Designing the Yamato - What do you mean almost yet another Nelson type?

Download World of Warships and use the code WARSHIPS for extra goodies here: wo.ws/3KUbAtR
Today we take a look at the design process that birthed the largest battleships to sail the seas, the Yamato class.
With many thanks to Tzoli for the use of his images: www.deviantart.com/tzoli/gallery
Sources:
Warship - Volume VII
The Yamato Class and Subsequent Planning - Lengerer & Ahlberg
Battleship Tosa Demolition Tests to the Modified Yamato Design - Lengerer & Ahlberg
Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II - Garzke and Dulin
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:00 - Background and Theory
00:08:29 - The Minds Behind the Ships
00:12:54 - The First Attempts
00:16:32 - Design A-140
00:28:18 - The Final Stretch
Naval History books, use code 'DRACH' for 25% off - www.usni.org/press/books?f%5B...
Free naval photos and channel posters - www.drachinifel.co.uk
Want to support the channel? - / drachinifel
Want to talk about ships? / discord
'Legionnaire' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au

[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@michaelkovacic2608]

How long does it take for a question to be answered in the drydock right now?

[@KPen3750]

Given how much you like these questions, New Jerseys front and rear turrets are aimed at roughly 20-25 degrees elevation. Assuming no structures are in the immediate flight path out of the city, where would the shells land respectively?

[@picklerick8785]

Did the USN and RN dismissal of interwar IJN pilots and their skills also stem (in part) from the fact that they were not officers and college graduates like the USN/RN pilots, but enlisted sailors with a technical school education? Did this class distinction matter to how Japanese officers treated enlisted Japanese pilots as expendable?

[@michaelkovacic2608]

@@KPen3750 you can answer that question yourself by looking at the elevation/range table for these guns at navweaps.

[@stevevalley7835]

@@michaelkovacic2608 well, Drac has not gotten up to answering questions from guide 334 yet, and guide 334 was posted May 6th. so the lead time, right now, looks to be about five months.

[@jonskowitz]

"It's a shame both of these were sent to the bottom..." Well, it seemed important to do so at the time.

[@stillcantbesilencedevennow]

Lmao

[@khaelamensha3624]

I must admit, you seems to have made a point right here 😇

[@Bilskirnir3124]

The USN had a point to prove. It's ships were best, and everyone else's ships were coral reefs.

[@jaysonlima7196]

And provided they DID somehow survive the war I have my doubt that they wouldn't be expended at Bikini....

[@judahboyd2107]

​@@jaysonlima7196They would probably have been scrapped. We weren't really interested in keeping our enemies ships as museums (They were the losers, why show how great their ships were?), and the age of big guns was coming to a close so there was no excuse to use them. Hell, we scrapped Enterprise. It's a miracle Texas is still around, and a bigger miracle the funds exist to preserve her.

[@Khymerion]

So, is the Nelson type pretty much the naval version of the evolution of crabs?

[@bella_ciao4608]

Nelsonization

[@chicken_burgers]

And she’s not the pride of Royal Navy because they find her ugly.

[@bkjeong4302]

I’d argue the “3x3 two forward one aft” layout is another candidate.

[@Khymerion]

@@bella_ciao4608 Perfect.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

PBS Eons fan, by any chance?

[@leopardone2386]

"What do you mean they are turning warships into anime waifus?"

[@mecharobby]

Lol

[@Cobra-King3]

The fact that Drach was exposed to such makes this even funnier

[@champagnegascogne9755]

@@Cobra-King3 and he ultimately decided he loves Hood's design.

[@alexvisser5913]

It's good stuff trust me

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

Yamato best hotel waifu

[@EliteValor1003]

Don't forget that it had Shock Cannons and Wave motion engine options with plans to take it to space.

[@kmech3rd]

Hoping for an in depth analysis of Gamilas space ships...

[@thundercactus]

And a large hanger bay for fighters!

[@Battleship009]

I got that reference.

[@arthurschipper8906]

I grew up watching star blazers too.

[@Battleship009]

@@arthurschipper8906 I didn't, I found out in the 2010's as I was born in 1993.

[@Wolfeson28]

When the time comes (hopefully FAR in the future, of course) for Drach to cross the River Styx...I'm sure he'll spend the entire voyage explaining to Charon how the Barge of the Dead could really be much more efficient if he switched it to an all-forward main battery. 😁

[@baalzeebub4230]

With a diesel - steam split system.

[@gayprepperz6862]

LMAO 🤣🤣

[@michaelsnyder3871]

If you look at Japan's "8-8-8" program in 1922, you will notice that even the "No.13" design with 46cm guns had a full load displacement under 50,000 metric tons and a draft that did not exceed 35 feet. This was due to the limitations of Japan's infrastructure, industry and harbors and coastal waters. What the Japanese did during the period of the London Treaty of 1930 was to not only rebuild their entire battle line, three battlecruisers and two capital ship derived aircraft carriers, but also update their infrastructure, industry and harbors and coastal waters. The main limitation was launch displacement and deep draft. The Japanese improved their launch displacement at the two slips used to build "Yamato" and "Musashi" from ~40,000 metric tons to 55,000 metric tons. They also dredged their harbors and the lanes in their coastal waters. They improved their industries and infrastructure, such as building a special vessel to transport the guns and turrets from the IJ facility were they had been built to the construction yards. Yet even 55,000 metric tons proved too little, when combined with a full load draft limitation of 37 feet (this is why the succeeding class retained the main features of the "Yamato" class while changing the main armament from nine 46cm guns to six 51cm guns). The Japanese had to adopt the second best solution for the joint that joined the upper and lower belts, because the optimal design would have been too heavy for the target displacement. This didn't seem too matter as much when the decision was made as the joint, like the "Yamato" classes' torpedo protection system was designed to resist torpedoes and mines with a warhead of 880lbs of TNT equivalent. This was even after the Japanese themselves adopted a surface ship torpedo, the 61cm Type 93, with a warhead equivalent to 1,088lbs of TNT. Then in 1943, the British and Americans developed TORPEX for their ASW weapons, torpedoes and mines. TORPEX has the explosive effect ~50% greater than TNT. This meant that the USN's Mk.13 aerial torpedo with a 600lbs warhead which was now equivalent to 900lbs TNT could now seriously stress the "Yamato" classes' torpedo protection system. The warheads of the Mk.14 submarine and Mk.15 surface torpedoes became a definite overmatch. Yamato was hit by a Mk.14 torpedo which carried a TORPEX warhead equivalent to ~1,000lbs of TNT. The hit near the stern caused significant damage, the failure of the upper and lower belt joint failing, leading to the aft 46cm magazine flooding. IJNS Musashi was hit forward by a Mk.14 on 29 March 1944 causing a similar failure of the joint. When designed, the Japanese believed that "Yamato" could take four torpedoes with 880lbs warheads on one side, resulting in much of the hull outside the protected "raft body" being flooded (the raft body covered about 55% of the side of the class) and still reach an IJN base. Both ships of the class were by USN dive and torpedo bombers, the "Musashi" taking between eleven and nineteen Mk.13 aerial torpedoes with warheads equivalent to 900lbs of TNT before she sank and "Yamato" took between eleven and thriteen Mk.13 torpedoes. Both attacks simply overmatched the defensive capabilities of the protection of the "Yamato" class, a situation unforeseen by her designers.

[@willxiv]

Thank you for the details.

[@VM-is8by]

Good details

[@GregMoress]

Cool. Hit Enter twice to make a paragraph. Like this.

