Would Yamato with advanced AA gunnery survive air attack ?

[dunmunro]

However, KGV used 7 or 8 Mk4 pom-pom directors, probably all with RPC by 1944/45 to control her Octuple pom-poms.

What I find very interesting is that the AA guns fired automatically, without human intervention... Pretty neat, isn't it ?

I never said they fired without human intervention. However, the Phalanx, for example, will have an even greater problem of deciding what to shoot at.

[alecsandros]

Did you have an idea about how many shells these ships carried.

No, Thorsten, sorry...

[alecsandros]

Interestingly enough, even with VT fusing for the 5in/38 in 1944, the big AAA killers were apparently still the 40mm and 20mm.


Happy New Year to you / Byron

Haapy New Year, Byron!

Indeed, the volume of fire put up by the 20mm and 40mm guns apparently helped more than the proximity fuzes of the 127mm shells. Radar guidance played a crucial role...

[Thorsten Wahl]

Ther is a USN report available, that the 5"/38 gave (non) satisfactory(or somwhat simililar meaning) results at target distances up to 13,000 ft(4,500m).
The tone was somwhat less enthusiastic as usual. I'll look for that piece.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... tm#defense

some edit

[alecsandros]

Ok, but apart from reports we need to keep in mind the historical performances of AA systems on board South Dakota, NOrth Carolina, New Jersey, Wisconsin, just to name a few US battleships with good-to-very-good results (at least in my head) against incoming bombers.

Cheers,
Alex

[Thorsten Wahl]

one tought
Attacking Battleships with standard bombs makes almost no sense as they make mostly superficial damage to the upperworks. US ships usually operate in big task forces with a massive screen of CA/CL and DD. Additional they had a CAP above their heads.

only torpedoes and AP bombs with sufficent speed make sense.

remember Fritz X must be thrown from above 6000 -7000 m to achieve sufficent velocity for pentration.

without CAP such ceiling became a problem for fast battleships as 20mm and 40mm were not able to reach this ceiling; for the bigger 5 incher the firecontrolproblem became serious if the guns were not fully stabilised.´

due to trunnion tilt "Flak schießen" at long range without triaxial stabilisation was expected to have only morale effect.
Nevertheless even 38 cm were used for "primitives Flakschießen" particulary to disrupt approach paths.

[Pandora]

hello all
there is just no way pom-poms can save Yamato.
however, considering the small space required to install a Phalanx, Yamato could easily be equipped with what 20 Phalanx mountings, 10 by side? Enough to shoot down a fly if needed.

[alecsandros]

one tought
Attacking Battleships with standard bombs makes almost no sense as they make mostly superficial damage to the upperworks.

500lbs+ AP bombs still matter. One such bomb perforated Yamato main deck, IIRC, and exploded inside. Similar bombs had at least some effect on the sinking/severe damaging of Prince of Wales (1941), Gneisenau (1942), and Musashi...

As for trunion tilt, I thought late-war German and US systems compensated for it, though I don't know if the correction was applied fast enough to the guns so as to become effective against high-speed aircraft ?

[alecsandros]

Thanks for yet anotehr excellent referencem Thorsten!

What should be noted though is that kamikaze attacks (taht the paper covers) are different from usual attacks by dive bombers/torpedo bombers, with the attacking plane being "free" to do all sorts of manouvres, in it's flight towards the target.
Usual attacks presupose a much more linear approach towards the target, thus making the firing solution of the AA system more reliable, and a hit/severe damage to the attacker more likely.

So I think US battleships would behave even better against "normal" attacks...

Edit: kamikazes also flew faster than usual bombers, thus making them even more difficult targets

[dunmunro]

phalanx/pom-pom

ROF> 3000+4500/920rpm
Ammo> 989 or 1550/1120rounds
MV> 3450fpm/2400fpm
proj weight> .22lb/1.7lb
wieght per sec> 11 or 16.5lb/26
reloadable in use?> No/Yes
FC> radar+autonomous digital computer via integrated director/radar-optical+analog computer via RPC from external director
Effective range: 2000yd(?)/ 3500yd
Max target speed: 1500knots(?) / ~400knots

[dunmunro]

Thanks for yet anotehr excellent referencem Thorsten!

What should be noted though is that kamikaze attacks (taht the paper covers) are different from usual attacks by dive bombers/torpedo bombers, with the attacking plane being "free" to do all sorts of manouvres, in it's flight towards the target.
Usual attacks presupose a much more linear approach towards the target, thus making the firing solution of the AA system more reliable, and a hit/severe damage to the attacker more likely.

