I was looking over this Musashi kit I recently bought, as well as researching old photos, and one thing I noticed was the relative dearth of smaller caliber AA guns sparsly placed over her decks, about 24 if I counted correctly. If I look at a North Carolina class, or an Iowa class, it seems that everywhere there is room, there is another 50 cal gun. The total for BB-55 was 48, an increase by a factor of two, and defending a ship 110 feet shorter.
Could this have led to inadequate overlapping of fields of fire, allowing better penetration of Allied aircraft through the ships’ defenses, and been a significant factor in the Allies’ ability to sink both Yamato and Musashi so quickly after their deployment?
Despite thier early success using aircraft against ships, the Japanese were slow to recognize and adopt strong anti-aircraft defenses. The Battle of Midway rudely awoke them to this error, but even after that incident they never put the same kind of effort into AA or CAP management as the US or Royal Navy, so yes it probably played a part in the loss of those ships.
In general, secondary armament was for light ships against defence, up though 1943.
US BB’s also had 3 inch, 4 inch, 5 inch and 9 inch guns as opposed to Oerlikons and Bofors.
Your average fleet replenishment ship had a 3" and a 5" open mount gun, which even well served had a slow rate of fire and little or no success against aircraft.
I would not say the japanese were better or worse than the USN in AA, although we prevailed, but the availability of the Swedish guns was a major factor.
The first point about this is what fitting the Mushashi kit is molded in. As the war progressed her AAA battery was increased.
The next point is that IJN shipboard AAA, from what I have read, was not as effective as USN. No radar guidance, no proximity fusing. They had no equivilant to the quad 40mm which could throw out a heavier shell a farther distance than their 25mm guns did. The US 1.1" gun had a similar performance and was replaced early in the war by 40mm’s. The 5" Dual Puropse gun also was superior to its Japanese counterpart. When coupled with radar guidance and radar proximity fusing it really outclassed its’ opposote number.
Musashi and Yamato were commisoned early on in the Pacific War, but did not see actual combat until mid to late 1944 at the Phillipine Sea and Leyte Gulf. It is interesting to ponder what effect they may have had on the Guadalcanal campaign had one or both been committed when both sides carriers were out of action and US land based airpower not as formidiable as what they would later face.
It is also germane to consider that even if individually light, AA weapons do add weight, and above the CG, which always, but always affect the ship’s stability.
It’s never just the weapon, either. it’s the mount, the platform for the mount, the ready service ammo (which adds weight and makes the platform bigger). then you need a loader, and a pointer, and it keeps adding up.
And, it cannot block another weapon of any caliber. It also needs to be out of the blast effect of the larger naval rifles aboard, too.
Then, the weapon availability per installed weight matters. A 7.7mm machine gun round barely reaches to the “pull out” altitude of dive bombers, and is mere impotent tracer fire for horizontal bombers or torpedo planes. Going to a 20 or 25mm cannon will give a 2000yd sort of engagement range, about release range for torpedoes, but right at the maximum effective range for the rounds. and that 25mm mount can add a ton of weight up too high above the metacenter for every one installed. So, you need a bigger gun. but they weigh even more.
The answer for fewer guns is to put them under director control, so that more guns are on one target at a time–this was the true secret of success for USN 40mm mounts. And even then, that not-quire 2", 2# shell did not always have a lot of effect versus a 3-5 ton aircraft closing at 2-300kts.
USN perfected the “anti kamikaze” AAA mount in the Mk 22 dual 3"/50 cal, with radar aiming and radar proximity fuzing. Just did so in early 1946.
I have read in a couple of historical books that even the 14" and 16" Main Batteries of the BBs were used against kamakazes. I don’t know how true, but the books were non-fiction. The Main Batteries would fire into the water just in front of a kamakaze and let it fly into the resulting wall of water. The plane would disappear without a trace, sucked under when the wall collapsed. Supposedly several kamakaze planes were downed in this fashion.
Source, please. I’d discount that. First of all those big rifles took time to lay and fire, plus they were set for a ballistic trajectory. Others would know, but I would guess the minimum range to drop a shell in the water would be at least a couple of miles away.Plus, that attack was a dive profile to hit the deck at a high angle.
Fire control is the answer, I’m sure. I don’t know much about it, but I did learn that, while modeling CA 38, the communication trunk from the director to the fire control center was heavily armored.
Sounds like maybe some one confused some notes–the Japanese had done some development work on a shotgun shell-like AA around for the 18" guns. I want to remember that firing those shells basically scrapped the liners from tearing up the rifling.
There is a reason those guns are called naval rifles. They are designed to lob a shell at great velocity a great distance. I’d wager even the 14" rifles would not depress, even “on the roll” enough to get a shell in the water closer than 3-4 miles. And that, while risking a squib by short charging the gun.
