All four joined Task Force One out of San Francisco to "protect the West coast".
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  49. Extra boxy for fleet flagship role...
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  50.  @fullmontyuk  Much greater appreciation for anti-torpedo nets in anchorages...
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