[@johncollins6755]

@@GregMoress Thanks Greg...as an "older fella", I have struggled to find a means to insert a spacing for a new paragraph. Sometimes you can find some particular help, even when you aren't looking for it at the time. Blessings to you...

[@heatmyzer9]

@@GregMoresssavage comment.

[@TomFynn]

"It was big. Really, really, big. No, bigger than that. It was BIG." -Arna Kennerüd, Skyknight

[@fifthcrusade4607]

Next video will be: Imperial Star Destroyer another Nelson design

[@ph89787]

Or the Fire Nation ships. Nelsons with catapults.

[@theheretic6398]

You laugh, but that's what I started building in Space engineers. A Star destroyer like shape with a heavy triple battery each super firing in the center 😂 superstructure 😂😂

[@arthurschipper8906]

😂😂

[@MM22966]

Lies! Kuat built a balanced capital combatant!

[@MM22966]

@@ph89787Oh shit, Now I can't unsee it. The squared off sterns, the weirdly lengthened but somehow bare area forward of the superstructure...

[@juliantolley2191]

My grandfather was dockyard foreman and was involved in the rush to shorten the Nelson. He was on the bridge when they first fired all the main guns together. He related that they watched the boat heel over and over. It approached the maximum angle and went past, then very slowly righted itself. It was made clear that the Nelson was never to fire all main guns at the same time ever again....

[@brownwrench]

At least not broadside

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

But what about HMS Rodney, I had heard that when she was firing at Bismarck that some of the salvo's were full every gun salvo's. What was different that Rodney could but Nelson could not? Or were those full salvo's staggered just a bit so the ship didn't heel too far over???

[@frankgleaves1084]

Didn't they find a Very slight delay of the center gun in each turret necessary to reduce shell dispersion? I don't know if that would have been enough to also solve the heeling issue without causing a distinct delay.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

@@frankgleaves1084 I do know that the US Standards that were equipped with triple gun turrets were having accuracy issues that were fixed by a short delay in firing the middle gun because the blast radius of all 3 together would cause the shells to go tumbling way off course. But I'm not sure if HMS Nelson experienced that problem as well, which the slight delay was the easy fix for it. But as far as the ship heeling over too far after a full salvo of all the main guns, I would also think that the direction and/or angle of the guns when fired would also have a bearing on how far the ship heels to the other side.

[@DeDerpyDerp_]

​@frankgleaves1084 I know HMS Belfast did that, hence the center gun on every turret is also a few inches shorter

[@cmcb7230]

I love how the Japanese navy only seemed to take photographs of their warships while they were traveling at full speed.

[@carlossaraiva8213]

It looks good for propaganda.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@carlossaraiva8213 Yamato was never used for propaganda purposes (due to all the secrecy) so that was not a factor with her or her sister.

[@carlossaraiva8213]

@@bkjeong4302 you mean Hotel Yamato?

[@B1900pilot]

These were taken while running her trials…I think she made a shade over 27 knots.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@B1900pilot She got slightly over 28kt on trials.

[@karlgustov9648]

Considering that the Japanese burned the plans for these ships after the war, what sort of design mysteries remain?

[@jamespocelinko104]

I used to think that inventing time travel would result in lots of people using it to try and stop Hitler. Now I suspect it would mostly be used by historians (professional and amateur) to steal books and documents before they could be lost or destroyed.

[@ph89787]

The Death Star?

[@gbreslin6635]

Saw recently that Mitsubishi kept at least some of the plans for Musashi.

[@pendragooon]

Ask Wargaming’ Fantasy Department.

[@ZaHandle]

Clearly the space propulsion system and the wave motion gun system

[@bullreeves1109]

We need a portrayal of the true timeline where Nelson, North Carolina, and Yamato are all Nelson layout carrier hybrids!

[@davemehelas5053]

There’s a Japanese film out there named Yamato. Gives the whole background from the Japanese perspective. English subtitles. Very well done.

[@glenchapman3899]

The Great War of Archimedes, and yes a very well done film

[@bkjeong4302]

@@glenchapman3899 Except the entire plot doesn’t make sense historically for three big reasons-the Japanese didn’t abandon carrier construction to build Yamato as presented in the film, Yamamoto never quite figured out battleships were obsolete (though, in his defence, no WWII-era admiral ever really did), and trying to get Yamato cancelled by pointing out she breaks treaty limits would never work because Japan wasn’t part of the treaty system by 1937.

[@tholmes2169]

I saw it the other day but instead of subtitles it had horrible English dubbing. Interesting story but I’m guessing most of it was fictional.

[@edwardhebert3055]

I own it, good film

[@frankgleaves1084]

@@bkjeong4302 Remember Yamamoto never got to be IJN Chief of Staff (Nagano in 1941) Or the Navy Minister (Yonai from 1937 to September 1939), who had been the one who had backed the Yamato class as the way to assure Japan qualitative superiority even if the US outnumbered them. Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai had been a supporter of the Naval Treaties and an opponent of growing Japanese Militarism even before the 1930 London Naval Treaty, when Yamamoto threatened to "smash" the Japanese Economics adviser at the Conference if he said again that Japan couldn't afford a Naval Race with the UK and US. (Hoyt, "Yamamoto") By the 1934 Naval Treaty Conference Yamamoto belonged to the "Treaty Faction" like Yonai, and Osami Nagano of the "Fleet Faction" had told him he could be silenced with a knife between the ribs. When radical young officers proclaimed a "Showa Restoration" February 26, 1936, Yonai commanding Yokosuka Naval Station near Tokyo was the first Officer to denounce the young officers murdering the Emperor's advisers and Cabinet Ministers as actually being in Rebellion against the Emperor. military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Mitsumasa_Yonai Hirohito was encouraged by the sign of support from the Navy to announce he was taking personal command of his Palace Guard to disperse the Rebels, and Tojo's "Control Faction" of Senior Army Officers was forced to take action and call out their troops to protect the Emperor. By December Yonai was Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet, and within 6 months Navy Minister. Yamamoto was appointed Deputy Minister, and soon became the mouthpiece for his chief, a "man of few words" with an "indecipherable Nambu accent", infuriating the militarists with his apology for the sinking of the gunboat USS Panay safeguarding refugees at the siege of Nanking. When Germany betrayed Japan with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact a few days after Zhukov's victory over the 29th Division of the Kwantung Army at Khalkin Gol, Japan had to abandon its plans for an Alliance with Germany against the USSR. A new Government was formed without the outspoken Yonai and Yamamoto, sacrificed for more moderate officers to take advantage of the Army's loss of face after their defeat by Zhukov and German betrayal to try to restore harmony in Japan. Before leaving the Navy Ministry August 30, 1939 Yonai sent Yamamoto to sea in command of the Combined Fleet, where he would have better security against militarist assassins. So Yamamoto developed his plans for Pearl Harbor and a Great Naval Battle nearer Wake Island with the support of the more moderate old "Treaty Faction" officers running the Navy Ministry, rather than the pro-Nazi "Fleet Faction" officers like Chief of the IJN General Staff Nagano, in charge of planning. Agawa mentions Yamamoto's proposal to the Navy Minister in 1939 to move the site of the Great Decisive Battle closer to the Marshall Islands, and by 1940 the modern school on Eniwetok Island was demolished to make way for an airfield while work was begun on a submarine base in the great atoll. Agawa even wrote in his Yamamoto biography "The Reluctant Admiral" (1969) that Yamamoto hoped Yonai could be brought back from retirement to replace him as Chief of the Combined Fleet, so that he could command the Kido Butai in the attack. (Against being yet another military Prime Minister, Admiral Yonai had retired when Emperor Hirohito had him appointed Premier January 16, 1940.) On the Eve of the Germsn Break-out across the Meuse River at Sedan, Agawa says Yamamoto had told his Chief of Staff Admiral Fukudome that an air attack on Pearl Harbor was now feasible. War Minister General Hata had just begun his campaign to force Yonai to approve Alliance with Germany or be forced to resign by Army refusal to provide him a War Minister. And the airfield and submarine base on Eniwetok were under construction, only 600 nautical miles from Wake Island and about 1200 from the big base at Truk Atoll. Yonai's return would prove impossible until Tojo resigned with the loss of the Emperor's support on the Fall of Saipan, four years after Yonai's resignation.

