Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Drachinifel"
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In addition to the problems preserving warships, the process for storing auxiliary ships was even more troublesome. Firstly, there were about four times more of them than there were warships. As WWII showed, vessels like amphibious warfare and fleet transports had a far longer useful life than a warship as technology made warships become obsolescent even more quickly. In addition, auxiliary craft had many of the same electronic systems as a warship during and after WWII, and they also needed to be stored or maintained. Many of these auxiliary craft became obsolete not because of any basic material problems like we saw between WWI and WWII but because their electronics were not only obsolete, they just didn't work with the modern fleet. As an example, every piece of electronic equipment, from the lowly morale receiver to the most sophisticated radars and analog computers were powered by tubes, or valves, as they were know to our British cousins. They not only had a very limited lifespan without constant maintenance and replacement, the manpower with the expertise to do those things was slowly being drained away from the Navy.
Tube powered equipment was being replaced by solid state electronics, so an entire new set of skills was needed compared to even a few years previously. Radios and radars operated on progressively narrower and narrower bandwidths and higher frequencies, something tube types just weren't capable of doing. Analog electronics of all types were being replaced with digital, and more and more of that equipment needed to be updated, replaced, or more pieces of equipment need to be added. Older ships either ran out of space or just weren't worth the expenditure. Fleet type auxiliaries now needed to cruise at 20 knots, beyond even the top speed of older units. The need for space and facilities to operate helicopters for vertical replenishment and just transport between ships while underway was also beyond the abilities of ships that were only ten to fifteen years old.
Probably at no time since the Civil War did the Navy scrap as many ships as it has since the decade after WWII, and that process just accelerated as the 2010's drew to a close. While active fleet numbers declined rapidly from about 1300 to 900 after WWII, numbers stabilized between 800-900 due to Korea and the Cold War between 1951 to 1970. The active fleet further declined once again with the fall of the Soviet Union to about 600. As scrapings began to increase again at the close of the 20th century, numbers fell to about 400. By 2017, the active fleet was down to 270. The USN has now fallen to number two numerically behind China. If things continue as they have, and there's no reason to think they won't, we willm fallen to number three, behind...India
How things change.
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@jamesnickell5908 Yes. He was Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto. Hashimoto, captain of the submarine I-58, testified at the court-martial that it wouldn't have mattered if McVay was zigzagging. It was a clear night with a calm sea and the moon was behind the Indianapolis. It was perfect attack conditions, and Hashimoto felt he would have sunk her regardless of any evasive action. He was found and brought to Oakland at the behest of Admiral King, and Admiral Nimitz and many other naval officers felt this was an attempt to rile up the public against McVay, Even though Hashimoto was testifying for the prosecution, his testimony not only didn't help to convict McVay, but many observers felt it exonerated him. It didn't matter. It was either the Navy admit the errors it were made that led to the sinking and then the long delayed rescue, or they needed a fall guy. McVay was the fall guy.
Hashimoto shared with McVay some of the burden of guilt over the loss of so many men. He later became a Shinto priest, and actively assisted the survivor groups trying to get McVay's conviction overturned. He wrote a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999, at age 90, when the committee was hearing testimony about the case. He repeated what he told the court-martial in 1945. He wrote that Captain McVay was not responsible for the sinking of his ship, he was, and he asked forgiveness for himself and forgiveness for Captain McVay by our own navy. He passed away on October 25, 2000, just five days before the congressional resolution exonerating Captain McVay was signed by President Clinton.
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By 1945, the Japanese spoofing of allied IFF systems no longer worked. The Mark III IFF was then in use. It operated on three different bands, and the interrogator and responder would only return a radar signature if it was matched by a coded signal, and those codes were changed on a regular basis. The Japanese couldn't even receive a signal from the Mark III because they were operating in the gigahertz range, a frequency band Japanese radars were incapable of using or monitoring.
Even though Japanese radars were generally considered something of a joke, it's only because the IJN considered radar would take too long to develop for a war expected to last two years at the most. All the early victories of Japan over the allies just reinforced that idea. The Japanese had done some important work on radar in the 30's, and they may very well have been at least able to keep up with allied radars if they were given a higher priority. By the time they realized their lack of radar was giving the allies a gift in terms of sinking Japanese ships, they started an all out program to develop and produce effective radars, but it was just too late. Bizarrely, the Japanese army did their own work on radar, didn't share any of the information with the navy, and actually treated the navy as the enemy in terms of stopping espionage by navy operatives. If all branches of the Japanese armed forces pooled their work on radar, there's no reason to think they wouldn't match the allies tit for tat in new radars. Their postwar work in electronics showed that they had the talent, but the interservice rivalry is right up there with the top reasons for Japan's defeat.
