The 18.1 inch Naval Gun - Origins and Development

Today we take a look at the origins and development of the Yamato-class' massive main gun armament, the largest naval guns to ever put to sea.
Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/NAVAL-WEAPON...
www.amazon.co.uk/Capital-Ship...
www.amazon.co.uk/Battleships-...
www.fischer-tropsch.org/prima...
Battleship Musashi Construction Record : The Complete Story of Yamato-class Battleships - Shigeru Makino , Shigekazu Koga
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 :)

[@joshthomasmoorenew]

In her last action HMS Repluse was doing torpedo beats at level 100, did any other ships have to do dodge torpedos as much and did they survive the attack?

[@fidjeenjanrjsnsfh]

Why build a 3-gun instead of a triple turret?

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

while it is said that the 18 inch/47 caliber gun was most likely not going to be able to fit on a triple turret without making possible sacrifices to speed on a panamax (aka Iowa) hull. Could the 16 inch/56 caliber gun (either the prototype or a more purpose built design) have been fitted in a triple turret on the Iowa/Montana hull form instead?

[@tianwong152]

Sanshiki doesn't mean anti aircraft, it simply means Type 3.

[@fg3893]

Assuming their conversion never took place, how would you redesign the Lexington class battlecruisers?

[@CStone-xn4oy]

"It didn't blow up which made everyone quite happy."

[@ivanruzic2592]

Considering that the tests with other guns caused those to explode after less than a dozen shots fired, guns not exploding was a good thing in comparison to that.

[@kemarisite]

USS Princeton and Thomas Walker Gilmer have entered the chat.

[@vbscript2]

As opposed to the Mark 14, where it didn't blow up and that made everyone (except Bureau of Ordnance) very angry.

[@walterpleyer261]

This reminds me of the old custom form the very early history of guns, when the founder of a gun had stand next to it, when the first test shots were fired

[@CStone-xn4oy]

@@walterpleyer261 Huh, well thats one way to make sure that a gun maker puts their best effort into making a strong firearm.

[@fearthehoneybadger]

The Washington Naval Treaty was often considered bad for Japan. If it weren't enacted, however, Japan would have faced US battleships armed with 18 inch guns.

[@user-em9tl4py3z]

日本語で失礼しますけど例えワシントン海軍軍縮条約が締結されなくても日本海軍は46センチ以上の大砲を持って巨大戦艦を建造したと思います。ロンドン海軍軍縮条約を破棄して大和型戦艦を建造しても更に巨大な51センチ砲を搭載する巨大戦艦を計画した位ですから。アメリカ相手に物量では太刀打ち出来ないですから。

[@davidmcintyre8145]

Both Japan and the USA would have faced the N3 class plus their follow on classes

[@DanielWW2]

The treaty was quite favourable to Japan, in that they got such a large allocation of tonnage, while the US and British had to give up a lot of their (planned) fleets. Without the treaty, especially the USN would have been a lot bigger. Its not just battleships, its everything planned for the USN and the British response. The Japanese had nowhere near the economy to compete with that. Further such a new arms race, would have quickly made the existing Japanese fleet, obsolescent. So basically what happened when the treaties expired. The Americans crushed the IJN with both numbers of ships the Americans could build and in a lot of cases, also better ships than the Japanese could make. Fletcher, Cleveland, Baltimore and the Essex classes where overall better ships.

[@harrisonrawlinson5650]

I never thought about that before, there likely wouldn’t have just been 1 or 2 US, Battleships with 18” guns, there’d likely have been several classes with 18” guns as long as Japan kept building larger and larger ships

[@davidmcintyre8145]

@@DanielWW2 The issue is that as of 1920 when the ships were being designed the US would have faced the IJN and the RN as a combined force

[@kc4cvh]

14:55 An interesting statistic revealed here: the average Japanese sailor was expected to be five feet, one inch tall and weigh one hundred twenty-two pounds.

[@eldarhighelfhealermiriella7653]

Indeed yes. But also there were exceptions. Japanese also had up to 5.7 feet tall men along their troops. Most of population were thinking theese people were "touched" by Yokais spirits.

[@ogie4893]

No land to grow beef. Not kidding.

[@michaelfoster9964]

I tell you what, them boys there needed them some of that there raw milk.

[@owencleverton2509]

Yes please. A seperate video on the manufacture of battleship guns would be great.

[@user-bh4ge1pm2t]

A great source for naval knowledge, including building guns, is the "Pacific War encyclopedia" found online. It's one of the most extensive military history sources I've ever found. Its only downside is deals exclusively with WW2 in the Pacific, but boy, is it packed with info.

[@karthus006]

Well, you can't see the gun itself, but you can see the lathe that is used to build these guns. It's one of the latest exhibits of the Yamato Museum in Kure. They launched a donation drive in 2021 to save and preserve the last lathe, aiming to get only around 480K USD, but that target was reached by a mere 12 hours since the drive was launched. And at the end of the 2 month campaign, around 2.7 million USD was raised, thanks to the Japanese gaming community.

[@stevewyckoff6904]

Any pics of this lathe?@@3socksMorgan

[@bobo-cc1xw]

We need the equipment to build more space battleships

[@shadowwolf2608]

Never underestimate the gaming community.

[@karthus006]

@@krispypriest5116 There is a 1:1 scale of Yamato's deck (Forgot whether it's the fore or aft deck) in the park near the museum. The Clayton Bay Hotel in Kure also has a special room at the same height as the Yamato's command centre. And one of the chef there is the descendant of the chief cook on board the Zuikaku. Not to mention the various Ship Memorial sites littered across the town. The entire town is listed as one of the various Sacred Sites for KanColle.

[@robertsneddon731]

@@bobo-cc1xwLast time I visited the Yamato museum they had a Space Battleship Yamato gallery with models and cel art from the early movies. I don't know if it's still there.

[@middleclassthrash]

I've just realized that this is my favorite channel on youtube. You consistently end up delving into subjects i find myself wondering about. Thank you for all you do.

[@williestyle35]

Drachinifel does produce more videos at higher quality levels than we can usually get from one "presenter" or "creator". Drach always tries so hard to give such accurate and verified historical information on these ships. 😊

[@FlorentinoRebuildingCo.5644]

Middleclass.....Between Drach and Mark Felton. I never realized how much military history I didn't know. Love BOTH channels...

[@roberthughes1786]

Drach is my clear favorite channel by far

[@andrewthomson]

​@@FlorentinoRebuildingCo.5644 I stopped watching felton after his meltdown videos about some tour he went on. Is he normal again?

[@FlorentinoRebuildingCo.5644]

@@andrewthomson seems more closer to normal recently. He is bring up interesting topics on his YT Channel. Most recently: panther tank turrets used a buried gun bunkers....seems very interesting.