[@Big_E_Soul_Fragment]

Oh sick, a history of the IJN Izumo

[@davefinfrock3324]

It's in there. Somewhere. What we have in WoWS as Izumo is--mostly--one of the J-series ships, but with a notional AA refit, hence the loss of two of the 6.1" turrets. However, there are design elements in the in-game model reminiscent of the C and D-series diesel ships and the more conventional G-series. At a guess, this is done for visual cues reminiscent of Yamato, since some of these ships had fairly radical appearances with only the tower-style pagoda mast being similar to Yamato.

[@atpyro7920]

Or alternatively, a history of the IJN Iwami. Or Hizen, or-

[@gothia1715]

25:04 Here we have it.

[@martinhaigh8345]

Being a Japanese naval architect in the 1930s sounds like every 9 Yr old boy's dream job. I wonder if one of them ever looked at himself in the mirror and said "Dude! You are getting paid to draw fantasy battleships!"

[@beaterbikechannel2538]

1930s-"But can you make the guns bigger?" "This would cause considerable topside instability" 2023- "but can you draw her b00bs bigger" "Those will cripple her" The japanese for you.

[@Antisocialnerd2]

yeah but then they had to add "if you make a mess of this job then countless numbers of your fellow countrymen will be killed and your home conquered "

[@martinhaigh8345]

@@Antisocialnerd2 They did a great job then.... Seriously, this is a classic case of generals preparing to fight the last war. How much of their resources did the Japanese devote to designing and building immense battleships to fight a war where battleships would be largely irrelevant?

[@Antisocialnerd2]

@@martinhaigh8345 Easy to say what will be obsolete etc with seventy years of hindsight. If someone comes up with a way to completely negate stealth technology you could be saying the same thing about America after ww3

[@AKUJIVALDO]

​@@Antisocialnerd2like Russia and China does? I mean, "the stealth" doesn't exist...what does is optimised plane geometry while facing short wave radar head on.

[@RaptorMaitre]

Glad you kept the naval gun shots in the intro. I can't help but love Naval big gun sounds. Great video as usual.

[@BruceRKF]

For those interested, World of Warships features designs A-140-J2 and A-140-J3 as Izumo and Hizen, respectively. Iwami is also mostly A-140-J3, but with only twin turrets (I guess you could say the B2 gun layout, but with 410 instead of 460 mm guns). At least that is what I could infer from pictures and reading up about the A-140 series. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[@lurkingcarrier8736]

And I still maintain _Hizen_ ought to have replaced _Izumo_ in the tech tree.

[@BruceRKF]

@@lurkingcarrier8736 It would fit better, yes, but you could continue the argument with other ships: e.g. Tosa could be the tier 8 and Amagi wander over to the battlecruises. There could be a complete tech tree for battlecruisers from tier 4, starting with Myogi and Kongo and new tier 4 and 5 battleships (there are enough blue prints available) and on and on and on. Sadly, WG never goes with what the fans want or things that are sensible or require effort (and money).

[@lurkingcarrier8736]

@@BruceRKF Amen. Just have to look at the IJN CL branch for that. At least they didn't bork 155mm _Mogami_ like they did with 150mm _Z-23_ to justify the heavy/light KM DD split. ...even if _Elbing_ is more of a pocket cruiser than a destroyer -.-

[@trickydicky2908]

It certainly was a beautiful ship design.

[@glenchapman3899]

I am not a fan, but that sweep of her foredeck is an absolute thing of beauty.

[@mazdrpan4099]

It was completely horrible and makes Bismarck design seem efficient.

[@greener2497]

@@mazdrpan4099 the cope is strong with this one

[@bkjeong4302]

@@mazdrpan4099 A Yamato shrunk down to Bismarck’s size would still be significantly superior to Bismarck.

[@AmosDohms]

She certainly has her own distinct style. I like the bow shape and the curved sides, not a big fan of everything going on aft. I prefer the Yamato's look to that of any of the American fast battleships, but rank the Germans and British higher still.

[@ironteacup2569]

I love behind the scenes stuff like this. The depth of understanding on how/why they built what the built is of extreme interest to me

[@Habdabi]

Agreed, much better than splurging stats

[@Kevin_Kennelly]

Beautiful ship drawings. They worked well with your narration. I think it's safe to say that we all walked away from this with a smile. Many thanks. 35:03 "And this, AT LAST, would be the ship that would become Yamato."

[@charlescdt6509]

Wargaming needs to hire you stat. You are far better at explaining ship designs then their crew is.

[@auxityne]

Somewhere there's a universe where every battleship is a Nelson, but Nelson and Rodney had aft turrets.

[@WalterReimer]

Not so loud! World of Warships will hear you!

[@carlossaraiva8213]

"How large you need the ship to be?" "Yes!"

[@timgodderis1918]

New Drach video ... instant like

[@ironteacup2569]

Every time he gets a like

[@christophpoll784]

Instant like and Mark to watch later.

[@khaelamensha3624]

​@@christophpoll784yep, Wednesday vidéo are ready at the same time of my meeting with my manager. As I think he is the seasick on a calm lake type, no way he would accept that I use the meeting screen to watch Drach video. This world is sick 😇😂

[@Sabelzahnmowe]

Thx to Tzoli for the beautiful illustrations of all those designs. They really helped the Story.

[@ididthat1st]

I'd love you to do a video on how the Japanese were able to copy their British built Kongo in their own dockyards. What components were built locally etc. Keep up the great work Drach!

[@michaelsnyder3871]

Easy. The British sold them the building plans, provided tooling and mechanical engineers and trained Japanese naval architects, engineers and workers. While Kongo was built in Britain, Fuso was claimed to be the first dreadnought type vessel completed in Japan that was totally of materiel and systems built in Japan. Follow the trail, each successive member of the Kongo class had less and less major assemblies and systems produced in Britain.

[@Tuning3434]

I would expect the design process, build plans and technology transfer where part of the deal, because IJN for sure wanted to have the capability to maintain / modify their ships on their side of the world. Doesn't change the fact that the RN were the trailblazers of technological development, and the Japanese got the entry to the 'current level' with their newbuilds.

[@chicken_burgers]

Ended up having all four ships slightly different, after second refit all had different pagoda towers.

[@ZaHandle]

Well they probably just bought the plans from the British

[@bkjeong4302]

@@chicken_burgers Hiei ended up not having a pagoda at all and got a tower mast instead, as a test to see if that would work for the Yamatos (it did work, and the Yamatos ended up being the only Japanese battleship class without pagoda masts).

[@Alobo075]

Glad to see the fine work of Tzoli getting shown in these videos. I have been a follower of his gallery for many years. His alternate designs are well researched.

[@sirjohnbarlow7261]

Totally agree! Was kinda waiting for him to actually be showcased in this channel someday but totally didn't expect it anyway, lovely match for the videos.

[@arkdeniz]

More evidence supporting the maxim that a design that looks aesthetically pleasing is probably a pretty good design (at least for the parameters you’ve set for it).

