I mean, true.
DId the japs ever win a battle against the US in the pacific when numbers were even or in their favor?
Tassafaronga and Savo Island are probably the most notable.
I mean, true.
DId the japs ever win a battle against the US in the pacific when numbers were even or in their favor?
I thought it was Shinano that had the idiotic DC crew that left all the hatches open and resulted in her loss just outside Toyko Bay.
Or did Taiho also go down due to crap dam-con practices?
Taiho's commander seriously wanted to keep air-ops going while he had an av-gas fume leak in the hanger, and instead they used the AC to try to vent the fumes...that's a new level of dumb.Yeah her too, she took a torpedo that cracked an avgas tank filling the hanger with fumes. She had armoured deck so it started to build up, normally you'd drop elevators and let natural airflow clear it out along with various vents. Unfortunately the commander still wanted to conduct air ops so the elevators were kept up.
So instead the damage control activated all fans and vents tied into the aircon system to suck out the fumes, which it did by spreading them through the entire ship. Someone somewhere made a spark and that was that.
Shinano was a disaster but she did have a weak understrength crew and I think she was still fitting out, Taiho was fully operational and it should have been pretty straightforward to clear the fumes, US and RN ships had the same problems several times and survived fine. Shame as it was probably the best Japanese carrier, but at the same time it did keep a lot of our guys alive![]()
Taiho's commander seriously wanted to keep air-ops going while he had an av-gas fume leak in the hanger, and instead they used the AC to try to vent the fumes...that's a new level of dumb.
6.5 hours...and he didn't even want to stop air-ops for a little while to vent the ship...the torpedo didn't sink the Taiho, her commander did.Somewhat ironic the ship immolated itself when its name translates as Great Phoenix
Worst bit was it took six and a half hours between the torpedo hit and the explosion. They had all that time and presumably knew this was a bad, bad idea to keep using the flight deck when the ship was in such danger. And yet...
The design was like a small Midway class, very tough, very high quality with real command and control facilities and radar to correct the mistakes of Midway and actually direct her aircraft. It could have been a revolution in IJN carrier doctrine reflecting Allied techniques, but unlucky for them they never got the chance to test it
6.5 hours...and he didn't even want to stop air-ops for a little while to vent the ship...the torpedo didn't sink the Taiho, her commander did.
Wikipedia said:May was responsible for a major release of highly confidential military information during World War II known as the May Incident. U.S. submarines had been conducting a successful undersea war against Japanese shipping during World War II, frequently escaping their anti-submarine depth charge attacks. May revealed the deficiencies of Japanese depth-charge tactics in a press conference held in June 1943 on his return from a war zone junket. At this press conference, he revealed the highly sensitive fact that American submarines had a high survival rate because Japanese depth charges were exploding at too shallow a depth. Various press associations sent this leaked news story over their wires and many newspapers published it, including one in Honolulu, Hawaii.
After the news became public, Japanese naval antisubmarine forces began adjusting their depth charges to explode at a greater depth.Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, commander of the U.S. submarine fleet in the Pacific, estimated that May's security breach cost the United States Navy as many as ten submarines and 800 crewmen killed in action. He said, "I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now."
Today while checking out the comments section of a Historiograph Video about the US Submarine Campaign against Japan, I learned about how Kentucky Representative Andrew J. May might've been responsible for the death of almost a thousand US Submariners through leaking classified information to the press after a tour of US military facilities.
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Loose Lips Do Sink Ships
To engage a US submarine that was running deep at 360 feet, it would take the older depth charge nearly a minute to get down to that depth. Andrew Jacksonwww.warhistoryonline.com
Here's the video where I found the comment and followed up on it.
Nothing he could possibly have said, including passing out a full list of all submarine orders, could have done as much damage as buords.Someone in his position should know better than to say anything to the press when asked about operations beyond basically "Things are going well" and keep their mouth shut when pressed for details.
Nah, BuOrds at least wasn't telling the enemy that they had set their charges to shallow.Nothing he could possibly have said, including passing out a full list of all submarine orders, could have done as much damage as buords.
The torpedo literally did not work at all. It was so bad that we should have charge BuOrds as enemy saboteurs and it would have stuck.Iffy torps are not great, but are survivable, as long as you prep for circlur runs, and scoot when right after you shoot.