[@Maverick966]

The reason why the 460mm common type 0 has less explosive than an American 406mm High Capacity is that it isn't an HE in the first place, it is a common round, which means it has thicker walls than an HE almost like a semi-armor piercing round with a base fuze to increase armor penetration and explode inside the target, the ideal round to destroy cruisers

[@willyvereb]

Aren't common rounds and SAP are often interchangeable depending on specifics?

[@Maverick966]

@@willyvereb The difference is that common rounds are not made of hardened steel unlike semi-armor piercing rounds, also common rounds have more explosive filler percentage than SAP

[@nicholausbuthmann1421]

Went all the way through the U.S. Destroyer's in the Philippines.

[@gustavchambert7072]

​@@nicholausbuthmann1421 That's because DDs have no armour, only structural plating, which is the equivalent of wet tissue paper to the fuse of any BB main calibre round. And even that plating is thinner than that of most cruisers. A cruiser on the other hand has anywhere between 50-80% thicker plating, and then actual armour in some places. They are also much wider, deeper and longer, meaning more time for a fuse to arm.

[@taras3702]

​@@gustavchambert7072The fuse arms after leaving the barrel. Impact with the target initiates the fuse which then detonates after a predetermined number of milliseconds.

[@Kevin_Kennelly]

17:46 "Unfortunately, there is only one known photo of Yamato class." In "Build The Musashi" by Youshimura, he discusses the test firing of the guns. They'd bolted cages to the deck, within the blast zone of the guns. They placed small animals within the cages. This book is noteworthy because much of it discusses the extreme security measures surrounding the construction of this class of ship. The result of the security measures is that this book suffers because it is 'sparse' on detail. My opinion.

[@FireFox_60]

Hey Drac have you considered making a video on the development of non-carrier born aircraft ie scout/spotting seaplanes on cruisers and battleships. The three D’s Design,Development and Differences between naves.

[@lcsuperman1735]

Rex's hanger covers aircraft in this era he probably has what your looking for

[@astrowolf_1313]

CAM ships would probably make an interesting topic.

[@teejin669]

Another amazing source for WW2 aircraft is gregs airplanes and automobiles, although he might not have a video on those seaplanes

[@Vinemaple]

I think Drac would enjoy making his own video about this, though. He could focus more on the shipboard side of aircraft accomodation, perhaps.

[@FireFox_60]

He could also talk about how they influenced the design of said ships

[@vipondiu]

11:45 And here is a photo of Yamato/Musashi I have never seen before! If I remember correctly there's fewer than 20 images of both superships that survived the torching of 1945

[@metaknight115]

Nope, there’s a good few dozen of them. Found a really cool colorized image of Musashi under air attacks at the battle of the Sibuyan Sea at a straight down view

[@davidrox4591]

Beautiful ship.

[@nagasako7]

Fun Fact. Company that made Yamato guns is still around. Making MBT barrels for JSDF.

[@swordmonkey6635]

The san shiki rounds had timing devices on them that enabled the gunners to control when the bursting apart of rods at certain distances. It's one of the reasons the Japanese didn't just go full grapeshot with the AA rounds. It was an imperfect system because of the chaotic and fast moving dynamics of an air attack coming from multiple angles and altitudes. At the end of Operation Ten Go, Yamato was firing san shiki rounds with the barrels pointed horizontal to try to engage with the torpedo planes attacking just above the water. They set the timers to zero, meaning it was effectively buckshot at that point and hoped to make an impenetrable flak cloud. It failed due to the inability of the guns to fire fast enough to effectively create a flak wall.

[@everythingsalright1121]

Volume of fire in most battles is what wins, instead of a few super cannons. Its still insane to me they made such rounds though.

[@swordmonkey6635]

@@everythingsalright1121 Volume of air taken up by AA is what wins battles since the AA accuracy was stupidly low in WW2. The "fill the air with lead" method was the standard practice, which on average AA guns meant high rates of fire, but when you have 18.1 inch flak cannons that could fire 1 to 2 shells every minute and cause a very large shrapnel cloud, the idea was feasible on paper. The problem was coordinated gun directing and experience with defense methods since they didn't fire the san shiki rounds often in drills.

[@hmsverdun]

A 120% charge for testing only has me thinking that I would be very, very far away from the thing during said test preferably in a bunker if I am being called to watch it.

[@christopherconard2831]

"It's perfectly safe as long as you are stay in the trench and don't look directly at it. Says the scientist who will be three miles behind us, in a reinforced concrete bunker." Random soldier at a Nevada atomic bomb test.

[@khaelamensha3624]

I was asking myself when people have taken cover and the turret fired if people were still able to hear the next warning 😂

[@ljubomirculibrk4097]

That is wery small aditional charge comparing to firearms testin. Normal tormentation up to 200%, if remember well for old black gunpowder even up to 300%, since there are great deviations of burn speeds...

[@bored383]

dragon's breath shotgun shells . . . for a battleship . . . madness

[@christopherconard2831]

For supporting amphibious landings. When you want to turn the beach and everything up to 5KM inland into a parking lot.

[@dakotaheaton4954]

Sounds very American lol

[@peteh9720]

The intro to these videos of Drach's always makes me feel like the main feature of my evening's KZbin has arrived, and that whatever I was watching previously was just a warm-up.

[@Alobo075]

Yamato 2199 does show the guns returning to almost level between salvos for reloading. A nice nod to historical accuracy. Also, they took Drach's idea and created a shrapnel shell to deal with incoming missile fire.

[@jamesmaas7244]

Fun animation

[@jlvfr]

that shell allready existed in WWII, it was call the "San Shiki" and was made for multiple gun calibers. They were also used in shore bombardement of open areas, as in Guadalcanal.

[@williestyle35]

Ahh, the "extended life" of an Imperial Japanese Navy ship. _Space Battleship Yamato_ was originally made for both "entertainment" and to resurrect "pride" in the armed forces of Imperial Japan, in their own way.

[@jlvfr]

@@williestyle35 and before the wreck was discovered... and found to be broken in half...

[@rantanen1]

@@jlvfr yes, like said in the video.

[@godlucifer8428]

26:34 "...The third of ammunition was the Type-3 Sanshiki or Anti-aircraft round uniquely found only in Imperial Japanese Navy Battleship *_as far as battleship of WW2 went_* ..." Ah yes The *_other_* Type-3 Shell that the Japanese equip on another warship name Yamato which have proven to be surprisingly useful against various enemies crafts during it journey. That story through would probably be told in another day, probably in April.

[@bkjeong4302]

Actually, the USN tried to do the same thing with the Iowas (to the point AA fire manuals for the 16”/50 gun exist!). I doubt they would have been any more effective, even with the VT fuse-battleship main guns can’t rotate fast enough and have a nasty habit of rendering the actual AA and DP weapons unusable while being fired.