[@dougjb7848]

11:12 Are you sure he’s an admiral in the IJN? He appears to be … smiling?

[@davidvasquez08]

Is that a good thing?

[@MM22966]

@@davidvasquez08 Possible sign of mental instability. Or his dad worked in theatre.

[@Brendan200]

You could also go to the Yamato museum in Japan which has a huge Yamato model

[@pkhaha161]

been there in early march this year,huge model, 1:10 scale, i was running up and down inside the building to take photos of the model

[@pkhaha161]

some japanese youtubers have post detail video of the yamato museum

[@marckyle5895]

I need one of those of the Enterprise!

[@emilchan5379]

An old and much simplified version of the chart at 16:42 which details the layout of the different designs can also be found there.

[@edtrine8692]

@@pkhaha161 It's hard to imagine a model ship a little over 80 feet long lol.

[@SaturnCanuck]

That was great! I always loved the design of the Yamato and thought she was both a pretty and aggressive class. I look forward to your follow up history of the A-140S-74, when, in 2199, she was converted into the Space Battleship Yamato of the Earth Space Fleet to defend against the Gamilas.

[@kyleolson8977]

Gamilas: "Does anybody know why the humans keep sending all their tech to the bottom of the ocean near Okinawa? Seems weird."

[@Ah01]

Would have been an aggressive design, had the empire possessed anywhere nearly enough fuel to actually operate it. 😂

[@bkjeong4302]

@@Ah01 It wouldn’t have mattered how much fuel the IJN had; Yamato was always going to be useless because there was no real strategically justifiable use for her. Which is exactly what happened with things like the Iowas at the same time, being actively deployed but proving to be wastes of money themselves.

[@Ah01]

@@bkjeong4302 yeah, but US had the fuel to use Iowa's as (somewhat overexpensive) Carrier escorts... so, they had their uses. And no one knew at the time when the Iowas were ordered if USA would have a decisive air superiority at their commissioning time, so the Yamatos had to be countered somehow. In hindsight it proved that any five essex'es could do the job, and did.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@Ah01 Using a capital ship as a gigantic destroyer/CLAA instead of as an actually viable capital ship is already a strategic disaster. The fact the USN used the Iowas in that manner doesn’t mean the Iowas were useful, it just means the US war economy was so powerful that it could actively fuck itself over with unnecessary battleship construction/deployment and still win the war. The Yamatos had nothing to do with the design and construction of the Iowas because the USN had no idea the Yamatos existed, let alone how capable they were, at that point.

[@bryant7201]

Thank you for the 36 minute 5 minute guide! Amazed you found such resources given the secrecy and post war destruction of documents.

[@jamespocelinko104]

Experience has taught me that asking the question "Who would win in a shooting match, Yamato or an Iowa Class?" is rather appropriately bound to result in an online shooting match.

[@issacfoster1113]

People that asks those just want attention and validation 🙃

[@KHETTIUS]

This question has been asked many times i'm guessing, i think it's basically been covered on this channel at some point stating that the Iowa was faster, had modern radar guidence for it's guns and subsuqently could engage Yamato outside the range of what Yamato could effectively fire back and thus could dictate the engagment range and pick Yamato apart.

[@paulrasmussen8953]

​@@KHETTIUSfrom what i heard the advantage depended on weather. Clear day Yamato. Stormy weather Iiwa

[@stillcantbesilencedevennow]

There's honestly hundreds of different factors that would come into play in real life. Crews, steel quality, ammo quality, ammo quantity perhaps, training time, support, weather, etc etc

[@bkjeong4302]

@@KHETTIUS Actually this channel has never said that (mostly because Iowa’s supposed ability to engage Yamato from well outside Yamato’s effective range didn’t actually exist in practice outside of poor-visibility conditions: NO battleship ever was able to reliably hit things from 30,000+ yards, and Iowa would have had to close to within Yamato’s effective range to start reliably hitting her). Even at closer ranges Iowa does stand a good chance of killing Yamato (the 16”/50 gun has more than enough power to basically ignore Yamato’s belt) but Yamato also stands a good chance of killing Iowa (same situation), as long as visibility isn’t poor (in which case Iowa’s radar advantage would kick in and prove decisive).

[@AGTheOSHAViolationsCounter]

Okay now THIS intro music is absolutely the best attempt at a replacement for the much missed old intro music.

[@SMGJohn]

Cannot believe they made this heavy thing go into space, just mind boggling engineering to achieve it

[@swordmonkey6635]

The evolution of the A-140 project reflects the IJN was still heavily influenced by their former RN mentors. Japan did what Japan does best: not invent a new thing, but innovate. I can't wait to see your video about Project A-150, the two proposed follow ups to the Yamato class BBs.

[@aslamnurfikri7640]

So you're telling me Yamato class isn't big enough for Japan?

[@swordmonkey6635]

@@aslamnurfikri7640 Japan didn't have the ability to build a lot of battleships, so the ones they built needed to be force multipliers. The Yamato was designed to engage 4 Pennsylvania class BBs at the same time. The A-150 would be the same for the North Carolina or Washington Class BBs. A-150s were proposed to hit service mid 1940s if war hadn't been declared.

[@JerrySeriatos]

well all countries innovate rather than invent

[@swordmonkey6635]

@@JerrySeriatos If that were the case, no new inventions would be made. There's got to be a "first" of everything and then innovation or evolution after that.

[@JerrySeriatos]

@swordmonkey6635 yea but the invention could be in a lab experimental and never mass produced. Because the Japanese industrialized later than the europeans, they improved or modified existing technology. For a answer we need to look the patents and see who got more

[@robertf3479]

Absolutely amazing process that brought this idea into a 72,000 ton steel reality. Some of these could have been built and completed as thoroughly workable battleships ... not in the same league as Yamato but as smaller 16" armed "baby sisters" at least as battleworthy as Nagato or replacements for the Kongo types, better armed and armored though perhaps not as fast in a few designs. Well done and well presented as always sir.

[@deanwood1338]

I miss the old intro 😢 but nothing will stop me watching drac 😁

[@X8X8X8X8X8X8X8X8X8X]

12:10 This picture gives us a good idea of the ridiculous scale of battleships.

[@JessWLStuart]

Oooh! I love this intro music! Great presentation on how Yamato was developed!

[@comentedonakeyboard]

Yamato is not sunk, she is kept in Reserve (in case of Alien Invasion)

[@davidvasquez08]

Not sure how it’s kept in reserve when it’s split in half (one side which one half is right side, whilst the other half is upside down), and rusting away

[@boogts]

whoosh @@davidvasquez08

[@comentedonakeyboard]

@@davidvasquez08 just some superficial demage, she will need a refit before going to space anyway

[@merafirewing6591]

​@@comentedonakeyboard unless a replica of her is sunk in an upright position.

[@WalterReimer]

"Some assembly required."

[@leeroyjames]

Considering i'm about to start a Japan Campaign on Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts - this video is well received. Pleasure to be here as always.

[@Drewmikola]

Best new intro music yet! Sounds like a winner.

[@user-xb1wh5mt4l]

9:50, 13:11, 14:31, 17:00 (too many Nelson-types to list further) Now I see the general inspiration for WoWs' Izumo. I've always thought it was just a Wargaming invention just to have another Nelson-type, but now I see.

[@user-xb1wh5mt4l]

It also seems like Nelson layout is the same sort of meme for the naval community as bullpup for the firearms community, being a rare, unconventional and more efficient (for ships in terms of armour arrangement, in guns in terms of barrel length/gun length ratio) layout.

