BRITISH AA OF WW2

Historical what if discussions, hypothetical operations, battleship vs. battleship engagements, design your own warship, etc.
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Dave Saxton
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Dave Saxton »

alecsandros wrote:How did that happen ?
Do you mean the knocking out of the main battery? That was due to the shock of the 14" hit which knocked out electrical power to (all) the main battery turrets for sometime.

There were multiple electrical failures occuring at multiple times due to multiple reasons.

The 6" hits were coming from Kirishima's secondary battery.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by dunmunro »

alecsandros wrote:
dunmunro wrote:There is just isn't much room for AA to have been a major factor in downing IJN aircraft, despite the high AA claims.
... The initial interception by the CAP from Saratoga was a bit off, and the dive bombers attacked almost un-opposed. The CAP from Enterprise got mangled with the Zeros. This is proved by the massive attacks performed on the 2 US primary targets (7 Vals on North Carolina and 18 on Enterprise).
The CAP from Enterprise and Saratoga battled more with the Vals on the way out (after they droped their bombs and ran the gauntlet of AA fire)

I have other numbers in "War of the Pacific" (75 planes lost by the Japanese). I'll look it up.

Cheers,

P.S.
In the mean time, from the initial (1942) ONI report:

"The Enterprise was the prime target, although the North Carolina was also singled out by several dive bombers. Planes dived at the carrier at intervals of about 7 seconds for a period of approximately 4 minutes, interrupted only by two short lulls of 20 or 30 seconds duration. All dives were steep--65 or 70 degrees--and were, to quote Capt Davis, "well executed and absolutely determined." Bombs were released at from 1,500 to 2,000 feet, and pull-outs were generally low.

At least 10 planes crashed near the Enterprise, and others flew away smoking heavily. Some of those which crashed had never pulled out of their dives. Two burning planes narrowly missed striking the carrier's flight deck. "

[...]

"
The volume of our antiaircraft fire was tremendous. The 5-inch fire of the Enterprise and of the screening ships which could bring their batteries to bear was such that several planes broke off their attacks, and others were seen to emerge from bursts on fire. Three planes disintegrated as though directly hit. The 1.1-inch mounts and 20-mm. guns, used in local control, also were extremely effective. These small-caliber automatic weapons were particularly useful in destroying planes which completed their dives and attempted to retire after pulling out low over the formation.

Capt. Davis and other high-ranking officers present concluded that approximately 70 enemy planes were destroyed at the scene of the action. The fighters received credit for 43 planes of the Japanese attack group and three "snoopers." An SBD on inner air patrol was credited with one dive bomber. Another dive bomber was credited to a Saratoga TBF leaving the carrier on an attack mission. A dive bomber and a torpedo-plane were destroyed near the Ryujo by planes of our attack group, and these aircraft accounted for five additional dive bombers which they encountered while returning to the task force. On a mathematical basis, then, our antiaircraft fire would have to have brought down 15 planes to bring the total destroyed during the fleet action to 70. Whatever the case, very few Japanese pilots who participated in the attack on our ships got back to tell what happened. "


http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/USN ... ons-4.html
Only 37 IJN aircraft approached the USN carriers and only 27 of these were DBs, but the USN made 83 AA and CAP/defending aircraft kill claims! This shows how wildly inaccurate USN only accounts can be.

You're using USN wartime accounts and they are wildly inaccurate. Frank's Guadalcanal states that 15-17 Wildcats intercepted before or during the attacks on the two USN ships, while First Team gives a much more detailed account with about the same numbers; since the interception was high but close or even overhead of the defending USN ships, every CAP or Zero kill was also counted as an AA kill, by multiple ships, since the AA gunners couldn't distinguish Wildcats from the IJN aircraft especially as the Wildcats were also diving through the AA in pursuit of the IJN planes. Atlanta's Action Report states: "One hit was observed on Enterprise, with several near misses and five planes were observed shot down by gunfire, Since all were under fire by this vessel as well as others it does not seem possible to allocate the hits." So we can see that the actual number of aircraft actually observed to be shot down was not that high, although accounts varied by ship. Even NC only stated 7 "sure" AA kills but again the difficulty lay in distinguishing AA kills from fighter kills, and that was very difficult to determine without access to IJN records.


Enterprise's Mk 33 directors failed to track even a single IJN aircraft and all of Enterprise's 5in fire was done while in local control; this led to multiple claims from each gun for every aircraft observed to be hit, and the same thing happened with the 1.1in and 20mm gunners leading to grossly inaccurate AA claims.