[@kemarisite]

​@@bkjeong4302at the ranges these kinds of heavy, barrage AA guns fire, rotation speed is far less relevant than for the point defense guns. One of the few ways it could be relevant is if a squadron of torpedo bombers has split to attack from both bows and one group is circling at the edge of AA range (5 miles, maybe) to get into position. Although some quick math suggests that is less relevant than I first thought, since crossing at 150 knots at 10,000 yards is only about 0.5 degrees per second, much less than the 4 degree per second train rate for the turrets on the Iowas. Even bringing it into 4,000 yards where the Bofors mounts open up only increases the change in angle to about 1.2 degrees per second.

[@robertsneddon731]

@@bkjeong4302I recall reading somewhere that the Tirpitz had AA shells for her main battery and fired them at Lancasters carrying Tallboy bombs on the fjord attacks. They had no reported effect.

[@Marin3r101]

​@@robertsneddon731 I dont recall Germany having any form of VT-like fuses for AA purposes. They had timed-fuse sensitive warheads. These would detonate at an altitude that had to be calculated. VT fused warheads do not need to be set. They detonate based off of proximity to the target being fired at. Not sure what you're trying to point out about Tirpitz....

[@ralphe5842]

These shells made a interesting fireworks but useless against aircraft in the real world

[@GrahamWKidd]

Wednesday Fun with BIG GUNS!!

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

The original YEET cannon.

[@williestyle35]

Šeems like it 🤣

[@pedrofelipefreitas2666]

More like the original .50 Action Express

[@knutdergroe9757]

A little more costly..... And not found in Detroit. Great call, though 😂😛🤔🧐

[@ClimateScepticSceptic-ub2rg]

Very thorough and interesting video on a subject I never thought could be anything but dull. It shows the value of having KZbin's best naval historian tackling the topic.

[@jackgreen412]

My uncle was on a mine sweeper lying off the Normandy coast during WW 2. He said the concussion from the 14" gun would about put you off your feet.

[@pauleandersonmusic]

Thank you for making so much quality content. It's been a real relief for me to sit down and relax to a topic that I've always been interested in. You are doing great! It's been very illuminating and so thorough. Keep it going!

[@psour33]

Taking a nap beside the gun's house was not a great idea. 🤣🤣

[@73Trident]

Great episode as per usual and very interesting. Thanks Drach.

[@lilmachingunn]

Looking forward to the guns manufacture video

[@pierremainstone-mitchell8290]

Fascinating indeed Drach! Thanks indeed!

[@willarth9186]

Ah, a new Drach video to enjoy with my morning coffee... It's a great day already!

[@trevorday7923]

You've got to hand it to the Japanese, they've elevated "Go Big or Go Home" to an absolute fine art. They don't look at these niggling little problems like "can we make battleship guns SO HUGE we can pretty much fire a small frigate out of them?". They just say "what the hell, let's find out!". And that attitude lead to the biggest, most powerful, and I would argue also the most beautiful battleships ever built

[@williestyle35]

I think the designs of the _Montana_ class were a bit more beautiful for their size, but they were not built and that is my subjective opinion. On the other hand the Imperial Japanese Navy going "all in" on the biggest artillery gun they could possibly make.,. well that is impressive in an American kinda way.

[@sodadrinker89]

Too bad Aircraft Carriers became the meta.

[@pedrofelipefreitas2666]

I always enjoy a more in-depth look at the Yamato, love the video :) I wonder if you'll do a future video on the rangefinders and radar yamato had equipped, I've seen different opinions as to how precise Yamato truly was.

[@Vinemaple]

Thank you so much! I have inexplicably been wondering, lately, if we had any accounts of the overpressure effects from these guns... I remember, as a young plastic model builder, seeing how differently the Yamato-class's decks were laid out, and realizing it must have been about the blast effects. Now I just want to see some photos of the hangar deck and boat bay, and the overhead boat-crane system! I suppose there probably aren't any... but that's the most fascinating thing about the Yamatos, to me, was the engineering infrastructure involved in sheltering the boats and aircraft. Not to mention, of course, that the boat-launching tunnel was a visually prominent feature in _Space Battleship Yamato._

[@bkjeong4302]

Blasts effects were actually an issue with battleship guns in general, though Yamato was unusual in that her other armaments were laid out to account for them (at the expense of wasted space, but building a new battleship at this point was already a waste for everybody).

[@Vinemaple]

@@bkjeong4302 Yeah, that's exactly what got me thinking. The conning tower on a US fast battleship was not a safe place to be when the guns were firing

[@probusthrax]

Great video on the largest WWII naval gun!

[@bkjeong4302]

It’s actually false that the Japanese were the only people crazy enough to try and use battleship main guns for AA: the Americans tried the same thing with the 16”/50 gun on the Iowas (AA firing manuals exist for the 16”/50, suggesting that this actually went beyond the experimental stage!) and the Germans also tried to do it with Tirpitz. As far as I know all of these attempts ended just as badly as the Type 3 shells.

[@Drachinifel]

A lot was tried, Tiger and Hood both took potshots at German aircraft in their respective wars, but only the IJN operationally deployed it as a matter of doctrine.

[@UthurRytan]

One of Bismarck 15 in shell splashes managed to remove the fabric flooring of a Swordfish piloted by Les Sayer during the attack on her by HMS Victorious

[@kieranh2005]

​@@UthurRytan"make sure your seatbelts are buckled, lads. That's a long first step!"

[@rybuds47]

Hey Drach i just learned that the Pual Allen war museum in Arlington WA is open again. You would love that place if you stopped there on a trip. Some super rare stuff. Cheers!

[@wafflesnfalafel1]

awesome vid sir, thank you - that over pressure info is incredible, injure a significant number of your own crew just be firing your own main guns....

[@DD-fj2ut]

I was on the deck of my Navy destroyer, with no hearing protection, no warning that I heard, looking out to see at the rail, and about 150 feet away when the 5 inch gun went off. My expectation after this was that blood would be pouring out my ears, but despite my frantic attempts too see the blood on my hands, no blood. Lacking blood I can say “OUCH” was the next or first sensation perhaps. Fortunately it appears no permanent damage was done.

[@colinsdad1]

Ahhhh! I've been waiting for this video for YEARS from Drach! Now then.... any chance of comparing this gun to the weapon on the General Wolfe Monitor from WW1? Its my understanding the latter had the furthest distance fired of any naval gun in combat. I'm awaiting some source books to come in on these Monitors- specifically the raid/bombardment of Zebrugge in WW1. EXCELLENT video as always, Drach!!!

[@GreyWolfLeaderTW]

The great irony of those 18.1-inch guns is that only Yamato fired them against other naval warships, and the only warships she used them on were destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers. And in the greatest irony, she fired armored piercing rounds that over-penetrated those small light ships, undermining their destructive power.

[@bkjeong4302]

Well the 16”/50 has just as bad if not even worse record against enemy ships.

[@zadmiral55]

Except that a damaging straddle on white Plains put that CVE out of front line service

[@howardhofelich1]

So Musashi never fired a round?

[@panzerschliffehohenzollern4863]

​@@howardhofelich1Aganist Aircraft? Yes. Against enemy battleship she was expected to fight? No.