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@melwinge9154 RDF was far from new in 1923. It had been used on the longwave frequencies in common use since 1913. The problem in the Honda Point Disaster was Lt. Cmdr Donald T. Hunter, the captain of Delphy, and the acting navigator for the entire squadron. His disdain for anything electronic when it came to navigation was well known. He believed all the electronic aids to navigation made navigators "soft", and he welcomed the chance to show dead reckoning worked just fine, even in the terrible weather conditions of that night. He ordered his own navigator to ignore the RDF readings. At the same time, Commander Walter G. Roper, in charge of Division 32, relied on the RDF, and could see the squadron was making a serious navigation error, ordering the four ships in his division to slow and then stop to avoid running up on the rocks. RDF was plenty reliable in 1923, it was the humans in charge that weren't.
Radar wasn't the problem for the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. It was Admiral Callahan's defective understanding of radar. Five of his ships that night were equipped with the excellent SG radar. It was Callahan's decision not to use any of them for his flagship, and not to have any of the SG equipped ships in the van of his formation, that caused radar not be as effective as it otherwise could have been. He didn't provide any kind of preliminary written plans to the rest of his fleet, and the difficulties of reliable radio communications, when that's all there was for the fleet, doomed his own ship and caused his death, in addition to a lot of other deaths that night. Radar wasn't the problem. SG radar was good enough that it was in use all the way to the end of the war and beyond. Poor human planning and intership communications were the problem.
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@rickmoreno6858 While the snorkel had some problems, most were solved by early 1944. Engineers learned how to run the diesels with a minimum of smoke, and the fuel quality was improved so combustion was more complete. Very few uboats were discovered because of exhaust smoke. A bigger problem was when allied radar was improves os it could detect a snorkel. That was solved late in the war with a coating of Turnmatte, radar absorbent materiel that was claimed to reduce radar signature by 90%. The success of the schnorkel is shown by the fact that Germany was losing 25% of its uboats to air attack while running on the surface returning to or leaving the Bay of Biscay. In June, 1944, not a single schnorkel equipped boat was sunk. Right up until the loss of French bases, schnorkel equipped boats were able to transit the Bay of Biscay in relative safety.
While the electroboats were developed, and 120 hulls were built, the tremendous logistic and material problems caused by constant allied bombings meant only two boats made any patrols, and those were just a week before the surrender. Neither boat sunk any ships, although both skippers said they made dummy attacks undetected but didn't fire due to receiving the surrender message. Even if the war has continued, it would have been many moths before a significant number of electroboats got in service. Schnorkel equipped uboats would have remained the backbone of the submarine fleet.
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@josephkugel5099 Firstly, no battleship could equal the 1,500 mile range of a Tomahawk. Secondly, it's classified how many Mark 48 torpedoes have nuclear warheads and what boats they might be on, but there's no doubt some boats have them. Thirdly, Tomahawks now have a newly developed nuclear warhead. Again, it's classified how many and what boats might carry them, but some will. A Montana, even if firing Tomahawks and Harpoons, would probably have been retired by now, and may have been retired before the Iowas, since they only offered the advantage of three more 16" rifles, but at a much higher operating and manning costs. The Montana will be a platform for Tomahawks and Sub-Harpoon missiles, not to mention torpedoes for fleet and self defense, for at least 30 years in the future.
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The difference in habitability is well illustrated by conditions on US subs at the beginning and end of the war. The S Class was the most numerous class of subs available at the start of the war. They were small, noisy, had unreliable diesel engines that blew a fine film of oil over the whole interior, insufficient electrical capacity to run more than very small refrigerators, and the distilling plants were subject to frequent breakdowns and only large enough to allow a bucket of freshwater a week for a sponge bath. Canned food was the order of the day after a week or so at sea. They were nearly uninhabitable for more than a few hours submerged in the Pacific due to the heat and humidity of tropical waters. The ventilation system was undersized and subject to frequent breakdowns. Temperatures in engine rooms reached 110 F, and even 100 F in the conning tower wasn't uncommon. The humidity was near 100% and condensation caused dripping water from every horizontal surface, with short circuits and damage to radios and other electronic equipment as a result. The crew had to hot bunk since there were only enough for about half the wartime crew. Some of the most unlucky had to use hammocks strung in the torpedo rooms.
