# Superbattleship Yamato: the movie



## Udet (Dec 21, 2006)

Sorry, found a thread dealing with the same issue.


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## Udet (Jan 2, 2007)

Trying to find a purpose for the opened thread is that i want to comment something regarding the Yamato.

The parts of the movie as one can find them using "youtube" show a horrific carnage of the Yamato crewmen manning the anti-aircraft batteries of the battleship.

I am not basing my comments on what is shown in a movie; the PTO ain´t my specialty and have neither found nor read any articles or interviews made to those few Yamato crewmen that survived the attack that could illustrate or explain what i´d like to know.

On a website, i found that as the war progressed, and in view of the aerial power of the U.S. carrier fleets, the japanese increased the number of anti-aircraft guns to a real huge number, with "more than 150 guns".

On wikipedia i can read that by 1945, when she met her end, Yamato had (impressive):

24 × 12.7 cm (12×2)
162 × 25 mm AA (52×3, 6×1) -51 triple-mounts!!-
4 × 13 mm AA (2×2)

So we talk about nearly 200 anti-aircraft guns. Attacking an "area" that is nearly 800 ft long protected by some 200 AA guns seems like quite a dangerous task.

One can read that during such hopeless final battle, the US Navy lost only 10 planes! Provided they were all destroyed by Yamato´s AA fire, as she was joined by a small fleet comprised by 1 light cruiser and 8 destroyers that too carried AA guns, so as far as i know, it is not even know for sure if all 10 Navy planes were shot down by Yamato´s guns.

What could possibly explain such low losses from the part of the attackers?

If i recall correctly the 25mm/60 AA gun onboard Yamato -the most numerous AA gun she had, triple mounted-, was clearly inferior in performance to the 40 mm Bofors used in the U.S. Navy, but still seems hard to comprehend how come the Navy lost such a small number of planes.

Finally, one can read the large vessels of the U.S. Navy could bring down huge numbers of japanese attacking planes. How is this explainable? Do they referr to a large number of Navy vessels putting an AA wall thus being capable of shooting down large numbers of attackers, or were they capable of achieving such goal individually?

Please note that i am not suggesting Yamato was capable of finding her way through in the circumstances we do know for April 1945, rather my question is why did the Yamato AA fire proved so inaccurate. 

Cheers!


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## Matt308 (Jan 2, 2007)

And Udet, the movie snippet also shows Yamato using her large turret mounted guns too. Lanc noted that this was not only possible, but of fairly common occurrence. Not the shoot the water to make water spouts to deter torpedo runs, but shoot fused shells for airburst effect.

Anyone ever heard of this for 16in and 18in guns? That just seems ludicrous to me for some reason. [No offense, Lanc]


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## Udet (Jan 2, 2007)

Yes, i noticed that part of the ship using the main battery against the aircraft...so you think that in reality the Yamato never fired her 18-in. at the oncoming enemy formation?

As shown on the movie snippet, well it would seem like firing the main guns at the formation shown there approaching to target in kind of a "tight" flight would have as main purpose the scattering of the flight rather than scoring direct hits, something "similar" to what the Luftwaffe did during 1944 launching 21cm rockets at the boxes of USAAF heavy bombers with much sucess, but i would not know for sure in the case of Yamato.

But do you have any views on why Yamato´s AA fire proved so inaccurate?


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## syscom3 (Jan 2, 2007)

The Japanese had developed a heavy caliber "cluster" shell for the 18" guns. When detonated, it threw off a bunch of 20mm (maybe 25mm?) shells for a shotgun effect.

I dont think it was effective though.

Trivia for you all...... IJN doctrine called for the use of the main battery's to fire into the attacking aircraft, not so much to hit anything, but to let the rest of the fleet know the direction of the attacking planes. It was an "attention" getter.


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## superpumper (Jan 2, 2007)

Gentlemen, having a large number of guns does not mean effective protection. You must have directors. They had guns but no fire crontrol. The Atlanta Class CL AA cruisers had the same problem with their 5" guns. They had 16 guns but only 2 directors. Unless mounts went into local control they could only engage 2 targets at a time and going into local control was a last ditch operation that you didn't want to do because it affects the accuracy of the guns. I think the proximity fuse and radar fire control had a lot to do with the number of aircraft the US Navy shot down in the later war. The USN had the same problem later in the war. They had light weapons everwhere they could but could not provide enough directors for all the weapons because of space and weight.