This was a very wide-ranging operation and several non-carrier IJN aircraft were lost as well.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Steve Crandell »

I looked and I don't see this effect from the 14" barbette hit. Here is a link to the damage report: http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... rtno57.htm

Can you provide additional information about this particular electrical damage? As near as I can tell there was quite a bit of electrical damage at various times, nothing which disabled all of the main battery.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Dave Saxton »

See Hornfischer's account based on crew member testimony pg 360. In part:
...but the great guns remained silent. With the main battery out, paralyzed by the electrical failure, Gatch was able to repond only with his secondary battery. The battleship's five-inch guns jackhammered away fiercly in local control, but were hardly a deterrent to heavy cruisers and a battleship.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Steve Crandell »

Dave Saxton wrote:See Hornfischer's account based on crew member testimony pg 360. In part:
...but the great guns remained silent. With the main battery out, paralyzed by the electrical failure, Gatch was able to repond only with his secondary battery. The battleship's five-inch guns jackhammered away fiercly in local control, but were hardly a deterrent to heavy cruisers and a battleship.
I'm not familiar with Hornfischer's account. Can I find that on the web somewhere?
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Thorsten Wahl »

the U.S.S. South Dakota (BB57)
Gunfire Damage
Battle of Guadalcanal
14-15 November, 1942 report is available at
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... rtno57.htm
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by alecsandros »

dunmunro wrote:
You're using USN wartime accounts and they are wildly inaccurate. Frank's Guadalcanal states that 15-17 Wildcats intercepted before or during the attacks on the two USN ships, while First Team gives a much more detailed account with about the same numbers;
Hi Duncan,
Excuse me for not mentioning my thoughts above: I did not copy the ONI report as a source for argument, just as some details for our discussion.
Of course the kill claims were inflated - they said they shot down 70 planes, while only 37 actualy made the attack :)

I looked up my copy of "War in teh Pacific" by Gailey, and found nothing of importance. He briefly mentions "75 planes lost by the Japanese carriers" (all 3), and that's it.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by dunmunro »

alecsandros wrote:
dunmunro wrote:
You're using USN wartime accounts and they are wildly inaccurate. Frank's Guadalcanal states that 15-17 Wildcats intercepted before or during the attacks on the two USN ships, while First Team gives a much more detailed account with about the same numbers;
Hi Duncan,
Excuse me for not mentioning my thoughts above: I did not copy the ONI report as a source for argument, just as some details for our discussion.
Of course the kill claims were inflated - they said they shot down 70 planes, while only 37 actualy made the attack :)

I looked up my copy of "War in teh Pacific" by Gailey, and found nothing of importance. He briefly mentions "75 planes lost by the Japanese carriers" (all 3), and that's it.
A very useful book to own is Dull's A Battle history of the I.J.N. as it is written using from the IJN perspective using IJN source material. It has a table of IJN losses for the 1st wave that made the strike on Enterprise and NC:

Planes:
Zeros____Vals
10_______27
lost in the air:
3________17
ditched near the IJN CVs:
3________1
Lost from all causes:
6_______18
recovered:
4_______9

These numbers vary slightly from Lundstrom.



The exact cause of those "lost in the air" isn't given, but Lundstrom has correlated the USN and IJN aircombat reports to arrive at his figures. If we raise the number destroyed by AA to say half of the Vals, then we have fantastically high over-claiming by fighter pilots before and during the Vals withdrawal after their attacks. As it was total USN aerial kill claims against the IJN attack force alone came to 45 versus 16 or 17 actual kills + 4 more from AA. IJN Zeros claimed 12 Wildcats so some of the USN F4F-4 losses must have been Zero kills.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Dave Saxton »

Steve Crandell wrote:
Dave Saxton wrote:See Hornfischer's account based on crew member testimony pg 360. In part:
...but the great guns remained silent. With the main battery out, paralyzed by the electrical failure, Gatch was able to repond only with his secondary battery. The battleship's five-inch guns jackhammered away fiercly in local control, but were hardly a deterrent to heavy cruisers and a battleship.
I'm not familiar with Hornfischer's account. Can I find that on the web somewhere?

