Naval History Forums

WS and WA sets could provide continuous all round surveillance without detracting from gunnery - Tirpitz could not do this. PoW had dedicated GA/GS radars slaved to the secondary and tertiary directors - Tirpitz did not. Sure it could. From Sept 41 through 1943 it had 3 separate active radars. Thou...

From comparing TDS of Yorktown(CV5) and Colorado class it appears to me both systems appears as similar. In Yorktowns case the sinking seemingly was caused by torpedoes wich hit the ships bottom. The first hit of a aerial torpedo did not defeated the TDS but caused outer voids to be flooded at cons...

aurora wrote:Phil- Admiral Cunningham claimed that the "Golden Rule" in the confined waters of the Mediterranean was that ships must keep together for mutual defence and never be deployed for individual tasks.

Deploying for individual tasks is not the same as splitting your force into two groups.

Atlanta was hit by friendly fire from San Francisco at "Guadalcanal 1". It's actually kind of surprising the USN managed to keep the Japanese from dominating the Island, but the Marines did well (both sides underestimated the other) and the IJN having to vacate the area and lose any ships ...

I think that would be a very tough call. I wouldn't give either ship a significant advantage.

In a nutshell, first surface combat for a peacetime navy that was totally unprepared for night fighting, especially against the very well prepared IJN. The outcome was probably not surprising under the circumstances.

That episode wasn't as one-sided as commonly believed.

Reading Hornfischer he mentions Sprague's oral report to Nimitz: I told Nimitz that the main reason they turned north was that they were receiving too much damage to continue, and I am still of that opinion, and cold analysis will eventually confirm it. Hornfischer points out that the firepower bei...

That's impossibly limiting. Wouldn't they all have to be Essex Class?

During early service use, it was found to be unreliable, prone to jamming and ineffective as an AA weapon. Sometimes I think these writings about replaced weapons go a bit overboard on how terrible the original weapon was. The 1.1" did shoot down a lot of planes the first two years of the war....

IJN Kongo was sunk by two torpedoes from USS Sealion.

I was at one time a Tank crew member. We had a 30 cal coax and a 50 cal gun for the TC. Both have about the same muzzle velocity, but I can tell you the ballistics aren't even close. Obviously muzzle velocity is important, but there are a number of other factors. One of the important things when sho...

Yamato had an auxiliary rudder, but in testing it wasn't able to turn the ship. Funny how much luck plays a role. Between them the Yamato and Musahi were hit by 30 or so torpedoes - and not one to my knowledge took the rudder out. During her final sortie, Yamato suffered a torpedo hit or hits aft w...

The so called "free press" has no problems publishing items that are offensive to Christians and other religions. Could it be that they are less likely to be attacked by their followers on a regular basis? Could it possibly be the followers of a particular religion are intolerant of anyon...

The purpose of attacks like this is to get the states (France in this case) to crack down on their Muslim populations, which in turn creates more Jihadists. I don't see any good solution. In my opinion those with a jihadist bent are going to do it anyway. Let them know if they choose jihad they cho...