[@pauldonnelly7949]

A great vid, very informative, thanks for your efforts.

[@kiereluurs1243]

Video.

[@AlMount]

Very interesting, very informative 👍

[@rogergadley9965]

A suggestion for a ship type to review, and it has to do with the American Navy in WWII, troop transport. My father joined the USMC a month or so after December 7th, 1941, the beginning of the war for the U.S. The American military was woefully shorthanded (short-equipped, short-shipped, short-everything) at the beginning of the war. His Marine Corps boot camp (basic training) was dramatically shortened from two or three months before the Pearl Harbor attack to just under a month. Even then, the Marine Corps was so desperate to get troops to the Pacific my dad said the last two weeks of boot camp on board his troop ship. And, the Navy didn’t have enough troop ships. His troop transport was a converted wooden sailing ship which had plied the Pacific coast between Alaska and California carrying cargo of fish, lumber, coal oil, or anything else that could be loaded. The last two weeks of boot camp consisted of classes, gunnery, first aid and more classes.

[@Phoenix-ej2sh]

"something something battleship cannon construction deserves its own video something something" (paraphrased) Promise accepted.

[@Digmen1]

Hi Drach. Long time no see I like the new music intro

[@Kwaj]

A box of Cheez-Its, two cans of ginger ale, and a fresh Drach video... Good morning to _me._

[@williestyle35]

Living the life you are 😊

[@MoultrieGeek]

White cheddar Cheez-Its I hope, easier to hide the Cheez-it/Cheetos dust.

[@user-hw1qo2mu9e]

Thanks Drach.

[@danmcdonald9117]

Great video!

[@andrewfidel2220]

There big thing i learned from this that i didn't already know is how low the twist rate for naval guns were in this era, 1:28 for the Japanese guns and 1:25 for Iowa.

[@scottmccrea1873]

There's a scene in the movie _Under Siege_ (literally the only decent movie Seagal ever did) where a 16in gun is fired when one of the characters is on deck and the over pressure bursts his ear drums. 22:00

[@fattyfranz4272]

Hell yes! I come home from work and there's fresh Drach waiting for me.

[@LeeBrasher]

At 7:00 I find it interesting that the 45 cal did not have superior deck penetration at long range due to the steeper angel of descent. I believe that US 45 cal 16" had better extreme range deck pen due to this?

[@alexbenis4726]

Wow, great video and 11:45 never seen that picture of Yamato in early config, wonder what she is carrying on the deck between the mid secondary turret and the after main turret?

[@williestyle35]

Wish I could spot something specifically unusual. I see the usual mass of superstructure and spotting / observation towers.

[@kiereluurs1243]

Djeeses, djeeses, djeeses, ... It's all so GIGANTIC.

[@dannyzero692]

I found your channel recently and found that your videos are very good for listening to when on the road to kill time!

[@williestyle35]

Yep, Drachinifel has a very even vocal tone overall. Makes for "easy listening" and you can learn so much!

[@sargepent9815]

I remember reading somewhere that Japan had "super Yamato" ships/guns in consideration with turrets of x2 20in guns. But I don't think any such weapon was even developed. After midway, they lacked the ability to even make such a weapon

[@bkjeong4302]

They had the theoretical ability but never bothered going ahead with it as all the super-Yamatos were cancelled. IMO, the reduction in barrel count from 9 to 6 is too big a cost to justify an 20” gun, especially when the 18.1” is already arguably the most powerful battleship gun ever (tied for first place in penetration and unrivalled in bursting charge size while not being bad in other areas)

[@alun7006]

The weight of fire would actually go down IIRC - such huge guns would be very slow to load, and hit rate starts to really suffer when you fire so few shells. A hit would be devastating but hits are statistically less likely. Plus the blast and recoil have a huge effect on the ship itself, and (eg) open AAA mounts become uninhabitable on large parts of the ship.

[@thomasbeach905]

No matter how big a shell is, it is only effective if it hits (or near-misses). Japanese long-range accuracy, or even mid-range accuracy was poor. The much slower reload rate and fewer barrels would only make this worse. A maneuvering fast battleship with good radar fire control could probably be within 16” range without much danger.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@thomasbeach905 Japanese gunnery accuracy (*provided good visibility*) wasn’t that bad, and the accuracy of radar fire control’s been significantly exaggerated over the years to a level not supported by either actual combat or by contemporary live-fire tests.

[@GearGuardianGaming]

germany did too, take a gander at the H-class blueprints. iirc 2 of the 5 plans sported 8 20" guns.

[@silvergalaxie]

iron and steel. just insane. weights&distribution. just insane. was there never a supergun that had reduced weight? good work.

[@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche4303]

As a note on the AA shells, tirpitz was also tested with them though i dont believe they were ever used

[@bkjeong4302]

The Iowas as well. IIRC Tirpitz did try to use AA main gun shells during one of the many raids thrown at her and only ended up making her AA weaker as a result.

[@scottburton509]

I saw a documentary on the raid that sunk Tirpitz and the pilots said the Tirpitz was firing AA shells from the main guns at them.

[@plunder1956]

Have you ever seen even a video of a Naval Gun Lathe for much smaller diameter guns? They are utterly huge. A man that used to drive the cross slide on one, would get onto a platform that held the cutting head. Would set up for a cut and sit on it for over an hour as it moved along - usually he was reading a newspaper. actually drinking the barrel and cutting the rifling was a major job and there are big issues cutting these horizontally. The casting issues and post machining heat treatment add even more problems.

[@williamgreen7415]

Thanks!

[@adrianjorgensen3750]

The test gun didn’t explode. Always a good sign.

[@colinthomasson3948]

re wire winding, I recall reading of a steam car manufacturer who had developed a wire-wound boiler and had no success when trying to test it to destruction : it could take any pressure they could generate in the usual way, which must have been somewhere around the triple point of water.

[@johnsturm3128]

Hello, Drach. What progress have you made in putting together “The Battle of the River Plate”?

[@sillypuppy5940]

Now that's strange, because two days ago I was thinking it was about time we had a video about the Yamato's guns

[@CowMaster9001]

Is there a book you would recommend about the metallurgy of naval guns over time?

[@Big_E_Soul_Fragment]

Cool gun, too bad those fancy flying machines became the new meta

[@bkjeong4302]

Same applies to the 16”/50 gun.

[@CSSVirginia]

I sometimes wonder where capital ship design would have ended up if planes hadn't been invented?

[@seanmorgan1759]

"The only way you'll get to see an 18.1 inch gun these days is if you happen to have a submersible" Please don't give the billionaires any more ideas.

[@bgclo]

But we need to know where the Yamato is in case the Gamalons attack!

[@boobah5643]

@@bgcloWell, on the plus side, once the Gamalons do their thing you won't need the submersible.

[@Nightdare]

Hell, they can dive in beer cans for all I care

[@lewiswestfall2687]

thanks drach

[@stephenrickstrew7237]

One wonders how many infantry weapons could have been made or developed in lieu of these ..