No its a book of some 500 pages. It's absolutely the best and most important history of the Guadalcanal naval battles yet written. I highly recommend it. Its not perfect, but I put more faith in Hornfischer's (or Hammel's) analysis than I do in the battle reports and such. The battle reports and damage reports from the war are badly confused and/or incomplete.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by alecsandros »

dunmunro wrote:

A very useful book to own is Dull's A Battle history of the I.J.N. as it is written using from the IJN perspective using IJN source material. It has a table of IJN losses for the 1st wave that made the strike on Enterprise and NC: ...
Indeed.
All in all, my opinion is that the AA cover of Enterprise at Eastern Solomons was more effective than the one put up by Force Z, and probably destroyed a larger number of attackers.
However, the AA umbrella was far from perfect, as shown by the 3 bomb hits sustained by Enterprise.

The AA defense that I counted was: Enterprise: 8x127mm, 16x28mm, 32x20mm. North Carolina: 20x127mm, 16x28mm, 40x20mm, 16x12.7mm. Portland: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 16x121.7mm; Atlanta: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 8x20mm; 2 destroyers with 5x127mm + 6x20mm + 6x12.7mm each; 4 destroyers with 4x127mm + 4x12.7mm each.
TOTAL combined AA defense: 70xheavy AA guns; ~ 160 light AA guns; 60 machine guns. [maximum possible throw weight/minute ~ 37000kg]

TOTAL combined AA defense of force Z: 24xheavy guns, 73 or 81 mediu AA guns, 16 light AA guns, 40 machine guns [maximum possible throw weight/minute ~ 18000kg]
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by alecsandros »

Yet, in retrospect, I think the HMS Prince of Wales yielded the most powerfull AA batteries in the world in Dec 1941...
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Steve Crandell »

alecsandros wrote:
dunmunro wrote:

A very useful book to own is Dull's A Battle history of the I.J.N. as it is written using from the IJN perspective using IJN source material. It has a table of IJN losses for the 1st wave that made the strike on Enterprise and NC: ...
Indeed.
All in all, my opinion is that the AA cover of Enterprise at Eastern Solomons was more effective than the one put up by Force Z, and probably destroyed a larger number of attackers.
However, the AA umbrella was far from perfect, as shown by the 3 bomb hits sustained by Enterprise.

The AA defense that I counted was: Enterprise: 8x127mm, 16x28mm, 32x20mm. North Carolina: 20x127mm, 16x28mm, 40x20mm, 16x12.7mm. Portland: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 16x121.7mm; Atlanta: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 8x20mm; 2 destroyers with 5x127mm + 6x20mm + 6x12.7mm each; 4 destroyers with 4x127mm + 4x12.7mm each.
TOTAL combined AA defense: 70xheavy AA guns; ~ 160 light AA guns; 60 machine guns. [maximum possible throw weight/minute ~ 37000kg]

TOTAL combined AA defense of force Z: 24xheavy guns, 73 or 81 mediu AA guns, 16 light AA guns, 40 machine guns [maximum possible throw weight/minute ~ 18000kg]
I believe Atlanta had 16x127mm, not 8x130mm.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Francis Marliere »

alecsandros wrote:The AA defense that I counted was: Enterprise: 8x127mm, 16x28mm, 32x20mm. North Carolina: 20x127mm, 16x28mm, 40x20mm, 16x12.7mm. Portland: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 16x121.7mm; Atlanta: 8x130mm, 16x28mm, 8x20mm; 2 destroyers with 5x127mm + 6x20mm + 6x12.7mm each; 4 destroyers with 4x127mm + 4x12.7mm each.
Alecsandros,

as far as I know, there was no 130 mm gun in US service, only 127 mm (5") ones. Portland had 8 singles 5"/25 and Atlanta 16 5"/38 in twin turrets. I am not sure because tracking light AA outfit is difficult (it changed several times during the war) but I think that Portland had 16 x 1.1" and 12 x 20 mm (plus may be some 0.50" MG).

Best,

Francis
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Steve Crandell »

Dave Saxton wrote: No its a book of some 500 pages. It's absolutely the best and most important history of the Guadalcanal naval battles yet written. I highly recommend it. Its not perfect, but I put more faith in Hornfischer's (or Hammel's) analysis than I do in the battle reports and such. The battle reports and damage reports from the war are badly confused and/or incomplete.
I've finished reading this book, up to the last third (still reading that) which deals with the effect on the sailors when returning to the States. I agree that it is a very good book, and gives a lot of details from both sides not often available in other books.