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## Udet (Jan 3, 2007)

syscom: thanks for the info. Interesting point!

superpumper:

Well, assuming that in fact the Japanese did not have fire control for their AA batteries is that i have some comments to share:

What could the possible use of AA fire control can be when you have the sky above you full of enemy planes, following different directions, flying at several altitudes and speeds, manouvering, diving upon you, straffing, climbing after having delivered bombload...?

This would not seem to apply only in the case of Yamato´s last battle, but as well in the case of the U.S. Navy when attacked by waves and waves of kamikazes off the coast of Okinawa, in the battle Yamato was sent to intervene.

AA fire control seems functional when (i) the attack has not yet commenced, or (ii) if already commenced the number of attacking planes is relatively small. Functional when the enemy aircraft are still approaching you, allowing you to have your AA guns prepared to welcome the enemy with the most accurate fire possible, but once hell got unleashed and they are all over the place attacking you and in the numbers faced by the U.S. Navy off Okinawa or by Yamato? 

How exactly would it work?


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## Smokey (Jan 3, 2007)

> This was the standard Japanese light AA of the war, being mounted aboard practically everything that floated. It was an adaptation of a French Hotchkiss design. It was also a very mediocre weapon, being hampered by slow training and elevating speeds (even in power-operated triple mounts), excessive vibration and muzzle flash, and the fact that the ammunition feed was via a 15-round fixed magazine which necessitated ceasing fire every time the ammo had to be changed. All in all, it was more comparable to the U.S. 20mm Oerlikon, and was vastly inferior to the U.S. 40mm Bofors in every respect except rate of fire (and only barely in that respect: the Bofors could put out a sustained 120 round/minute because of its constant-fire top-fed ammo clip design; whereas the 25mm's frequent ammo box changes lowered its nominal rate of fire to only half of its theoretical maximum of 260 rounds / minute). This stunning lack of an adequate medium automatic AA weapon, coupled with inferior fire control, proved to have dire consequences for Japanese surface units as the war progressed.



25mm/60 AA


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## Udet (Jan 3, 2007)

Yes, i had seen the technical drawing of that gun.

Still i would like to read the opinions of guys fond of the PTO regarding the questions i am making here.


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## syscom3 (Jan 3, 2007)

Udet, remember that the number of AA guns on a ship was not the true measure of effectiveness.

The caliber of the guns and the number of directors is often far more important. 

The 20mm and 25mm guns of both the USN and IJN turned out to be useless in destroying aircraft at ranges that would inhibit a successfull attack. The 40mm bofors had the virtue of throwing out so many shells that inevitably some of them would hit its target before it could drop its bomb or torpedo. But that required lots and lots of 40mm guns.

Once a couple of torpedo's and bombs hit the Yamato, then the numbers of unprotected AA mounts would diminish, further compounding the AA defenses.

Further, the AA gun directors proved to be quite unreliable under shock loads. In 1944 when the Musashi was initially attacked in the PI, a couple of bomb (or torpedo) hits damaged the computing gears and rendered the director inaccurate. Suposedly, the engineer who designed the director was on the ship and totally disheartened and ed that his creation was so fragile.


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## Udet (Jan 3, 2007)

Thanks for the info syscom.

I think i understood your point; as you pointed out i can read the 40mm bofors would not stop firing while the Japanese 25mm guns had to cease firing when changing the cartridge (as it is by the way shown on the movie parts at youtube).

But syscom, my question remains unanswered, do you think it was possible to have something like AA fire directors when the enemy planes were attacking in huge numbers flying over you and all around the area, with smoke, explosions and splashing all over the place? So every AA battery on board was receiving fire direction instructions? It might sound ignorant, but i still fail to understand how fire directors could function under the circumstances i am describing here.

Seems like lots of pairs of eyes could be the most adequate of the operating methods?


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## k9kiwi (Jan 5, 2007)

I remember a web site, I will try and dig it up tommorow that discussed the impact of proximity fuses for the USN and the dramatic increase in kills performed with this shell, both from 5" and 40mm Bofors.

Will see if I can find it.

Udet.

The usual method on larger ships was for three or 4 director towers controlling sectors of sky and sections of guns on the ship.

On the US ships, anything from one local radar station controlling 3 to 4 gun tubs, up to a controller tower running one quarter of the ship.


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## syscom3 (Jan 5, 2007)

Udet said:


> But syscom, my question remains unanswered, do you think it was possible to have something like AA fire directors when the enemy planes were attacking in huge numbers flying over you and all around the area, with smoke, explosions and splashing all over the place? So every AA battery on board was receiving fire direction instructions? It might sound ignorant, but i still fail to understand how fire directors could function under the circumstances i am describing here.