[@whazzat8015]

What do we remember? "Banzai charging" kamakazis or Musashi ? Or are sussid bomber simply good sense in the big picture, sparing lives and saving money? Not very heroic on many levels, but economics is like that.

[@robertewalt7789]

Or destroyers, or submarines, or airplanes.

[@gregorywright4918]

@@robertewalt7789The first two might be comparable, but airplanes were mostly made out of aluminum, so you can't just recycle the steel.

[@christopherconard2831]

They are an example of Generals are always fully prepared to fight the last war. They were thought up when naval warfare was assumed to be ship vs ship. Advances in aircraft and submarine warfare weren't taken into proper consideration. Not the fault of the Japanese. Every navy in the 1930's assumed large battleships would be kings of warfare on the seas. You weren't a "real navy" if you didn't have a couple these floating fortresses.

[@klade5031]

Depends if you are talking about army infantry or naval infantry. In the former case, none because the IJN hated the IJA with a passion.

[@vaderdudenator1]

In your opening music, what is the final (most loud/impressive) cannon fire sound?

[@robertslugg8361]

I still think using the other-wise empty space under the aerodynamic cap for a shaped-charge pilot drill would have augmented armor penetration a good deal. Probably better on the 8-12" range shells since the 14-16 could do a pretty good job on their own.

[@chriskortan1530]

Interesting comparison of the capabilities of the 18.1" vs 16" guns. What I'd really like to see is a comparison with the Wave Motion Gun ?

[@jaredcolon4535]

With the Shinano originally going to be a Yamato class battleship but then converted to a carrier vessel making it basically I would say the "Shinano Class Carrier" wasn't that or doesn't that count as the world's first super carrier in terms of not just overall size but also the number of support crafts that she carried. I'd love to see you comparison between it and the world's first supercarriers built by the United States the Nimitz class and the class just before the Nimitz class as a intermediate degree comparison

[@kidmohair8151]

11:43 17:46 (…)well, there’s a (couple [slew] of) picture(s) of a Yamato I’ve not seen before 15:45 turret base, I assume. that is an interesting view of something I would have expected (I’m not sure why) to be more complex.

[@araneaetvelivolum1086]

Great video. The only thing that puzzles me is you using the term 'gun' when I expected you to use the term 'barrel'. Was it 100 rds per gun (3 barrels per gun) or 100 rds per barrel means 300 per gun (just one example, but I am really confused at times what the meaning of the narration is)?

[@charleswade2514]

Or Tommy Lee jones on ‘Under Siege’. They were shooting blanks at that.

[@whazzat8015]

Fascinating, powerfully about the notion of Minimalist and Maximalists. Atomic vs tiny drones to us folks , as dive bombs and torpedoes did to the IJN Look at who is kicking the current a So much for the march of tech. Complexity is just more flexible, Maybe we just don't do well at scale.

[@maxchia2339]

Any chance you would do a list of japanese ww2 paper ships especially focusing on them CVs? 😅

[@johnnybrandon2206]

Can anyone tell me in the intro when they're firing the big guns it looks like confetti all over. Is that from the powder bags remains and wrapping etc?

[@skyden24195]

The affect the Yamato's main guns had on anyone out on an open deck when the guns fired reminds me of the scene(s) in the 1992 film, "Under Siege," when one of the main antagonists of the film, a character by the name of "Stranix" (played by Tommy Lee Jones,) finds himself on an open deck of the Iowa-class battleship, "USS Missouri," when the ship's main guns are fired at an escaping submarine. The film depicts "Stranix" being thrown forcefully from his feet and causes extreme hearing injury/damage to the character. It is to my understanding that this type of result on personnel out on open decks of the "Missouri" when the main guns are fired is fictional, however learning that the possibility of this kind of effect is possible, dependent on the gun size and charge strength, makes me wonder if the USS Missouri's guns could have had the potential to create such a dangerous environment to persons exposed on an open deck. Any insight to this possibility or not would be appreciated; for, if nothing else, curiosity's sake.

[@bkjeong4302]

The blast wave issues are a problem with battleship guns in general.

[@demoskunk]

Ah yes, as Ryan, the curator of the Battleship New Jersey Museum, likes to call it, the "documentary" film Under Siege. The true-life events of that movie are now the stuff of legend!

[@user-bh4ge1pm2t]

15:12 Where did you get that picture?! The one comparing the size of a man to the shell. I want one as a poster for the man-cave! It must be rare as the Japanese destroyed so much documentation of the Yamamotos.

[@ejhanley7362]

This video made me wonder what kind of penetration values you could get if you made a discarding sabot round from steel (I don’t see tungsten rounds being economically viable on a battleship scale) for a 16-18 inch cannon

[@chullychullster3077]

Quick question; Is there any footage of the impact on a ship from battleship guns? I've seen plenty of them firing but never seen an impact outside of a testing range.

[@aussietaipan8700]

Most interesting.

[@Magikarp-yk7io]

Imagine the amount of bullets, machinery, tanks and guns could've been made with the energy and resources shoved into the Yamato class that never even tasted much blood except making the Johnson a legend

[@SudrianTales]

Tbf, progress caught everyone off guard.

[@bkjeong4302]

You can say this about literally every WWII-era battleship class. The Yamatos just get singled out for it because double standards.

[@SudrianTales]

@bkjeong4302 That and just as she was launched, Pearl Harbor happened. Her service record also is kinda sad for a ship so powerful. Her greatest display is her sinking when her captain did a fantastic job at sailing her. Yes he failed but a lot of US ordinance missed beforehand

[@bkjeong4302]

@@SudrianTales She was actually fully completed and about to enter service by PH; she had been launched the previous year. Yamato ended up entering service right after Force Z which gave the IJN a conundrum as they realized how much they fucked up rhere.

[@SudrianTales]

@bkjeong4302 just realized I was thinking of Intrepid there. Yeah, Yamato was in a tough spot. 5 or so years earlier and she'd have done well

[@dukenukem5768]

@26:40 I have read a description of anti-aircraft shells being fired from the 16" guns of the British Nelson class battleships. Sorry, I can't remember where, and don't know whether they were carried routinely or that was just an experiment. Given the range they would have been used at, and the 3-D nature of the target, they must have been wildly inaccurate.

[@LARPing_Services_LLC]

Noooo, why so short? Is the lack of primary sources THAT bad? : ( I love you btw. It is a shame (for my little ego) that you seem already taken. But my rational side is more than happy with the privilege of getting to watch the results of your historical research, with your signature, incredibly high-quality, rigorous-yet-funny style.

[@marcbhoy2811]

Japan destroyed a lot of documents

[@derrickstorm6976]

3:08 Could someone elaborate on what this "wirewinding" is like, and how can it be denser (thus increasing the weight of the gun, as Drach mentioned) than the metal used for the normal pieces?