[@kimpatz2189]

@@user-xb1wh5mt4l The great advantage of the Nelson type is its rather compact armor layout. Every explody bits huddled together and armored to ridiculous levels is cheaper than spreading it all to the ship. The all-or-nothing armor concept done in the most cheapest possible way. The opposite end of this is the Fusou type layout. The reason it has subpar armor, matching a battle cruiser armor, is its gun layout. The bits needed to armor up are spread on the ship. It increases weight as more surface area is needed to armor up. The reason for its slow speed is also due to its gun layout. There are 2 turret wells close to the boiler rooms hindering space. The subclass Isei re-iterated the gun layout into a Wyoming type, thats why the Isei and Hyuuga has more horsepower to muster. Its also the reason why the Fusou and Yamashiro were relegated as training ships for most of the time as these could not keep up with expected speeds on the fleet until the final struggle where they were finally deployed as fighting ships. Nicknamed the unclucky sisters. The both of them are even dreaded by the IJN crews due to cramped living space and uncomfortable layout. Isei and Hyuuga were regularly assigned as command ships (or the largest and most armored supply ship ever afloat at that time. Large hangars with no planes to store after conversion to Aviation BBs) while Fusou served as command ship only once and Yamashiro (with the 3rd turret facing aft has more boiler space and a bit faster) did it a few times but not as common as their sub-sisters.

[@user-xb1wh5mt4l]

@@kimpatz2189 Yes, the Fuso's layout was rather questionable.

[@esmenhamaire6398]

A particularly wonderful episode, Drach, explaining the design process involved, and many thanks to Tzoli for allowing you to make use of their wonderful drawings!

[@smatthewson2613]

Roll on the video on Lanchester's equations (and other mathematical abstractions of combat)

[@MrTylerStricker]

How did we go so long without a Drach video on Yamato design??

[@khaelamensha3624]

Because the world is f... up...

[@bkjeong4302]

Drach did already have a Yamato video, this video just covers how she came to be.

[@WiiR4Him]

While I miss the OG music for the intros, the music on this one definitely has felt like it has fit the best of all the different ones tried so far.

[@nazarinoutama8269]

So this is why i keep building nelson like battleship in my japanese campaign in admiral dreadnought 😂

[@Brock_Landers]

Oh, and I have been playing WOW Blitz for a little while now and I love it. It's hard for me to commit much time to as I am 40 with kids, a wife, and a more than full time job, but it's still fun. My best battleship at the moment is Tirpitz.

[@nostalgiaof98]

The way the front shapes up, side on is beautiful. Reminds me of a chinese rooftop. Its beautiful how tanks and ships can just reflect the aesthetic of their nation.

[@thundercactus]

I love the discussion and arguments around the building of the Yamato class. And I've seen so many people ask "why did the IJN even build battleships during the age of naval air power"?? Well it's very simple: They DIDN'T! Many of the IJN's famous carriers of the Kido Butai had been in service prior to Yamato being laid down, Shokaku and Zuikaku being the exceptions having been laid down around the same time and commissioned mere months before Yamato in December of 1941. So one could argue the IJN was already heavily shifting towards carriers, HOWEVER, carrier doctrine had not been established or proven at this point in time. The Battle of Taranto was actually the first time the world realized the tactical value of carriers ADDED TO A FLEET. That was all the way into November of 1940. The sinking of Bismarck once again solidified the fact that carriers were now a staple of future naval warfare.... in their capacity of being ADDED TO A FLEET. This was now May of 1941, and the allies have now just decided that every battle fleet NEEDS a carrier. Battleships still aren't obsolete by a mile at this point. The US and Britain are still hard charging to design and build new battleships. The very first Iowa class was laid down in June of 1940, nearly THREE YEARS after Yamato was laid down. And they kept pumping out Iowa's until the end of 1942, and were even preparing designs for the Montana class with 3 extra 16" guns! So clearly the allies didn't think concentrated naval air power was the future and that battleships were obsolete yet. The very first time the world realized concentrated carrier air power was the future of naval warfare was actually the Pearl Harbour attack in December of 1941, only a week before Yamato was fully commissioned! And worth noting that while some of the carriers used at Pearl Harbour were over a decade old, the famous fighters used in the attack were actually QUITE new! The Zero and Val having been introduced in 1940, exception being the Kate which predates the Yamato being laid down by a few months. Fact is, just a week prior to Yamato being commissioned, no one IN THE WORLD, not even the IJN, fully understood just how effective aircraft carrier task forces could be. And even after the fact, battleships were still seen as indispensable. What else would you fight another battleship with? What's going to perform shore bombardments? I'd argue that the end of the battleship era didn't really come to pass until Yamato was sunk exclusively by air power. And so it has a rather awkward lifespan of coming in right as air power starts to turn naval doctrine, and it's destruction signalled the end of an era.

[@imprisongroverfurr5252]

There's also the fact that most of the supposed examples of battleships being helpless against aircraft were: 1. Stationary ships in port (Taranto, Pearl Harbour, Kure, Sinking of Tirpitz) 2. Completely unescorted battleships (Hunt for the Bismarck) 3. Battleships with terrible or malfunctioning AA guns (Hunt for the Bismarck, Sinking of Tirpitz, Force Z, Sibuyan Sea, Operation Ten-Go) 4. Battleships hit with such an overwhelming air attack that it would have sunk a whole armada of any other ship type (Sibuyan Sea, Operation Ten-Go) Not a single battleship that was well escorted and had good AA capabilities was sunk at sea by aircraft alone during WWII. And they still proved extremely useful assets in both surface action and shore bombardment.

[@thundercactus]

​@@imprisongroverfurr5252 Excellent points! Even after WW2, while no one built any *new* battleships, they still retained the ones they had for another decade or more for exactly the reasons you mentioned. The US even brought some back into service in the 80s just for the bombardment capabilities. A strong argument can be made that the "carrier age" didn't truly begin until the jet age began, with the addition of air to ship missiles putting jet fighters beyond the capabilities of AA gun emplacements. While we see carriers start to replace battleships at the core of fleets in late WW2 (fast carrier task force), those fleets still had battleships with them! We do see carrier based fleets at this point (taffy 3), but they're not meant for naval surface combat, just ASW, ground support, and to be attached to other fleets for escort. On that note; the Battle Off Samar can't really be seen as a good example of a carrier victory either. Taffy 3 HEROICALLY managed to get the Japanese fleet to retreat, but they lost half their own fleet in the process, and the only reason the Japanese didn't press their attack was because they thought they were attacking 3rd fleet (which had battleships).

[@roderickcampbell2105]

Fascinating. The Yamato is an enigma. My Yamato model remains incomplete. It's kind of intimidating.

[@orangelion03]

Which kit are you working on? One of the Tamiya 350th, or the monster Trumpeter/Gallery 200th? Built the Tamiya New Jersey for a customer back when it first came out, and have wanted to build the Yamato since.

[@roderickcampbell2105]

@@orangelion03 Hi. The kit I have is Hasegawa 1:450 scale. The instructions are combined Japanese and English. I'd love to build New Jersey. I'm subbed on a New Jersey museum ship channel so I get a dose of the New Jersey pretty much every day. How did your model come out?

[@nigelleyland166]

Drach, gue to your ever informative vids rarely needing to actually be watch I listen to them while I play WoWs, which I am doing as I type. You are the perfect accomponyment to the game which I have now been playing for eight and a half years, including beta testing.

[@jackmcfann]

"Oops, all Nelsons!"

[@TomSedgman]

This new intro music is excellent

[@colinmartin9797]

Everyone always asks "why is yamato?" Nobody asks "how is yamato"?