At some point, the number of attacking aircraft would completely overwhelm the number of directors and it would become essentially every gun "for itself".

Thats what happened with the Yamato.

Remember too.... the fire control was still a slow elctro-mechanical computer that usually had the firing solution after it was too late to do anything.


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## delcyros (Jan 6, 2007)

I think, we had a comparable discussion with my friend Syscom sometimes ago. AAA is a numbers game. This is true but as pointed out by superpumper, without controll it´s worth is limited at best. However, even with best FC (yamato had FC but only for the 5"ers) and with VT-fuzed shells (Yamato had none), You cannot hope to stop a confident air attack once the number increases over squadron strength. In Yamato, this problem is even worsed because despite having quite a useful large AAA gun (the 5") but due to it´s low muzzle velocity, it also featured a low ceiling and effective range figure, all other guns were point defense. At the range the effective firing begins, the attacking aircraft is less than 30 seconds away from Yamato and less than 10 seconds from torpedo release point. Without centralized Firecontroll, the fire will be distributed and thus, less effective. The general state of Yamato´s AAA was also decreasing rapidly due to the overcrowded placings. A single bomb hit can be nasty on the superstructures (a single bomb knocked out 28% of the port AAA in her final engagement) as will be strafing from planes. The defense of Yamato was simply overwhelmed by sheer numbers. That also might be a reason for the low US loss figure (I am aware of two US losses beeing credited to Yamato´s AAA, only).
To be fair it must be said that no warship of ww2 could have survived such a massive air attack. The japanese planes often lacked fuel protection and were easier to destroy than the more rugged designed US Avengers. The internal protective layout of Yamato was some of the best ever executed but against repeated hits, every armour should be expected to fail and the area covered by this protection is comparably small.
In the end, Yamato would have done better with fewer but better protected AAA and a decent AA-firecontroll but the outcome is not likely to change.


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## Wildcat (Jan 8, 2007)

Matt308 said:


> And Udet, the movie snippet also shows Yamato using her large turret mounted guns too. Lanc noted that this was not only possible, but of fairly common occurrence. Not the shoot the water to make water spouts to deter torpedo runs, but shoot fused shells for airburst effect.
> 
> Anyone ever heard of this for 16in and 18in guns? That just seems ludicrous to me for some reason. [No offense, Lanc]



Just to backup the statement by Lanc and Sys here is a quote from a Beaufort bomb aimer who took part in a torpedo strike against a Japanese convoy which comprised 2 cruisers, 4 destroyers and 4 transports bound for Lae. the attack was carried out by 100 sqn RAAF on the 9th Jan '43.
"(Flt Lt) John Mercer went in first at 1943 and dropped his torpedo but no result was seen and we followed about a minute later. As we approached the ship, which had been alerted by John Mercer's attack, it was running at full speed across our path and firing everything it had in our general direction, including its main heavy armament to set up splash barrages in front of us."
(No.6 OTU, Base Torpedo Unit, and RAAF Beaufort Torpedo Operations by John Lever.)
So as can be seen as Lanc and Sys said, the IJN did infact use its main guns in this manner.


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## superpumper (Jan 8, 2007)

Udet, by having guns under director control hopefully you engage the most threatening target and quickly destroy it and move to the next etc, etc. Yes you can have more targets then you can engage but it's something like take as many with you as you can. The later AA guns on US ships had local radar fire control such as the 3" 50's which replaced the 40 mm on later US ships such as the CLAA USS Wooster. I believe was so mass attacks could be better engaged if the directors were overwhelmed.


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## Udet (Jan 8, 2007)

Delcyros, syscom and superpumper:

Thank you very much for the information. It is all very interesting and has certainly helped me in understanding a bit more.

Delcyros, only 2 US planes shot down by Yamato´s defensive fire?? Unveliable...from where did you get such number? As you may have noticed, i did mention Yamato was being escorted by a small fleet of 1 light cruisers and 8 destroyers which too carried AA guns...but only 2 planes brought down by the giant...i mean, i can believe it although extremely difficult.

So in the end, my original thoughts remain valid: no matter how sophisticated you AA fire control directors can be -or the lack thereof-, in view of the kind of attacked endured by Yamato you will find yourself doomed.

As i said, i have never believed Yamato could have made it through in view of the circumnstances she faced during that time.

