Naval History Forums

Suppose Spruance would dettach a BB/CA force to engage the enemy - would Ozawa accept battle ? In my opinion no, his strategy was to keep the range long and use his longer reach to his advantage. It was a good strategy, but IMO the Japanese were doomed to failure since the quality of their airgroup...

... At least 2 more aspects are interesting to observe, IMHO: - first, that the distance between the 2 fleets (main bodies) was practically unchanged between June 19th 00:00hrs and 06:00hrs, about 500km. So, on average, the 2 fleets moved at roughly the same speed and on the same general direction ...

Ok, I had some time to review Morison. At 21:15 on the 17th, USS Carvalla sent a contact report that firmed up that Ozawa was still heading eastbound. This report was received at 03:45 on the 18th. It was then that Mitscher famously inquired to Lee about a surface action. At that point, Ozawa and TF...

... It is difficult to see how an interception were possible on the night of 18/19th June. At little before midnight, Spruance received a report that put Ozawa's force 300nm west of his forces. A follow up report from submarine Stingray (positioned at 175nm east of the first report) was mostly un-i...

It really depends on what time during the battle you're talking about. The famous question to Lee from Mitscher was the night of the 18th. Mitscher saw that had they continued west they could've made contact that night. At the time, Spruance was still concentrated in a cruising disposition although ...

x axis time starting with 0 to 30 minutes y axis upper graph measured distance -black true distance measured by Langbasisgerät -green 10 rangfinder Vormars -orange 10 m rangfinder aft -yellow 10 m rangfinder turret A -blue 10 m rangfinder rangfinder turret B -dashed line average from the rangefinde...

Mr Fischer, is the data for Mk8 representative of WWII radars or can we expect the earlier sets to be less reliable ? Best regards, Francis Marliere That was for Mark 8 radars only, other sets such as the SG-A et. al. are not inclusive and weren't researched. The earlier Mark 3 did suffer from a mu...

While optical ranges can indeed rival radar ranges at times, they typically exhibit a large variability from “cut to cut” which is why ranges are plotted and a mean range line is derived from this plot. Using an error budget* derived from fleet experience an Iowa class BB using all 5 range finders m...

Mr Jurens, does the INRO article you co-authored with Mr Fischer deals with that ? In an old thread, you spoke of "Maneuver and Fire Rules" which were used by the Naval War College. Could you please tell me more about that ? Best regards, Francis Marliere I cannot speak for the latter but...

I’ve skimmed through this thread a bit and bgile is correct regarding USN doctrinal thinking regarding battleships gunfire. ComBatPac’s official gunnery doctrine for PacFlt’s battleships ( Gunnery Doctrine and Instructions, Battleships, U.S. Pacific Fleet 1944 ) is very explicit about open fire inst...

The Iowa class battleships had coincidence RFs in one turret ... I think it was turret 2, because that type was considered by the USN to be superior in night fighting. I believe the US, Germany, and Japan all for the most part used stereoscopic rangefinders. Actually it’s Turret 1. All the USN’s fa...

Your study group idea wasn't ignored, at least not by me; I explained why I was unable to travel to Washington DC to look at archival information. This whole forum is a kind of study group. You won't find much I'm afraid. While there are literally full stacks that are uncategorized much of what is ...

..... I quite agree with your assessment, Bgile. I don't think anyone else has studied the subject in such depth, had access to the vast amount of original source archival material, or possesses the professional skillset (physics PhD, IIRC) to properly evaluate it. I would definitely consider Natha...

I stand corrected. This is significant because there is a marked tendency for reliable spotting range to increase as salvo size increases Presumably this is because the radar return for a larger salvo is stronger than with a single shot? This is almost certainly true and is noted by several ships i...

I believe at this time the Washington had SG search radar and the Mk 4 gunnery radar sets. The latter could range on a battleship at about 28,000 yards and spot to about 20,000. The SG on the other hand could detect a battleship at 40,000 yards and range on it at about 35,000. What I suspect the of...