[@christopherconard2831]

Oversimplified version. Long lengths of heated steel similar to rebar (Though a different alloy of metal) or metal bands are wound around a liner. Along with tension they are hammered creating sort of damascus shell around the liner. This is repeated until you have a desired length and strength. It provides both flexibility and strength when the gun is fired. It also means that if a particular batch of steel is faulty it can be tested and scrapped before final assembly so you don't have to restart the whole process. It's a variant of the oldest method of making barrels. They'd start with a hollow wood tube. Then wrap wire around the length to strengthen the barrel. Soon after the wood would be replaced by a metal tube (liner) but the exterior stayed the same. The final product looks like one giant piece of steel that's been turned on a huge lathe. But if you cut one in half and looked at it under magnification you can see the different layers.

[@dougjb7848]

2:05 looks like if I and some of my friends built a naval gun in my backyard

[@TomFynn]

During the Falklands war, naval gun fire from the 5 inch guns proved vital. I can't help wondering what result that naval support would have had, if the RN still had operated battleships with 15 inch guns. The Battle Of The Valley Formerly Known As Mount Tumbledown?

[@GrayD1ce]

Falkland campaign would have gone differently if they had the vanguard there

[@bobo-cc1xw]

Vanguard with enough radar aa to be the target for everything

[@TomFynn]

@@bobo-cc1xw"Vanguard, you have been hit by an Exocet!" "Thank you, I hadn't noticed."

[@bluelemming5296]

The naval support would have been immensely better with a battleship. In the right circumstances naval gunfire can be enormously effective. Battleship gunnery in particular has an incredible effect on those who are subject to it - Drach's comments about the shock wave for the 18 inch guns in this video gives a clue, but if interested go find and read the comments from the US marines that were exposed to Japanese battleship gunnery one night at Guadalcanal in WW 2 ... A standard 155 mm howitzer is a ~6 inch shell, which means land based artillery seems close to ~5 inch naval artillery in capability if you limit yourself to looking at size. But that can be very misleading. A lot depends on the electronics and things like rate of fire. Position also matters - and the ability to change position quickly. For example at Omaha Beach in WW2 there was a stalemate mid-day - and a real chance they weren't going to get off the beach. The German positions were just too tough, and they had veteran troops manning them. They couldn't land artillery because the beach was covered by German guns and the artillery would never get a chance to fire. But US Destroyers could get really close to shore and fire lots of rounds from their 5.5 inch guns at the Germans at what is essentially point-blank range for naval guns - and since they were moving they were very difficult targets for land based guns. This helped break the stalemate. There were a few tanks that had made it to shore, and these helped as well - the tank guns had a tough time destroying German positions, they just weren't powerful enough in many cases, but the destroyers could see where the tanks were shooting and fire their guns at the same spots, with a much greater effect. There were studies of fast battleship gunnery done in ~2006 in Warship International when the details were finally declassified. These are based on real data on the firing range, and show astonishing accuracy against Yamato size moving targets at ridiculous ranges (and completely negating all the old myths that those guns were not accurate, myths that were probably allowed to exist as a deliberate security measure since they certainly had data to disprove the myths - you'll see people on these forums that still believe those old myths). However, we can not generalize this data to land bombardment: the most accurate gunnery at sea depended upon full salvos and the radar being able to show the splashes, if the splashes were on both sides of the target's return, then you were 'on target' and could 'fire for effect' - the late war radar in WW2 could show this (and not just the US: the British had these on some ships, they called them 'fall of shot' sets because the splashes showed where the shots landed). But all of that doesn't apply to land based targets, where a full salvo might be a waste and there won't be any splashes and naval radar probably won't show you anything of use. Hence, accuracy against land based targets depends on either LOS (line of sight) or on spotters (aka forward observers). One of the big disasters of the Normandy landings is that so many of the radios issued to the British forward observers with the airborne broke during the landings - they were too fragile for many to survive being air-dropped. Worse, in one case where the radios had survived, Allied fighters strafed the paratroopers and spotters, mistaking them for German troops - the strafing destroyed the radios that had made it through the landing, and also killed a bunch of the forward observers. This made it quite difficult for the paratroopers to complete some of their missions because they no longer had the planned ability to call down naval gunnery on their targets (details on this are probably found in "If Chaos Reigns: The Near-Disaster and Ultimate Triumph of the Allied Airborne Forces on D-Day" by Whitlock). Eventually they managed to get more spotters on shore, with new radios, and get some spotters in small planes overhead as well. Once this was done, battleship gunnery could be used again against targets not in LOS - too late to help the paratroopers but still useful to support the main invasion. For example, the battleship Warspite actually prevented a German tank attack, completely wiping out the assembly area for the attack and destroying all the tanks that were present, using indirect fire (meaning NOT line-of-sight) relying on a spotter. Similarly, for two of the landings in Italy, naval gunfire turned back the German Panzers when they got close to the beach. You may have heard the idea that the Germans might have thrown the Allies into the sea at Normandy if "somebody had only woken Hitler and gotten permission to move the tanks". That is nonsense: it had already been shown repeatedly that the German tanks could not survive in the presence of naval guns. There was another study done during the mid-Vietnam War that is relevant here: they found that 90% of the missions assigned to carrier air could have been better accomplished by battleship gunnery. The key here is that anti-air defenses had gotten really good, and were shooting down a lot of very expensive planes - but they couldn't shoot down a rain of incoming battleship shells (and there were lots of shells left over from WW2 and Korea). Not only were planes being shot done (with heavy loss of life, people that cost a lot of money to train), in some cases the carrier air couldn't complete the mission because they just couldn't get close enough without being exposed to the air defenses. But battleship gunnery with spotters was accurate enough to do the job. In a sense, it was the carriers that had become 90% obsolete (at least under those circumstances) and the battleship was once again useful. Of course, technology has since moved on and aircraft are a lot harder to hit now (think Gulf War), but there is still value in big guns in some circumstances - and they would have been useful in the Falklands.

[@pedrofelipefreitas2666]

In the korean war (and vietnam too i think) the 8-inch guns mounted on the heavy cruisers were very good for shore bombardment.

[@eugenemiya4935]

Amusing. My 12th grade English teacher was a Lt. Col. in the Corps of Engineers. His job starting before the formal surrender and lasting years was to demilitarize Japanese technology. His directives were to either repurpose things or destroy things. He found the lathes to the 18.1 inch guns. And he thought it would have been a shame to destroy this machinery. So his decision was to give it to the Chinese. His comment in the late 80 and 1990s: was he was not certain whether he set the Chinese back or gave my honorable ancestors an excuse to make newer technology.

[@robiejumawan8835]

In a different subject; will a shaped charged naval shell be effective?

[@fidjeenjanrjsnsfh]

I think Drach mentioned in the past 'not really'. You want shells to penetrate deep in the armor before exploding, shaped charge pretty much explode on impact to maximize penetration. Also layers of bulkheads reduces the damage. I think the closest to a shape charge naval weapon would be a torpedo, surrounded by incompressible water, all the explosion is directed towards the hull...