See the case of both HSM Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, and escorting vessels...i am not aware of the possible number of japanese planes that attacked them but we talk about two capital ships who were sent straight to the bottom. Anyone can share details on whether both ships were fitted with AA fire directors, and the quality of such gear?

Cheers!


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## delcyros (Jan 8, 2007)

The use of major calibre guns in AAA role was not uncommon. Bismarck fired some rounds against swordfishs in their final, Tirpitz fired at max. elevation time fuzed HE shells as kind of "Barrier"-firing and several japanese ships used their main guns in the same manner. All have something in common: It´s just a spectacular view but little else. The japanese even designed a special major calibre round for AAA use of main guns:
Type 3 Common incendiary shrapnel round (sankaidan) intended for AA use. Fuzes for these were set in the shell handling room with fuze protectors used to prevent damage before loading. Type 3 Common may have made up as much as 40% of the outfit by 1944. 
As were most Japanese warships, the Yamato and Musashi were provided with a special anti-aircraft incendiary shrapnel shell officially designated as "3 Shiki tsûjôdan" (Common Type 3) and supposedly nicknamed "The Beehive," but this could be apocryphal. This round weighed 2,998 lbs. (1,360 kg) and was filled with 900 incendiary-filled tubes. A time fuze was used to set the desired bursting distance, usually about 1,000 meters (1,100 yards) after leaving the muzzle. These projectiles were designed to expel the incendiary tubes in a 20 degree cone extending towards the oncoming aircraft with the projectile shell itself being destroyed by a bursting charge to increase the quantity of steel splinters. The incendiary tubes ignited about half a second later and burned for five seconds at 3,000 degrees C, producing a flame approximately 5 meters (16 feet) long.

The concept behind these shells was that the ship would put up a barrage pattern through which an attacking aircraft would have to fly. However, these shells were considered by US Navy pilots to be more of a visual spectacular than an effective AA weapon.
Japanese 46 cm/45 (18.1") Type 94


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## Matt308 (Jan 8, 2007)

Fascinating.

Reminds me of the Japanese operations where high altitude aircraft dropped phosporus bombs on waves of B-29s. Don't know the effectiveness of these either, but was left with the impression that they were not too terribly feared by the B-29 crews.


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## syscom3 (Jan 8, 2007)

Delc, thanks for the link.


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## Wildcat (Jan 9, 2007)

Gents I've scanned some pages from a book I own titled "Requiem for the Battleship yamato" by Yoshida Mitsuru. The author served on the Yamato as a junior naval officer and survived the attack.
I think these few pages written by someone who was there, gives us an insight into why the Yamato's AA guns were so ineffective.


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## Udet (Jan 10, 2007)

Great information Wildcat, thanks!

Reading on wikipedia, regarding the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HSM Repulse is that i can see the Japanese sent a relatively small number of land-based aircraft to attack the British force sent to interdict some japanese landings. Very small when compared with the ~350 US Navy planes that attacked Yamato and her smaller companions.

Apparently there were several attacks carried out by no more than 25 Japanese planes at a time. The attacks happened in intervals of 20 to 30 minutes each.

Fisrst attack:
At 1113 hours, the fleet was attacked by three waves of Japanese planes the first being the high-level bombers from the Mihoro Air Corps which was made up of *17 Nell bombers *with 500 kg (1,102 lb) bombs, as well as *eight Nells with two 225 kg *(500 lb) bombs...

25 planes made the first attack.

Second attack:
Then at about 1140 hours came the first of the torpedo bombers making up of *16 Nells *from the Genzan Air Corps.

16 planes during the second attack, and:

A second attack by *eight torpedo bombers *from the Mihoro Air Corps attacked the Repulse from two directions.

Third attack:
The third and final attack by *26 'Betty' torpedo bombers *from the Kanoya Air Corps, a detachment from the 21st Air Flotilla also based near Saigon, struck from several directions.

So, as it is commented at wikipedia, only 65 japanese aircraft attacked the British force. (88 Japanese planes being mentioned on the "strenght" table shown on the webpage). The AA fire of the British ships brought down only 3 japanese planes (27 damaged; are there any numbers regarding damaged planes for the US Navy in the action against Yamato?). 

I find it fascinating to dig further into details, that can certainly seem meaningless, but if Yamato shot down only 2 of the 10 planes the Navy lost during the attack, then chances are one -or both- of the British capital ships shot down zero attacking planes.

HMS Repulse was not on the sea surface anymore a little more than an hour after the first attack -which scored only one bomb hit on Repulse, as pointed out in this source-, while HMS Prince of Wales dissappeared about 2 hours after the initial attack. Even faster than Yamato, acknowledged being the differences in size and tonnage.