Fast forward to 1945 and the Gato class. They were positively spacious compared to the S class. Almost the whole crew had their own bunks, The entire boat was air conditioned, keeping temperatures at no higher than 80 F and humidity below 65%. Electrical capacity was large enough to not only recharge a battery bank over twice the size of the S boats, but it was enough to run meat freezers, fresh food refrigerators, and a distilling plant that provided each man with an actual shower every three or four days. They even had crew washing machines, a few had ironing machines, and boats with the most clever engineering section even rigged up ice cream freezers! Frozen meat rather than canned was available for the duration of most patrols, and refrigerated fresh food would be available for the first three weeks of a patrol. Some captains allowed enough refrigerator space that the crew could have two cold six ounce bottles Coke a week. According to some crew memoirs, this was the greatest boost to morale during even difficult patrols. Some veteran admirals viewed all this as making the crews soft, but there's no doubt Gato crews were more alert, better fed, in better health, and had better morale than any other sub crews in the war.
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Warning! This is going to be another of my "War and Peace" type posts. :)
The plan, as I understand it, for covering landings on the Japanese mainland from air attack would have mainly been assigned to massed squadrons of Fletcher, Sumner, and Gearing class destroyers. There was a rushed refit of most of these units from mid-1944 to right up to August 1945 for every ship of these classes to have at least twelve 40mm Bofors guns with fourteen and even sixteen on the Gearings. This was done by landing all the torpedo tubes and, in typical USN fashion, covering the available deck space with twin and quad mount Bofors, supplemented by 20mm mounts wherever they would fit. Another goal of these refits was to install completely up to date radars and fire control equipment to allow every vessel to use VT rounds in their 5"/38 guns. Magazine spaces previously used to store torpedoes were given over to gun round storage. Many of the Sumner and Gearing class ships would also have been radar pickets, much like we saw in the earlier campaigns.
The destroyers would have been backed up by the various permutations of Atlanta class cruisers, any of the three British Dido class that could have been spared from carrier screens, and masses of Cleveland and Baltimore cruisers. Most of these ships had increased AA guns fitted along with the requisite radars and fire controls systems. The Canadian Prince Robert, a former passenger vessel converted to a merchant cruiser and later as an auxiliary antiaircraft cruiser, had performed well in the Mediterranean. It was expected her main role in the planned invasion of Japan would be covering landings and escorting supply ships. Many British, Australian, and New Zealand destroyers, corvettes, sloops, and frigates would have been assigned to cover landings of British and Commonwealth troops. The major push with the British ships, in addition to increased AA defense, was adding air conditioning and stores refrigeration equipment. Ships built for the North Atlantic would have been much reduced in combat effectiveness in the tropics without these additions. The accounts of men serving on some unconverted warships serving in the Pacific are quite harrowing in terms of below decks temperatures and humidity. The 31 RN submarines were expected to play a major role in patrol and reconnaissance offshore from Japanese naval bases, rescuing downed carrier pilots, and attacking any remaining Japanese warships foolish enough to sortie from port. A little remembered ship was the HMS Ariadne, an Abdiel class fast minelayer, and one of the first RN vessels of the later Pacific Fleet, joining the US Seventh Fleet in January, 1944. Her very high speed was put to good use landing many US Army raiding forces on various islands as well as laying over 1,000 mines. The other two Abdiel class minelayers assigned to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) would have been equally useful if they had been ready for BPF use before the war ended.
In addition to the better known roles of the battleships and carriers of both navies, a major role for the British was the Fleet Train (BFT). The BFT had 54 large ships, from oilers to ammunition ships, and well over 100 smaller ships assigned. The RN had extensive experience supplying their ships while underway. Many of the ships were Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) vessels, and some were mostly manned by merchant seamen. It was expected the British Pacific Fleet would be sustained by their own Fleet Train with enough excess capacity to also supply some USN ships. It didn't quite work out as planned, with some USN supply ships needing to be added to the BFT. Nevertheless, the ships and crews performed magnificently under sometimes horrendous condition, since many BFT vessels didn't have a/c or refrigeration. The high intensity work of underway replenishment and island supply without the help of even one air cooled space onboard tested the mettle of the crews, and they stood up better than could be expected. A humorous sidelight described by one of the RFA crewmen was when a special alarm sounded, and the men rushed up on deck. The men weren't carrying helmets and life vests that you might expect with most alarms. This alarm had men carrying soap and towels, since the alarm let men below decks know of a passing rain squall so they could cool off and get in a shower, both rare experiences on most RFA ships.
As usual, a combined British/American operation couldn't go off without politics getting in the way. It started with Churchill want to use British forces to recapture lost British territory like Burma and Hong Kong and leave the Pacific islands to the Americans. Strong protestations from the Chiefs of Staff eventually overcame Churchill's objections. The RN chiefs rightly believed that not participating in the eventual conquest of the Home Islands of Japan would decrease British influence in the Pacific and rob the RN of valuable experience participating in fleet operations and amphibious landings larger than any they had done in the past. BPF experience was part of the planning for the Suez operation and, indirectly, gave the RN confidence they could support amphibious landings in the far off Falklands.