The comment with respect to South Dakota's main battery being out of commission after the hit on the Turret 3 barbette, I make the following observations:

The crew member testimony he gives is from a loader on the left gun in turret 3. He recalls the turret officers discussing whether they should continue firing after the hit on the barbette, not knowing how much damage was done. They decide to continue firing, and the alarm sounds in the turret indicating it will fire. It doesn't. That could be for any number of reasons unknown the the loader on the left gun. The most likely one I can think of is as follows: As I understand the process, when the turret officer closes his firing key in normal centralized FC operation, all that happens is the turret ready light goes on in Main Battery Plot. If they don't close their key, nothing happens. If they had then explained to the turret officers that they had lost their target or lost the director, or some other reason, the loader on the left gun in turret 3 wouldn't know that unless the turret officer announced it over the interior circuit. They were being hit repeatedly and had lost most of the ship's radars and there was a lot of confusion. Note that the officers didn't say "we've lost power and can't fire". The thought they could fire, and they would definitely have noticed if the lights had gone out in the turret, and the alarm wouldn't have gone off.

I don't know why Mr. Hornfischer then stated that South Dakota's main battery was out of action, but as far as I can tell if it was it wasn't because of the hit on the after turret's barbette. While I agree that after action reports can be in error, especially when recapping an engagement that was so confusing for South Dakota, the very detailed part submitted later by the yard regarding the ship's electrical problems and how they were going to fix them would tend to be much more accurate. That part of the report lists the effect of a lot of the electrical problems, but never says the damage during the large number of hits prevented the main battery turrets from engaging the enemy. I think its quite possible that they fell silent because the Spot I director couldn't find a target, though.

Mr. Horfischer made the following errors that I noticed right away:

He states that this was Washington's first deployment. It wasn't. Her first deployment was with the British Home Fleet, after which she went into overhaul and was then deployed to the South Pacific.

He states that the 16"/45 main battery guns used eight powder bags, the exact number depending on range. They actually used five, and would never have used less than that when firing AP.

He says that there were bad feelings between the crews immediately after the battle. I don't think that is true, and there would be no reason to think there was. What DID happen is South Dakota went back to the states after the battle and was credited with all the damage Washington did and got all kinds of acclaim, and Washington didn't ... she was still in the combat area while this was going on. Her crew read about all this in the paper, and THEN there were very bad feelings between the crews and when South Dakota returned to the battle area it was not a good idea to have them both ashore at the same time and place.

Those are not terribly significant errors and not really material to the story except that it indicates Washington's crew was a lot greener than it was. Overall, I think it's a great book.

Finally, I've heard that the reason Turret 3 set the aircraft on fire and then blew them overboard was that the fire control equipment connecting turret 3 to the main fire control computer hadn't been properly aligned after the initial power outage and was sending an offset of 90 degrees right to that turret. I can't find my reference for that, though, so you all can take it or leave it. Note that Washington was firing at the same or a close target to the one that SD was firing at, and she didn't set her aircraft on fire or blow them overboard. Overall, I think Washington's crew was simply more experienced and better trained.
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Re: BRITISH AA OF WW2

Post by Dave Saxton »

Those are not terribly significant errors and not really material to the story except that it indicates Washington's crew was a lot greener than it was. Overall, I think it's a great book.
Yes I noticed some errors but they are minor and overall the book is excellent.
Finally, I've heard that the reason Turret 3 set the aircraft on fire and then blew them overboard was that the fire control equipment connecting turret 3 to the main fire control computer hadn't been properly aligned after the initial power outage and was sending an offset of 90 degrees right to that turret. I can't find my reference for that, though, so you all can take it or leave it. Note that Washington was firing at the same or a close target to the one that SD was firing at, and she didn't set her aircraft on fire or blow them overboard. Overall, I think Washington's crew was simply more experienced and better trained.
The Number 3 turret was firing at a target astern. When reading the action report they thought it was an IJN cruiser. Hammel sorted it out in his work. It was Gwin departing the area on the orders of Lee. After the second salvo whistled over the Gwin flashed its recognition lamps. This was seen on the South Dakota as the IJN "cruiser" blowing up in the action report.

I would agree that Washington's crew was better prepared. They dealt with some of the same problems better and they were much more sober about their business and about what they observed. One of the South Dakota's problems was that the SG konked out just as it was reaching the sinking DDs and it took a course around them that highlighted it (from the flames) to the enemy. So just as it was coming to a critical point it was rendered blind once again and attracted the attention of the enemy, while the Washington had passed by unnoticed and while retaining a good situational awareness.
Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's.. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny.
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