And, even if you did, those shells are going to be supersonic still, they’d likely hit the water and ricochet right off, not the sort of thing to generate good feelings among the rest of the battle group.
I am not an expert on AA matters, but when it came to knocking down planes in WW II, it wasn’t “size matters” but “weight matters,” in this case throw weight, i.e., the total weight of all anti-aircraft projectiles on a given side of a warship that could be put into the air in one minute (considering realistic rates of fire, etc.). Technology helped, sure, with the development of the proximity fuze, but when you consider the AA total throw weight for an Iowa-class battleship was almost 49,000 pounds by wars end - that’s a lot of lead.
The only case I recall reading about of a ship firing her main batteries at attacking Japanese aircraft was at Midway. In Walter Lord’s “Incredible Victory” he wrote about one of Yorktown’s escorting cruisers firing her 8" battery at low flying Kates.
5 inch guns which were destroyer main guns and secondary on other vessels were dual purposes. Were some 8 inch guns developed in this fashion as well? One of the refits on the British Tribal class destroyers to to change the main guns from a single purpose to a multipurpose role. In some all were changed and others only certain turrets were changed.
I can’t remember for sure, but I think it was a book about the Iowa Class BBs that I had borrowed from the local Public Library, which would have been back in the early 70s. It seemed a little difficult to believe to me also considering the speed the planes traveled versus the speed the turrets could turn and train the guns to a specific spot, but they explained that the guns could depress something like 3 to 5 degrees which would give them an impact about a mile or so away. Some of the kamakaze would come in at wavetop to hit like a torpedo, and these were the only ones these guns could be used on. I would imagine they would have to be already trained to a specific distance and if a spotter saw a plane approaching that vector they would tell the gun captain when to fire so as to create the wall for the plane to hit. So the opportunities would be very few. I can only imagine what it would look like if a shell did happen to hit the plane directly. A whole lotta energy released in a small location. Even if the shell didn’t explode, the sheer impact should disintegrate the plane. A 3 ton plane at 300 knots versus a 1 ton shell at what, 2000 knots, in the opposite direction?
I would think that if it actually happened there would be some kind of Action Report crediting a Main Battery crew with downing a plane. Or a picture of a turret or barbette showing a downed plane instead of just shore bombardments.
Well if I was that pilot, I’d get good and low down between the BB and a DD! Might sink two ships at once!
IMO the only real use for BB’s after, oh about 1905 was for shore bombardment. Which they are fearsome deadly at.
In fact, when the CA 38 got hammered so badly at Guadalcanal, she was torn up by 5" gun fire from a bunch of destroyers. An unexploded 14" fragmentation shell from Hiei was found in her.
Whew! Bondoman, you had me worried there for a minuet. At first I thought you were going to talk about “frying chickens in the barnyard!” like ol’ Buck Turgidson in Dr Strangelove.
Not very effective though. The TOW was designed to keep its launcher out of effective range from Soviet tnak guns. One of the reasons its range was extended from 3000m to 3750m. But if the launcher is inside max effective range the tank has the advantage due to faster flight of a tank round vs the missile…[whstl]
Sure, the story was the Israels had those little Hughes Loach helicopters armed with TOW tubes. The pilot was in Lebanon in 1982, which is apparently tank country, lots of ups and downs and places to hide. The IAF was trying to clear ahead roads for their invasion and this pilot popped over a hill and encountered a number of Syrian tanks at a couple 100 meters. They overcame each others surprise and fired at each other. The pilot watched the tank blow up and the round fly by and hit the hill behind them.
There’s also a story from Falklands where a British helo, probably a Gazelle, fired a wired guided weapon like a Milan at maximum range toward s the Argentine HQ in Port Stanley, but they got scared off and the wire got stuck over the top of a hill and the munition went out to the harbor and narrowly missed a ship.
I always thought wg weapons were weird. But of course now I get spam calls on my iPhone selling me golf clubs when I drive through Pebble Beach, so who can say?
Lebanon was a very “close quarters” fight for much of the early days. Lots of bottlenecks and choke points on those mountain roads where anti armor helicopters and teams could really wreak havoc. A shot at 100m is barely inside minimum range for the missile. IIRC it does not arm until it travels approx 65m. During my active duty time as a TOW gunner I got to fire three of those very expensive fireworks. It seemed like time stands still for the 17 seconds it takes from the time you press the launch button until the missile impacts a target at 3000+ meters downrange. And that is with no one shooting at you… the Dragon missile I always thought was a good way to get the gunner killed in combat. The Javelin and Hellfire are a vast improvement in survivability.