[@Kirk00077]

“How is Yamato?” Not well, she hasn’t spoken to her family in decades and all her friends have the memory of a goldfish.

[@bkjeong4302]

Was waiting for this one. The Japanese put a LOT of thought into designing Yamato, and the result wasn’t nearly as badly made as most people assume-just utterly pointless, but that’s the norm for battleships built around this time. And they couldn’t have built a large number of battleships anyways given infrastructure limits, so the “larger fleet of smaller battleships” plan was a nonstarter.

[@d.olivergutierrez8690]

For me their biggest flaw in capability was their speed, while not bad, it certainly hampered their involvement and support in the fleet if there was something that the last generation of battleships needed as something crucial was the capacity to stay with the carrier fleet to support them and more importantly to be supported, the yamatos pretty much expend her entire career in second line duty, Guadalcanal, the Solomon’s to mention some, saw their absence simply because they weren’t fast enough leaving the much older kongos to face modern American capital ship and ultimately loss in the process. Or you are fast or you are not different from a old dreadnought in second line duty.

[@bkjeong4302]

⁠@@d.olivergutierrez8690 By that logic the KGVs and SoDaks/NorCals (which were also unable to keep up with carriers at flank speed) were also too slow to be useful in WWII, even though they were often used as carrier escorts. And for a battleship, being a carrier escort is ALREADY being on second-line duty, because the carrier is doing the job the battleship should be doing and the battleship is incapable of serving as a capital ship in that scenario (since it has to stay way out of gunnery range of the enemy fleet due to being part of a carrier task force). Not to mention the whole idea of battleships as carrier escorts is based on the assumption carriers are going to be attacked by enemy battleships, when the whole reason carriers rendered battleships obsolete was because battleships couldn’t deal with them outside of exceptional circumstances (hence the situation above with battleship carrier escorts being nothing more than hideously gigantic and expensive destroyers/CLAAs). It really didn’t matter how fast a battleship was in WWII because it would be strategically non-viable and wasteful either way. The reason the Yamatos were left out at Guadalcanal was only partly due to speed (they were just about fast enough to make the Slot run); the bigger concerns had to do with fuel, the sheer overkill, and the fact bringing battleships into shallow confined waters is asking for trouble (even the Kongos were left out of the campaign initially due to this reason until Yamamoto forced the issue).

[@d.olivergutierrez8690]

@@bkjeong4302 fair points, but there is still a gap that needed to be covered: nigh fighting and the “killer cruiser” issue, the fact that you don’t want to encounter enemy surface units with bigger guns that you in a situation when carriers are not available, that is an undeniable reality, there’s no scenario where carrier base aircraft save the cruisers at savo island or stole Washington kill at the 2th battle of Guadalcanal. Carriers suck at night fighting you need capital ships of all shapes and sizes.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@d.olivergutierrez8690 Carriers do suck at night operations, but they can still avoid being run down by enemy surface ships by keeping on the move; in all likelihood they would have a huge lead on any enemy surface forces in the area, enough that the enemy is going to have a hard time even finding them, let alone closing the gap in any reasonable length of time. At Savo Island the issue wasn’t a lack of capital ships capable of night fighting but human incompetence and Japanese night-action training (keep in mind that of the Japanese ships involved only Chokai was more powerful than the Allied treaty cruisers, the Americans had every right to win that battle going by ship capabilities alone), and Second Guadalcanal was an exceptional case (and the Japanese still managed to land their troops during that battle).

[@warwatcher91]

@@bkjeong4302 They only landed some of their troops. Remember the air attacks basically shredded the reinforcement convoy down to a few transports with little supplies or equipment.

[@codydillon2144]

Holy cow, I didn't realize how many designs there were for the Yamato. Thanks for sharing this

[@mattlund5705]

Really enjoying the new intro music/soundtrack to all the new video types!

[@davidlewis9068]

would have loved to have seen the plans for the Yamato class ships. Very nice video

[@ThrowawayModeller]

I think this intro music is the best choice out of all the ones you tried to use

[@thcdreams654]

Great content. Always top quality. Thanks man. Appreciate it.

[@stevevalley7835]

From my reading, it was the amount of material being ordered for Yamato that tipped off British and US intelligence that the Yamatos were going to exceed the 35,000 ton limit. Just how much the ships exceeded the limit was significantly underestimated by western intelligence, resulting in the Second London tonnage escalator being triggered, but the new limit being set at only 45,000 tons. If the IJN had gone with a more modest design, say 45,000 tons, western intelligence may not have twigged at all, and the treaty tonnage escalator not triggered until 1940, when the completed hulls were launched, too late to design the Iowas and Lions.

[@michaelsnyder3871]

See my comment about industrial limitations. Much of what Japan did between 1930 and 1941 was shrouded in mystery which the Allied intelligence apparatus either was unable to penetrate or when they did , their senior leaders couldn't accept it. Read how the Chinese and Chenault and the US naval aviation attache acquired information on the A6M2 or how USN and USMC observers described and took pictures of the "daihatsu" landing craft with their bow ramps, yet the USN continued to insist it couldn't be done and wasted time designing and building "surf boats".

[@stevevalley7835]

@@michaelsnyder3871 intelligence operations always involve a degree of guesswork. Remember the conversation between Charlton Heston and Hal Holbrook, as Rochefort, in "Midway"? Heston asked how much of the IJN correspondence they could actually read. Holbrook said words to the effect "we don't really read them. we see a hint here, a glimmer there". Heston says "you're guessing!" That is about it, educated guessing. The Admiralty designed the Admiral class battlecruisers, based on their best guesses about the Mackensens. The Alaska class cruisers were designed based on best guesses about an IJN class of heavy cruisers. The 1938 conference between the US and UK regarding where to set the new displacement limit, was based on their best guess about the size of the Yamato, and their own facilities. Reportedly, the UK wanted a limit of 42,000 due to limits of facilities around the empire (which really makes you wonder if the G3 and N3 were intended to be built, or a bluff, only bargaining chips to be traded away for concessions by other parties to the treaty), while the US wanted 45,000, because that was what was needed to achieve their goals for speed, protection, and firepower. The only thing the US and UK could be reasonably sure of was that Yamato was going to be considerably over 35,000, which triggered the escalator clause. The estimates of how much over 35,000 could have been colored by the parties own agendas. I have read that the assessment was Yamato would be 45,000, which was what the US wanted. I wonder if British Intelligence was saying 42,000, because that was what the Admiralty wanted? The actual data in hand was imprecise. As we saw with Bismark and Littorio, you could be significantly over the treaty limit, without the UK and US catching on. That is why I suggest that, had Yamato not been so far over the limit, but closer to Bismark and Littorio, the US and UK might have not had the confidence to call the IJN on it, and increase the displacement limit.

[@pedrofelipefreitas2666]

I wonder what a japanese iowa-esque yamato would look like, supporting the carrier forces and being fast battleships at 30 knots, give or take a knot.

[@stevevalley7835]

@@pedrofelipefreitas2666 it appears such a ship would have been within Japanese capability, if they settled for "average" amounts of armor, vs the exceptionally thick armor of the Yamato. The Kii. basically an uparmored Amagi, and the Number 13, were estimated to make 29.75-30kts. According to Wiki those classes had 11.5"-13" belts and 4.7"-5" decks, vs Yamato's 16" belt and 9" deck and Iowa's 12.1" belt and 6" deck. The 13, with it's four, twin 18" turrets, modernized for late 1930s thinking on secondary/AA armament, could have been an interesting alternative, and it's 47,000 ton displacement might have been close enough to the treaty limit for western intelligence agencies to not twig until it was too late to design and built a reply. An updated Kii, with 16" armament and 42,000 ton displacement almost certainly would have flown under western intelligence's radar.