[@la_potat6065]

Following up unto the previous comment, because of what was said, the only thing that would be vulnerable to a shaped charged naval shell would be areas with more confined space like that of a tank, would be the ship’s armoured conning tower or the main turrets or barbettes. However to hit a ship is already extremely improbable with a naval shell and to have a shaped charge shell to actually hit where it would be effective, which is frankly also against the most heavily protected parts of the ship, well the probability of that happening is even further far fetched. And it doesn’t help that Japanese turret designers incorportated armoured wall dividers for 41cm turrets after Nagato Class’ modernisation in the early 1930s which also extends to Yamato Class’ 46cm triple turrets. The same can be said to other rounds like HESH and honestly even APFSDS. APFSDS does not have a charge, it relies on its sheer kinetic impact to produce the needed thermal energy for its explosion, which will suffice if it hits confined spaces like those previously mentioned, but I am not confident if even a battleship sized apfsds penetrating rod, piercing the hull of a battleship, would produce a great enough explosion against its vast multilayer bulkheads designed to protect, contain shockwaves and reduce spalling from hits of full ap shells. Although a well placed hit would certainly pierce the protection and vitals of a ship with greater penetration than a typical AP shell, I doubt it would equal to the physical destructive power of a shockwave explosion of a typical ap shell that has managed to also pierce, travel deep into the ship and detonate its explosive charge successfully. This is why torpedoes capable of snapping a ship in 2 (with a combination of a larger charge, hitting the keel and the explosion causing cavitation under the ship) and anti ship missiles with magnitudes of order heavier explosive charges (than that of naval shells), capable of super sonic speeds, that would suffice in both charge and penetration power to frankly blanket the unarmoured upper structure of a ship from bow to stern in the blink of an eye… is the way to go now a days.

[@jbepsilon]

For a modern take on the concept see the BROACH tandem warhead as used on the Storm Shadow / Scalp missiles that Ukraine has used against Russian ships (and that drydocked sub). It has a shaped charge for making a hole that the second warhead then flies in through and explodes inside the ship/bunker/whatever.

[@boobah5643]

@@la_potat6065 Dude, APFSDS doesn't explode at all; it just makes a hole and takes advantage of the fact that you don't waste space in an AFV with things like bunks and galleys to hopefully put that hole somewhere that matters. It's certainly hot after punching through the armor, which lets it start fires if it hits ammunition or fuel, but that's not the same thing.

[@la_potat6065]

@@boobah5643 Well you’re right APFSDS does not explode as its just a single material metal rod. However DU penetrator rods are pyrophoric with incendiary properties, when it fragments into fine dust, which reacts with the oxygen in the air, which would suffice in blanketing the tight crew space of a tank, although I don’t know if that is applicable against a shipsized vessel.

[@Historyguy-xu5ht]

Ohhhh!!!!

[@rogerdudra178]

Greetings from the BIG SKY. Big guns.

[@Kevin_Kennelly]

11:15 But the fine details of battleship gun manufacture are best left to their own video. I look forward to that discussion.

[@kemarisite]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pYOVnad-acakd68si=gY-VLOk1SURBmzqc

[@jeromethiel4323]

Drach, did any navy experiment with sabot rounds? Seems like an obvious move, but i'm sure there is a reason it wasn't done (to my knowledge).

[@boobah5643]

Presumably because the bursting charge of a sabot would be too small for any increase in penetration. Besides, sabot rounds didn't really come into common use until after people stopped seriously designing battleships, so that could be even more of a factor.

[@jimsvideos7201]

8:55 Must have been cold that day.

[@darrynreid4500]

I imagine the report of the Derfflinger after the Battle of Jutland simply stating, "Wir sind nicht explodiert, was uns alle sehr gefreut hat" (i.e. "we didn't blow up, which made us all quite happy").

[@sfs2040]

Neat

[@bluelemming5296]

@bkjeong4302 I'm not denying the enormous importance and value of carriers. But remember with WW2 technology, those extended battle ranges of ~200miles or so that you mention only existed if the weather permitted. Not sure how much experience you have at sea. I've been there enough to understand how different the world becomes once a storm blows in - something that is really hard for people without sea experience to understand. I recommend that you try finding some books on this topic to get some background and help build intuition. There were many situations where carrier air could not fly, especially in certain parts of the world, during certain seasons. Bad weather can last for days or even weeks at a time in some parts of the world. Aircraft of that era were enormously vulnerable to weather conditions found in these places. If I'm remembering correctly, of about 300 US planes lost in the Alaskan campaign, only 60 were lost to enemy action, the rest were lost to weather (this probably comes from Garfield's book: Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians). It's really hard for people that haven't lived in these 'special places' to have intuition for quickly and unexpectedly the weather can change: most of the those lost planes probably took off in perfect weather, and didn't start encountering problems until it was far too late to turn back. Ice forming on the wings of aircraft was an even bigger problem than ice forming on the ships. Navigation was also a huge problem when the weather closed in. In practice, this means even if the weather is clear, you need to keep the planes close to avoid a high risk of losing them due to sudden weather change. In these awful places, during the stormy seasons, you lose a big chunk of that 200 ~mile range even when things look clear for the moment. The Japanese could have attempted to shut down the flow of critical war-essential goods from the USA and other places in the Western Hemisphere to the Soviet Union (no rubber for tires grows in the Soviet Union!). Had they done so, the big gun ships like the Yamato would have become just as important in the far North Pacific as their counter-parts were in the far North Atlantic. Also, had the Japanese been able to time Yamato's last sortie to happen in extended bad weather, the Allies would have needed to use gun/torpedo armed surface ships to stop it.

[@bkjeong4302]

What you’re not accounting for is that even when weather conditions prevent long-range airstrikes the carrier usually has no reason to be in such close proximity to enemy surface forces, because as long as it managed to stay away from them beforehand it has a massive head start plus the fact the enemy would also find it impractical to even find you at such long range during poor visibility. And the entire idea of the Aleutians campaign potentially having been able to justify the Yamatos is ridiculous. First of all, battleships are ridiculously impractical as commerce raiders (the Kriegsmarine was forced to do it due to its intended mission for its capital ships not materializing and it wasn’t worth the investment in the end), and second, the Aleutians weren’t a decisive part of the Pacific theatre. As it was, the Japanese ALREADY wasted a huge amount of resources and manpower (including naval assets) on that campaign in IRL history that should have been allocated elsewhere, and now you want to make that worse?