So I think US battleships would behave even better against "normal" attacks...

Edit: kamikazes also flew faster than usual bombers, thus making them even more difficult targets

Kamikaze attacks are much more simplistic that you assume, mainly because the pilots usually only had rudimentary training and aerobatic manoeuvres were beyond their capability.

Kamikaze attacks were usually conducted at less than 200 knots. Higher speeds made the aircraft less manoeuvrable and the pilot was more likely to lose control in the final stages of the attack. Also many attacks were made at low altitude with older aircraft that simply could not go that fast at low altitude such as Vals, Kates, Bettys and various training aircraft. Only a fraction of the attacks were made with higher speed aircraft, such as Zeros.

Unlike a conventional attack, a kamikaze presents an ideal low or zero deflection target in the final seconds of its flight and were highly vulnerable to 5"/VT and CIWS fire.

[alecsandros]

Kamikaze attacks with high-speed aircraft much more common than you think. Zeros were only part of the picture.B6Ns, Ki43, Ki44 and Ki48, and D4Ys were also used with deadly consequences, not the mention the infamous rocket planes (MXY-7), with speeds in excess of 500kts.

Possessing a large torpedo/bomb would intrinsicaly make the craft more difficult to manouvre, and the attack pattern would necessarily be predictable. The attack of a kamikaze had a larger possibility of movement, at least until the final dive.
Another great hazard posed by the kamikaze, which was not present at normal attacks, was that, even if teh plane was on fire, it could still hit the target with fatal consequences (see the cases of HMS Formidable, USS Essex, USS Bunker Hill)

[Ken Thompson]

One thing the US Navy decided to do was to intercept the inbound strike way out there. In early 1994 they initiated project "Cadillac" an early form of Airborne Early Warning -AEW that we still have today. This was a more elaborate radar system with a data link to the home carrier CIC when they could see the same radar picture as the plane. This was all loaded onto a TBM plane but I think the war was over before it went in to service. I think they used a "Po'boy" system with radar equipped TBM's that guided the CAP onto the incoming strikes. Radar equipped TBM's had some success in guiding night fighters and even night attacks on surfaced submarines in the Atlantic. The British of course had been doing this for years but on larger planes. The point is to hit them early and hit them often which included air strikes at the kamikaze air fields.

[dunmunro]

Kamikaze attacks with high-speed aircraft much more common than you think. Zeros were only part of the picture.B6Ns, Ki43, Ki44 and Ki48, and D4Ys were also used with deadly consequences, not the mention the infamous rocket planes (MXY-7), with speeds in excess of 500kts.

Possessing a large torpedo/bomb would intrinsicaly make the craft more difficult to manouvre, and the attack pattern would necessarily be predictable. The attack of a kamikaze had a larger possibility of movement, at least until the final dive.
Another great hazard posed by the kamikaze, which was not present at normal attacks, was that, even if teh plane was on fire, it could still hit the target with fatal consequences (see the cases of HMS Formidable, USS Essex, USS Bunker Hill)

The MXY7 Ohka had almost no manoeuvring capability in the terminal phase, and most missed their targets as a result; they relied entirely their exceptionally high speed to penetrate the AA defence. 13 Okkas were seen by USN ships and 9 missed any target.

Aircraft making standoff attacks are at less risk from the CIWS, especially prior to weapon release, than aircraft that must make contact with the target.

The average kamikaze pilot had only the most basic of flying skills and only 30-50 hrs of flight training; asking him to make radical, high speed manoeuvres in the terminal phase of the attack was not possible. Pilots were warned to keep their throttle settings low and not to accellerate too much in the final phase. USN reports of terminal speed above 200 knots are very rare. Again, high speed attacks were not common, and most were conducted at less than 200 knots. Only about 1/3 of attacks were made from initial altitudes above 3000ft. About 1/3 of USN ships reported only mild manoeuvres in the final phase, with the rest reporting straight line attacks

[alecsandros]

OF course the Oka lacked manouvreing capabilities; it relied on 800km/h speed!

A good portion (though I don't know how many of total) of kamikazes attacked with aircraft capable of more than 200kts, many around 300kts. The Vals and Kates that you mention were obsolete in 1944, and had been mostly replaced by B6Ns and D4Ys.