As we have commented, a fleet without air cover has little if any chances against aerial attack.

Still, the number of planes shot down by Yamato´s AA guns (2, as pointed out by delcyros) seems low beyond understanding; i wonder if this could be another case of allied distortions..._we sank the mightiest and most powerful battleship ever almost for free._

Yup, it is just a little detail on Yamato´s last battle. I will repeat what i said in my first posting: i do not believe Yamato could have fought off such kind of aerial attack, sailing without air cover, not at all. Even if the training given to the men in charge of manning the AA batteries proved inadequate, when one sees the layout of Yamato´s AA batteries -a true fortress- one could certainly expect a higher cost from the part of the attackers.

Can anyone confirm if what is commented on wikipedia is accurate?


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## Udet (Jan 11, 2007)

More...

Found an excellent website (in spanish), where a true in-depth analysis of the end of Yamato is made. My apologies for my naval terminology is poor.

These guys seem to really know what they talk about; of course -getting repetitive- they are aware of the fact a fleet without air cover coming under aerial attack has little chances if any.

Now, they make a question: how come Yamato went down after receiving less damage than her twin Musashi as it happened in the Sibuyan Sea of the Phillipines?

It is interesting to note i had not found the information on this spanish website in any other source:

It is possible that Yamato had a somewhat sooner end due to the insane amount of ammunition of all calibers she carried during her last mission? The numbers shown are the following:

1,170- 18 in. shells;
1,620- 6.1 in shells;
13,500- 5 in. shells; and (more importantly)
~*11,000,000*- 25 mm shells. (!)

Such amount of ammo was not carried under "ordinary" circumstances but in view of the nature of the mission in April 1945 (Ten-Ichi-Go) which the naval high command knew would be final was that they decided to load the number of ammo therein mentioned.

The important thing comes when they say such a number of ammunition (especially the 25mm rouds) could not be properly stored and handled in well protected compartments.

So as the battle raged, a great amount of 25 mm shells had to be placed near the AA batteries. They say that chances are a bomb hit near the forward triple 6 in. turret may have caused a "chain explosion" of unproperly stored and handled 25 mm rounds, that in addition to a prior torpedo hit on the left side of the ship, under the area of main turret (B) that had weakened internal structures where the 16. in shells were stored, may have caused a huge number of exploding 25 mm rounds into the area, causing a huge fire, leading to her dimise.

1939-1945 - La Segunda Guerra Mundial

http://www.de1939a1945.bravepages.com/descargas/findelyamato.pdf


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## rjr1876 (Jan 16, 2007)

Matt308 said:


> And Udet, the movie snippet also shows Yamato using her large turret mounted guns too. Lanc noted that this was not only possible, but of fairly common occurrence. Not the shoot the water to make water spouts to deter torpedo runs, but shoot fused shells for airburst effect.
> 
> Anyone ever heard of this for 16in and 18in guns? That just seems ludicrous to me for some reason. [No offense, Lanc]



Just finished watching the movie...it's exciting and must watch it again...abt the main battery used for AA, did a search and this is what I have found:-\
San Shiki" (the Beehive) Model 13 - Japan's Most Unusual Anti-Aircraft Shell
This remarkable anti-aircraft shell was designed to be fired from the 18-inch guns of the super battleship Yammamoto. The idea was pursued as Japanese capital ships could almost never count on friendly air cover and were forced to provide their own defense against allied aircraft. Called "San Shiki" (the Beehive) Model 13 the round weighed 2,998lb (kg) and was filled with 900 incendiary tubes (of rubber thermite) and 600 steel stays. A time fuze was set before firing that went off at a predetermined altitude causing the explosive and metal contents to burst in a cone extending 20 degrees forward, towards the oncoming aircraft. Instantly after detonating, the shell itself was destroyed by a bursting charge, increasing the quantity of steel splinters. The incendiary tubes ignited about half a second later and burned for five seconds at 3000 degrees C, producing a flame about 16ft (m) long. 
Although quite impressive the weapon when used was a failure ruining several of the battleship's main guns and barely effecting the swarm of attacking allied aircraft. 
(from World War II Guide to Air Power)

Regards,
Tai


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## Udet (Jan 18, 2007)

Tai (much easier than your nickname):

Thanks for the input but if you read a few postings above you might notice Herr Delcyros had already commented on the Japanese special AA heavy shell fired by the main battery.


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