[@merafirewing6591]

​@@stevevalley7835 would the Kongou design replacements also fit the bill?

[@jackray1337]

This video has made me want to make some of these designs in Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought. I may try Spring Sharp to see these designs there as well.

[@agesflow6815]

Thank you, Drachinifel.

[@robertmatch6550]

Interesting and timely. Thank you!

[@ajsliter]

Thank you for posting this. I tried to correct the wiki articles for the Yamato and Design A-150 using this information prior to your video, but I got ip banned for it.

[@fishua5564]

I never understood the Nelson style main battery layout. Especially if you have the better range guns and a faster ship. I want to be able to dictate the range at which I fight and some times that means turning away. So rather than having an aft turret that can't fire forward or aft, might as well have an aft turret that can fire aft and even over the shoulder.

[@bluelemming5296]

Spreading the guns fore and aft typically means you have to turn more to bring all guns into firing position against a single opponent. This makes torpedo evasion harder, and creates a larger silhouette for the enemy to see and hit, especially if you're forced to engage against the light (which could include the sun, or moon, or fires on/behind the ship, or star shells - mostly factors affecting night combat or combat in bad weather). You also need more armor weight for two separate groups of gun turrets and probably also need more weight for the torpedo protection system to cover multiple separate hull locations containing magazines instead of just one contiguous location. Being able to approach at a narrower angle also likely improves the effectiveness of the armor. Plus the British liked closing with the enemy, a habit that made them a very intimidating opponent (as the Italians learned). A rear turret by itself isn't all that useful in practice since accuracy goes down enormously if you can't fire a large salvo. Look at the studies on US Fast Battleship gunnery to see this: even with radar a three gun salvo (meaning one turret with three guns) wasn't that great, improve that to six or more guns and the results get a lot better - which is just as true with the optical targeting systems the Nelson was designed to use.

[@victorkrawchuk9141]

A fascinating and riveting presentation of the various design compromises that were necessary to build the Yamato class ships. I thoroughly enjoyed the video.

[@maximilliancunningham6091]

Another superb dissertation Drac. Thank you.

[@dougjb7848]

4:50 It certainly sounds like it. We’ll wait quietly over here until it’s ready.

[@unbentcrayfish]

Drach, you do great narration. You need to do audiobooks. Also, what microphone are you using? (Anyone else know?)

[@sreif78]

Drach, Absolutely fantastic video. I had no idea so much information was available on the history of the Yamato design.

[@jonathanstrong4812]

Good 'Un

[@FloatingOnAZephyr]

Comprehensive. Thanks for the work.

[@captaincharlemagne]

People say the Nelson-class are ugly well folks the ugly duckling seemed to have a bit of influence over ships from other countries. As the Nelson-class almost influenced not just North-Carolina, but also the Yamato-class. An I guess you can count the French dunkerque and Richelieu-classes

[@ZaHandle]

Truly the crab of all ship evolution

[@grahamstrouse1165]

@@ZaHandleI expect the convergent evolution of turtle-like animals can best be demonstrated by the 19th century Russian circular battleships then…

[@bkjeong4302]

@@grahamstrouse1165 LMAO!

[@Ah01]

Even extremely ugly ships can be influential.. 😅

[@HomelessEmperor-ps4gs]

Nelson is nowhere near ugly, IMO. All-forward gun layouts also tend to be very menacing.

[@eiwtsexiang]

Question for Drach: If the IJN wanted a fast, 18-inch gun armed ship, why did they not just revisit the Number-13 class designs which they have already mostly finalized? Why go through all this? In fact, what happened to the Tosas, Kii and Amagi plans when designing the Yamato? Were they all trashed and forgotten?

[@stillcantbesilencedevennow]

Id imagine resources were scarce, leading to competition and a result of "let's go with the big guns" via copious whining and posturing. Many of the generals and admirals in IJ were borderline combative with one another, often shooting down ideas and plans purely out of spite.

[@bkjeong4302]

The No. 13s lacked enough superstructure for Late 30s equipment, and had less AA.

[@michaelsnyder3871]

The No.13 design was limited to 50,000 tons full load and lacked the armor and torpedo protective system desired for the new battleships.

[@pedrofelipefreitas2666]

Their kantai kessen required something much larger than the n.13, that'd be my guess.

[@hughfisher9820]

Warship technology was still advancing during the 1920s and 1930s, eg better engines, new armour plate treatments. Threat environment has changed as well, better aircraft and torpedoes. A ten year old design, which will maybe be twenty years old by the time it enters service, is not a good idea.

[@pierremainstone-mitchell8290]

Wow! Talk about thorough Drach! Well done indeed!

[@larsrons7937]

Super interesting. As a child I had a small 15 cm playtoy Yamato, and since then I've had a special interest in this behemoth of a ship. Very interesting to see the design process that led to the final version of the ship.

[@jayfelsberg1931]

When they salvaged Yamato to create Space Battleship Yamato, did they address your concerns? Please advise.

[@akumaking1]

Will Drachinifel ever review USS Kidd and her career being a pirate?

[@gerarddelmonte8776]

I kitbashed a 1/72 scale Yamato kit into the A150 design with Nelson style layout and some tweaks of my own. Looked pretty cool.

[@animal16365]

I wonder. Had the IJN went with a Nelson style layout with thicker belt armour. How would the ship have handled the attacks that sank them??

[@michaelsnyder3871]

Belt armor had no effect on the torpedo protection system below the belt. In fact, the thicker belt armor would have made the joint between the upper and lower belts even more vulnerable to sheering and failure.

[@MM22966]

Isn't that like asking if the ice cream will melt faster in the shade or out in the sun on a summer's day?

[@5StarAdmiral354T]

Years ago I remember reading somewhere that Admiral Hiraga’s 1929 Battleship Design (I think) made use of dual purpose casemates for the secondary battery, but I can’t find any writings which back this up or expand on how exactly a dual purpose casemate would work. Have come across anything which expands on the concept or are familiar with this design choice?

[@lucashinch]

Love the new introduction music,very good!

[@rippertrain]

Congrats on your sponser. This is my absolute favourite channel.

[@scottgiles7546]

For those who saw it, was there anything scarier than the image of a 1918 biplane dropping a torpedo? That must have been an ultimate brown pants moment for Admirals everywhere.

[@princeoftonga]

For most officers the invention of torpedo bombers would have been seen as a threat certainly but only really an added thing to think about rather than an existential threat to the surface fleet. Post WW1 capital ship torpedo protection was designed against surface launched or submarine launched types both of which were heavier and had a bigger warhead than any air dropped torpedo. Inter-war torpedo bombers were seen as just another threat to design for not a harbinger of ultimate doom.

[@stillcantbesilencedevennow]

​@@princeoftongatbh, it was rare for a belt to eat a torpedo and the ship just keep on trucking. Torpedos were an extremely dangerous weapon. 2+ torpedos and ya gotta start examining the reality of the situation. Even something like these could have THEORETICALLY been sunk with one well placed or lucky torpedo/bomb.

[@bkjeong4302]

The real issue was the fact torpedo bombers far outranged battleship main guns.

[@RCAvhstape]

That's part of the reason for that beehive of AAA seen on the "as sunk" configuration. The other part being a modern dive bomber pilot screaming out of the cloud deck with his hair on fire.