[@bluelemming5296]

@@bkjeong4302 You're missing my point in both paragraphs of your response. I'm not suggesting the carrier is vulnerable to battleships because of bad weather. I'm also not suggestion the Aleutian campaign was a good idea. This is all about logistics - military and manufacturing, a major strategic concern. An enormous quantity of strategically important goods that were not directly military - but had military applications - traveled in Soviet freighters via the Pacific. However, had the Japanese (correctly!) decided to interdict this direct Soviet traffic - instead of ignoring it - that would have been a strategic decision of enormous importance - and it would have called for battleships on both sides if the Allies in turn decided to try to force convoys through in that theater, as they did in the Atlantic theater. It wouldn't have been the same as the Aleutian campaign - but it would have happened in roughly the same part of the world, with the same weather, and hence the same limitations on carriers to project power. On the other side of the world, the Arctic Convoys were of enormous strategic importance - and in and of themselves justified the existence of battleships. The British started shipping supplies well before the Americans started making major contributions, and we know from Soviet records that British equipment was used effectively in the defense of Moscow - because the units using it received commendations for their contributions during the fighting. The later American contribution only increased the value and importance of those convoys. That meant you needed gun and torpedo armed ships, including capital ships in case the enemy capital ships showed up in a fighting mood - and your carriers were unable to assist due to weather. There were a bunch of historical encounters involving capital ships in the Arctic - it's not an accident that meteorology was so important and that they stopped running the convoys in the summer when it was easier for air power to play a dominant role. If the British didn't have their own capital ships (the Americans also helped from time to time, e.g. USS Washington), the Germans could have run amok. According to one of the books on the topic that I recall, the big convoys carried goods equal to about a billion dollars in today's money - that's not counting the ships and the crews, just the cargoes. Adding in the ships and crews, that's probably another two billion or so, so say three billion dollars at stake (really quick back-of-the-envelope calculation). So a USS North Carolina battleship, at about 1.5 billion dollars in today's money, only costs half the money at stake in a single big arctic convoy - that's not even counting the lives at stake. Note that two Baltimore class heavy cruisers cost roughly the same as a North Carolina class battleship. Which would you rather have? You can throw destroyers against battleships. In good weather, you might even win. But as the waves get higher it gets a lot harder to use those destroyers, especially if the battleship has escorts of it's own. Bigger is better when it comes to ships in bad weather. A lot of that has to do with ocean physics and the concept of a 'natural hull length' and how ships move through the water - I can explain those ideas at more length if you wish, just ask ... There were 78 Arctic Convoys. Not all of them were huge. But if a single modern battleship looks cheap compared to the cost of a single large Arctic Convoy, the purchase of that battleship seems like a really good investment to me. In the final strategic analysis, you have to also ask what is the cost of the Soviet Union going under - how many more years of war, how much more destroyed equipment and lives does that equate to? I have no doubt the Allies could have won the war without the Soviets, but the cost would have been staggering. I conclude that having some battleships did make sense strategically. There weren't nearly as useful as they had been in the past. They certainly shouldn't have been the main focus in capital ship building. But they were needed.

[@bkjeong4302]

@@bluelemming5296 The Arctic convoys don’t really provide a case study in why you need battleships, because the threat of German surface attacks against them was more imaginary than real: aside from the fact throwing capital ships or even heavy cruisers against merchant shipping is also massively wasteful, Germany didn’t have the fuel or the political will to send out its heavy surface units following Rheinubung (this especially applies to Tirpitz) even if no action was taken against them, and on the occasions that they did try it it usually went badly for the Germans (in terms of getting to the convoy). In fact the one most costly Arctic convoy loss (PQ17) was the direct result of OVERESTIMATING the threat posed by Tirpitz.

[@bluelemming5296]

@@bkjeong4302 Construction decisions made prior to WW2 do not get the benefit of a time machine to look into how the future will play out. Only hindsight is 20/20. As the saying goes, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. Tactically, there are many ways to do commerce raiding. But from a logistical perspective - the domain of professionals - the battleships in the early-mid 20th century played a role no other ship could play: they could protect a nation's (and it's allies) logistics from the enemy in the event the enemy had similar vessels and chose to use them in situations where other naval and air assets were not able to operate effectively - such as bad weather or at night. They could also invert that role, and attack another nation's logistics in these situations. This is critical. Today we have anti-ship missiles and long range guided torpedoes that can sink any surface combatant threatening one's logistics - and which can be used at night or in bad weather. They didn't have anything suitable back then, so the battleship had a critical role to play. Without a time machine, nobody could predict to what extent it would actually play that role - but that didn't matter in the slightest. The role existed, so as responsible professionals naval planners had to plan for it. Hence the construction of the battleships was justified on purely logistical grounds alone. The Royal Navy and USN actually used their battleships in this fashion for at least part of the war, both in the covering forces for the Arctic Convoys, and in direct intercept of battleship raiders such as Bismark that attempted to slip out during bad weather. Allied battleships were also routinely used to guard Atlantic convoys with troopships, in the event the Germans sent their heavy ships out - a critical mission and one that was carried out very successfully - but one that is very seldom remembered by those who want to ignore the critical roles played by battleships in favor of the aircraft carrier. The fact that they felt they needed to do this is indicative of just how serious the threat of heavy ships was, even for Atlantic convoys - and how little the carriers could be trusted in face of the limitations posed by darkness and bad weather. The Kriegsmarine was crippled by the leadership of Corporal Hitler - but nobody could have predicted that in advance. After all, both Churchill and Stalin had a malign influence on their respective military forces at times - but both were eventually convinced to go largely hands off, to their great benefit of their nations. Even Stalin had close associates that could help him realize when he was making mistakes - eventually. The Germans had nobody that could exert a similar influence on Hitler. But no pre-war military planners could afford to assume that the Kriegsmarine would prove largely ineffective from a surface warfare perspective. If it helps, think of WW2 as demonstrating on sea, as on land, the importance of combined arms. Prior to the war, all sorts of predictions were made by the proponents of air warfare, claims that asserted that air warfare would partially or completely dominate all future warfare. Some of these predictions would come true in a limited and highly conditional sense - but only after many years of failures. Others would be completely false. No navy could afford to plan on the basis of dubious theoretical claims not yet tested in the crucible of war - and it was a good thing they didn't, as few of those claims would actually survive real world experience. The real world showed that then, as now, combined arms are needed: a well-rounded modern navy needs surface combatants in addition to subs and aircraft carriers.

[@chrissnape9537]

200 rounds seems to be very few. I do suppose a battleship would use far less in a naval battle, compared to shore use. How many riunds was an Iowa class main gun rated for ?

[@ricomock2]

I believe it was 300'ish during WW2, but it went up significantly later as different additives were developed for the propellant which helped to protect the bore Both the 200rnd and 300rnd figures were for full charges. Lower propellant charges were used for training and allowed more total firings

[@metaknight115]

Which Japanese heavy cruiser did USS Hoel report closing to point blank range shortly before her sinking?

[@WildBillCox13]

Barrel life 200 rounds . . . geeze. Compare that to land based heavy artillery of the 15.2cm/15.5cm variety . . . which regularly rate at 500+ rounds barrel life. Makes me wonder what the barrel life of 80cm/L40 Schwerer Gustav was. A couple test fires and one siege and it was ready for Dora.