Shipbucket

So I was playing with this idea in my head and wanted to share.

A fictional American battleship of proportions similar to the Yamato, but with American-quality weaponry has just finished escorting a group of lend lease ships to a naval base in the Soviet Union's far east. The cargo ships were small in number and were handed over to the soviets as part of the lend lease agreement. Leaving them behind, the large battleship, eight destroyers and one light cruiser return to the United States. The date is December 7th, 1941 and reports come in of an attack on Pearl Harbor. The task force is on alert as aircraft are spotted in the distance. Not only has Japan struck pearl harbor, but is attempting to sink one of Americas largest and most modern battleships. A Japanese force of numerous destroyers, two carriers and two light carriers along with other escorts.

What differences in quality, type of weapons and crew performance make this opposite Ten-Go battle different from the original Ten-Go? Really tempted to do a SpringSharp of an American Yamato just for fun.

Hi Krases,

I think that this design you're discussing is more or less a Montana-class battleship. As I understand things, even the Iowas were close enough in spec to the Yamatos that it's likely some other battlefield happenstance would determine the winner rather than the comparative spec of the ships - neither Iowa nor Montana matched the weight of armour Yamato carried but differences in construction meant that the American ships could be as survivable on a lower weight of armour.

As regards the described tactical situation, a lot of it would depend on the equipment outfitted to this Montana-like ship ... the USN was just starting to get long-range air search radars in at that point, as I understand it, but that doesn't mean that this ship would be fitted with them yet. USN weapons fit in 1941 would probably not be adequate to repel a determined strike from the air - 1941 fit was generally 0.50" and 1.1" MGs, the USN did not at that point have a requirement to annihilate Kamikazes at extended ranges, so the IJN aircraft would probably be able to get close and hit fairly hard.

However, one question to ask is where the IJN gets all of these goodies - Pearl Harbour and the associated rampage through the Pacific were in effect a maximum-effort strike by the Japanese. They wouldn't necessarily have had anything spare with which to conduct another strike - the case for war with the US was razor's edge stuff, really, in terms of feasibility, eve if the IJN's assessment of their effectiveness was accurate (it wasn't).

Regards,
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NSWE: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5695

I don't think there's any early wartime scenario where surface units alone win against a powerful (or at least comparable) air force. The results would be the same as the circumstances around the sinking of the Yamato in 1945.

Have to echo apdsmith's concerns over the feasibility of two Japanese strike forces, though. Pearl Harbor was an all-out effort to begin with.

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I was tempted to re-write the scenario where Japan is winning the war and an American Yamato pushes out from LA as part of some final American Ten-Go type operation. But I was worried that would go over like a lead balloon.

So instead, I would name the additional Japanese carriers the 'Humour-Me' task force.

If the purpose of this thread is to ask whether or not the late-war American radar and ECM fits would have made any difference in that scenario, I think the answer is "negligible at best". The advents in AA gunnery, radar directed surface gunfire control, lead-tracking anti-aircraft gun direction, and electronic countermeasures/support measures is a huge advantage, but not really enough to swing the vote in favor of the USN in some sort of last-ditch scenario. Recall that the USN still suffered heavy losses off Okinawa when swamped with kamikaze attacks; now imagine these are concerted, trained aviators in torpedo planes and dive bombers. Sure maybe the "American Ten-Go" task force can detect the enemy a long way off, or turn on their TDY jammers, or maybe kill a few extra attackers during the raid, but I think in the end the result is the same.

I personally wouldn't want to be standing on the bridge of this "American Yamato" in such a situation!

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The anti-aircraft guns of the time were extremely inaccurate. The scenario would not be any different. The American ship would be sunk.

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