[@scottgiles7546]

"@princeoftonga 4 hours ago For most officers the invention of torpedo bombers would have been seen as a threat certainly but only really an added thing to think about rather than an existential threat to the surface fleet." Tell that to the Bismarck, or the PoW for that matter.

[@MyMongo100]

Do you know if any of the combined diesel and steam turbine designs would have tried to utilise any of the waste heat from the diesel engines (either jacket heat or heat in the exhaust gasses) to either preheat the condensate for the steam turbine or preheat the feedwater going into the economiser?

[@crazywarriorscatfan9061]

Sounds intriguing!

[@kommandantgalileo]

Great video once again!

[@OhYeaMista]

What’s with the mix of turbines and diesels? I feel like you could do a whole vid on the pros and cons of each. Was there ever a ship to combine both? I’m not aware of one.

[@gildavis8266]

The problem with any warship is that if it's employed incorrectly, it will fail no matter how it's armed and equipped.

[@bkjeong4302]

The problem isn’t quite that in this case: the problem with Yamato (and WWII-gen battleships in general) was that there WASN’T a way to employ her correctly in the first place. Using her much more actively would have just resulted her becoming even more of a waste of resources without accomplishing anything significant anyways.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

@@bkjeong4302Yamato’s main shortcomings for the Pacific War were her middling speed & massive fuel consumption. There was also the crappy AA, of course, but that was not a failure unique to the class. Japanese AA was bad across the fleet. The issue wasn’t so much that large surface units were completely obsolete. The Allies got a lot of mileage out of what they had & their new builds provided a lot of value, just not in the role for which they’d been envisaged. None of the Axis Powers was had the industrial base or was equipped for a Tsushima/Jutland type slugfest. (The Allies weren’t exactly, either, but they weren’t trying to.) The Germans did get pretty good use out of Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, however; the Japanese put the Kongos to good use & the Littorios gave Cunningham a lot of anxiety before Italy did the Italian thing & tried to switch sides again. Germany building capital ships didn’t make much sense, I’ll grant. They simply didn’t have the resources to spare. Japan, on the other hand, probably could have gotten a lot of mileage out of something like an improved B-65 or a Kongo 2.0. They still would have needed better AA & sensors & if it comes down to a choice between fast BBs/super-cruisers & carriers you’re going to lean more towards the latter. Nevertheless, modern fast battleships & modernized battle-cruisers were still quite useful during WWII, just not in the role they had originally been designed for.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@grahamstrouse1165 Yamato’s speed wasn’t so low to make her useless compared to other battleships, unless you think the NorCals and SoDaks (which are at a similar speed; in fact the NorCals were arguably slightly slower due to the vibration issues, even after that was addressed) were also too slow to be useful. The issue is that battleships, including (if not especially) fast battleships, are only STRATEGICALLY useful if they can be used in the capital ship role they were envisioned for. Yes, they could be (and were, even the 27-28kt ships) frequently used for supporting roles that they were never designed for. But those roles never justified battleship construction at the strategic level, and had any navy known that would be what their new battleships would end up doing, they would never have built the new fast battleships. Because the tactical return isn’t enough to justify the investment of spending so much time, effort and infrastructure on what is supposed to be a strategic asset. You’ve still thrown away huge amounts of resources to create what is effectively the biggest and most expensive destroyer in the world. And I question the idea Japan got good use out of the Kongos and would have been better off with the B-65s than the Yamatos. First of all, the B-65s couldn’t be built in any larger numbers than the Yamatos due to infrastructure limitations, and second, the Kongos didn’t actually do much besides just going from place to place (and the B-65s would have met the same fate). Even during the Guadalcanal campaign the only success they had was with their first bombardment run, and the other two times they tried that ended up with half the class being destroyed.

[@woodenturnip6092]

Always good to see a drach vid!

[@jumpdawg799]

Great video, as usual. Thanks.

[@amerigo88]

The freely available movie "The Great War of Archimedes" (KZbin, et al) is about the design and construction of the Yamato. It's actually a really good movie, complete with prewar, domestic, Japanese politics between the miltant and less miltant factions. Is a truly memorable movie.

[@bryant7201]

It is more revisionist that real sadly. The less militant factions never made that kind of noise after 1936.

[@eiwtsexiang]

Freely available? I've been looking for ages and can't seem to watch it anywhere (I'm in Singapore)

[@amerigo88]

@@eiwtsexiang I posted from the USA. But hey, you get to see ships passing by Singapore daily. We don't even have river barges passing through my usual stomping grounds here in America's heartland. Not surprised that the antiwar faction role is overblown. Well, it is a pretty entertaining movie.

[@bkjeong4302]

It’s actually a pretty bad movie from an accuracy standpoint even aside from the antiwar faction being overblown: - the reason Yamamoto opposed the construction of Yamato in the movie is because the Japanese supposedly abandoned carrier construction to build her and Musashi, but this never happened IRL (if anything, the Japanese doubled down on carrier construction efforts at this time, building the Shokakus alongside the Yamatos as their second set of naval superweapons and starting work on the Unryu-class program). - The whole plot revolves around trying to prove that Yamato breaks treaty limits and is thus illegal to get her cancelled (even if that isn’t why they want her cancelled). However, Japan had left the treaty system by that point so that wouldn’t be relevant anyways. Not to mention that if Japan started applying that rule for some reason they would also have to get rid of the Shokakus as those also broke treaty carrier tonnage limits…

[@bryant7201]

Yeah, I was just thinking about the anti-war aspect but you are absolutely right.@@bkjeong4302

[@firstcynic92]

I guess the 2199 refit into its BBY-1 form was outside the scope of this video.

[@michaelsnyder3871]

Especially as she's laying on the sea bottom in two pieces.

[@firstcynic92]

@@michaelsnyder3871 is that a problem? Just fuse the halves back together once the ocean is gone.

[@grahamstrouse1165]

@@firstcynic92I know, right?

[@merafirewing6591]

​@@grahamstrouse1165 or make a replica to sink in an upright position once the original wreck is long gone.

[@jasonthompson6594]

I really like the intro music on this one.

[@73Trident]

Great job, Thanks Drach.

[@trevorday7923]

Anything about Yamato, as well as being a badass juggernaut she's also arguably one of the most beautiful battleships ever built. Such a shame we Mac owners can't play WoWs :(

[@carlcaspersen9332]

it may seem a shame, but trust me, as someone who has spent the last 8 years playing wows, you are better off not being able to play it in it's current state. It you used be a fun game but sadly WG has now all but ruined it :(

[@hawkeye5955]

​@@carlcaspersen9332: The CV rework is what killed the game for me. Community feedback was against it but WG pushed ahead anyway.

[@lucidnonsense942]

@@hawkeye5955 CV rework is peanuts compare to the pox that is the submarine introduction. They are as fast as some DDs underwater, have French DD HE saturation and more hp than nearly all same tier DDS - plus... virtually un-dogeable homing torps. They are also near undetectable and DDs have virtually no counterplay against them. Weirdly they made BBs the only ships that can be any threat - assuming the sub player doesn't know how to use a keyboard. Nobody wanted to play them, as they got more hate than CV players - so they have them earning 2x the xp. The game is horrible, right now.

[@roderickcampbell2105]

@@lucidnonsense942 The WoW is a bummer folks (although I am glad to get current insight since I have not yet played) but back to Trevor's point... The Yamato was certainly a magnificent vessel. I feel regret at her loss and the deaths of all those sailors. I'd love to visit the Yamato museum some day. Best.

[@yellowpete79]

Battlefield 1942 still has a few multi player servers going. Midway map you can be nip and sail her or man AA guns etc or be an American and sink her.