Things on the American side were no better. The Commander-in-Chief United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations was Admiral Ernest King. He was a well known Anglophobe who saw the British as coming in after most of the battles were over and then claiming part of the prestige of helping to defeat Japan. He raised so many objections to the offers of help from the British that Roosevelt himself had to intervene and essentially order that King accept the offer of a BPF. It appeared to the public that allies were cooperating in the defeat of Japan when the reality was the USN was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the offer. King, after grudgingly accepting, set down a requirement that the BPF be totally self-sufficient. Try as they would, the BPF wasn't capable of that, and later USN aid was freely given, sometimes over the objections of Adm. King, and some BPF supply ships aided USN ships. Admiral Nimitz had more pragmatic objections based on the differences in British aircraft, carrier operations, and a myriad of logistical problems, from incompatible radios to completely different guns and ammunition between the two navies. To the credit of both navy's operational staffs, most of these problems were overcome in a matter of six months. Adm. Nimitz became an enthusiastic supporter of the BPF carrier forces after seeing their performance at Okinawa, when the armoured decks of the fleet carriers and well trained damage control teams allowed RN carriers to absorb Kamikaze attacks and continue to operate. All in all, and ignoring the political interference, it was quite a performance from two fleets that had to learn to work with each other in a matter of months.
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Ranger was always considered kind of developmental carrier, a step between Langley and the Yorktowns. US wargames of the 30's showed flush deck carriers presented few advantages compared to the operational efficiency of having an island, and stacks exhausting through the top of the island were far superior to the side mounted exhausts of Ranger. She could have been a better carrier if the stacks could have been changed when the island was added but, this still being in the depths of the Great Depression, the money wasn't available for that drastic of a redesign. Nothing could be done to improve her low (for a fleet carrier) top speed, and the flight deck and hangers all required strengthening to cope with the demise of the biplane.
For the rest of the war, other than a few relatively low intensity periods of combat, Ranger worked out what was to become an increasingly important carrier task - transportation of and flying off fighters to reinforce AAF aircraft and crews in Africa and Europe. After a disastrous start to this task that caused the loss of ten aircraft on her first mission, she was able to fly off more AAF P-40s from the deck to supply badly needed replacements in North Africa. As far as I know, these are the only instances of P-40's flying off from a carrier. She settled down to her transport task until 1944 when she returned to the East Coast to operate as a training carrier. Given the flood of new carriers and pilots coming online, this was probably her most important role. Her role as a training carrier continued until October, 1946 when, being well and truly worn out, she was struck off the naval register and sold for scrap in January, 1947.
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Radford was one of only three Fletchers to receive a FRAM II overhaul. This was a more austere overhaul than the complete reconstruction of the FRAM I ships. The original intention was reconstruction almost all the surviving Fletchers. However, the experience with the three that did get the modernization was they were far overbudget as the inevitable feature creep added more and more electronics and other equipment, and the increased crewing demanded by all the new equipment made the Fletchers intolerably crowded.
The main reason for the FRAM II upgrade was so the ships could handle the DASH drone helicopter. While derisively known as the Down At Sea Helicopter by some captains and crews, those that operated the drones in strict accordance with the Gyrodyne (makers of the QH-50C drone) procedures found the drones to be both controllable and effective. The Radford was one such ship, making more than 500 flights, including launching two torpedos while being fed dummy targeting information while the drone was over the horizon.
The DASH helicopters developed a generally poor reputation in the USN due to the lack of command support, general laziness of the crews in not making enough practice flights, and poor adherence to maintenance procedures. In contrast, the Japanese Marine Self Defense Force, with I will call the Japanese Navy to save my fingers, operated sixteen DASH drones from the decks of seven destroyers. The Japanese Navy, known for their adherence to both command instructions and maintaining their equipment, operated the QH-50D drones with nearly complete success, losing only three drones from 1969 to 1977. This is compared to losing well over half the drone fleet in the USN. The Japanese were well satisfied with the DASH drones, and only decommissioned them in 1977, due to the USN abandoning the program the previous year, leading to fears of parts and spares shortages after that date. The Japanese Navy flew their Dash helicopters every single day, at sea or in port. The program had a command officer assigned that stayed with the ship and the program from the date the drone was introduced until he retired or the DASH drones were taken out of service. Compare this to the USN, which had some ships flying the drone only twice a month, the absolute minimum demanded by regulations, and some ships having only a Petty Officer Third Class being in charge of the drones on his ship. The program, while being chronically underfunded and undermanned, did lead directly to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) now carried by by many USN combat ships. Believe it or not, the UAV program of today is underfunded and undermanned, and naval aviators don't like the current crop of UAVs any more than they liked the Gyrodyne DASH helicopters.
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