Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

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Dave Saxton
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Dave Saxton »

Steve Crandell wrote:Let me make sure I understand you here. Is it your opinion that USN battleships were unable to engage in effective gunnery because of their poor electrical systems, and that this situation was present during the entire war?
No, that's conflating the issue.

Why did the chief engineer need to tie the breakers together?
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: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

US ships typically had diesel generator compartments widely separated in the ship for backup power in case of casualties to the turbine generators, one forward and one aft.
Redundancy is one area where the US seemed to have an advantage over may other navies in ship design. The Akagi was only hit by one bomb at Midway (and a near miss), but that one bomb destroyed her water main. On a US carrier there would have been some redundancy. The Akagi may still have burned out with a rendundant additional water main, but it might have had a fighting chance.

Alecsandros wrote:
The German designs seem to have been more resilient (for their size) - Bismarck was doing 12kts after 3 torp hits and 2 heavy underwater hits (and that with 1 boiler room flooded); Scharnhrost was doing 10kts after 4 torp hits (and with severe damage to machinery).
Interesting. Yamato was making 10 knots after 8 torpedoes, and also having flooded her starboard engines and boiler rooms in an attempt to counteract a list (pumping stations were apparently knocked out by a bomb earlier).

After about 7 torpedoes the Musahi was still making 20 knots.

Interesting though that the Scharnhorst took 11 torpedoes to sink. From what I know this is more than any battleship other the the Yamato behemoths. I guess one thing to keep in mind that just because 11 torpedoes hit a vessel does not mean it took 11 to sink it, though this would hold true for Yamato and Musahi as well. Though the Musahi took a long time after the last attack to sink, so it indeed may have required all the torpedoes that hit it to sink it.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by alecsandros »

Garyt wrote: Alecsandros wrote:
The German designs seem to have been more resilient (for their size) - Bismarck was doing 12kts after 3 torp hits and 2 heavy underwater hits (and that with 1 boiler room flooded); Scharnhrost was doing 10kts after 4 torp hits (and with severe damage to machinery).
Interesting. Yamato was making 10 knots after 8 torpedoes, ......................
Perhaps you should read more carefully what I wrote.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

Perhaps you should read more carefully what I wrote.
Don't get so defensive. Was not making any inferences based upon data - merely comparing results.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by alecsandros »

Garyt wrote:
Perhaps you should read more carefully what I wrote.
Don't get so defensive. Was not making any inferences based upon data - merely comparing results.
comparing results yes - but you should take size into consideration also. Scharnhorst was 32000 tons standard, exactly 50% the standard of Yamato.
I don't want to infer any sort of exact relationship between tonnage and nr of torpedoes required, but it is to be expected that a larger battleship would require a larger damage to sink, presuming damage control, pumping and electric capacity and redundancy, etc, are similar.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

but you should take size into consideration also. Scharnhorst was 32000 tons standard, exactly 50% the standard of Yamato.
I don't want to infer any sort of exact relationship between tonnage and nr of torpedoes required, but it is to be expected that a larger battleship would require a larger damage to sink, presuming damage control, pumping and electric capacity and redundancy, etc, are similar.
I certainly realized the size difference between the two.

However, everything I have read or seen about damage taken implies that a linear model based upon displacement is not accurate. For instance, one torpedo will often sink or at least immobilize a good sized destroyer of maybe 2000 tons. This does NOT mean however that a small carrier (CVL or Soryu) of 18,000 tons requires 9 torpedoes to sink it.

I am not sure if you are familiar with Command at Sea, one of the most detailed and accurate games out there for naval miniatures. They have put a lot of work into designing an accurate assessment of how much damage a vessel can take. Their ratio between vessels the size of Yamato and Scharnhorst is about 1.5 to one, meaning Yamato, with everything else being equal should take about 1.5 the amount of torpedoes to sink compared to the Scharnhorst.

Again, just because x amount of torpedoes sink a vessel does not mean x amount of torpedoes were required to sink it.

If we assume the Numbers from Command at Sea are pretty accurate (I'd think they are, they are more detailed and worked better IMO than many numbers used by the Navy for simulations), lets use it to compare it to what you have here:
The German designs seem to have been more resilient (for their size) - Bismarck was doing 12kts after 3 torp hits and 2 heavy underwater hits (and that with 1 boiler room flooded); Scharnhrost was doing 10kts after 4 torp hits (and with severe damage to machinery).
Scharnhorst took 4, about the equivalnet of Musahi/Yamato taking 6.

The Ratio with Bismarck is about 1.3 to one - so we can say 4 hits on the Bismark, which is equivalent to roughly 5.2 or 5 on the Yamato class.

So we have this:
Interesting. Yamato was making 10 knots after 8 torpedoes, and also having flooded her starboard engines and boiler rooms in an attempt to counteract a list (pumping stations were apparently knocked out by a bomb earlier).

After about 7 torpedoes the Musahi was still making 20 knots.

While any type of numeric quantitative evaluation is very difficult, as numbers do not ascertain the exact damage done to a vessel (Command at Sea has criticals, but it seems hits like those that sunk the POW and the Hood are more rare than they were in real life), it is still a good rough barometer.

And based on that rough barometer, it seems Yamato and Musahi were as resilient, perhaps even a bit more than the German vessels, even when taking into account the disparity in size.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

BTW - Here is a pretty good explanation of the methods used by Clash of arms to determine damage compared to methods used by the Royal Navy and US Navy in wargames

http://clashofarms.com/files/Variable_D ... ffects.pdf


The Clash of Arms method is accurate in the amount of toprpedoes for instance it generally takes to sink a vessel - however as I said, a single torpedo almost single handedly sinking a battleship like in the POW is rarely rarely going to happen, as I said more rare than in real life in my opinion. It's due to the lower variability in the Clash of Arms system.

While CoA seems to model below water damage rather well, it's not nearly as good in my opinion for things like shell fire, bombs or fire damage. It (CoA) reuslts in vessels sinking too quickly from above waterline damage and fires. I guess it's somewhat a mute point however, when vessels take enough shell fire or bombs to sink them they are generally burning hulks that have to be scuttled, even if they do not sink. I think it's a bit off on Battleship though. Battleships can take a fair amount of non penetrating bomb or shell damage at little risk to their sea-worthiness. What will be an issue is fires, possibly getting to magazines, loss of AA stations, and perhaps damage control (The actiual parties as much as any damage to any damage control "hardware").
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by alecsandros »

Garyt wrote:


While any type of numeric quantitative evaluation is very difficult, as numbers do not ascertain the exact damage done to a vessel (Command at Sea has criticals, but it seems hits like those that sunk the POW and the Hood are more rare than they were in real life), it is still a good rough barometer.

And based on that rough barometer, it seems Yamato and Musahi were as resilient, perhaps even a bit more than the German vessels, even when taking into account the disparity in size.
... it seems about right if you compare them with Bismarck (42000 tons), but not with Scharnhorst (32000 tons).

the immediate effects of single torpedo hits seem to be more damaging for the Japanese ships. Bismarck did not slow down or have any notable damage after the first 2 torpedo hits - but the third proved fatal. The smaller Scharnhorst was badly damaged by 1 torpedo in 1940, took 3000t of water and speed was droped to 20kts; aft magazine unusable.

Musashi took 3000tons of water and droped speed to 22kts after the initial torpedo hit and initial bomb hit; she also lost her main gunnery director due to the shock of the torpedo explosion; Yamato was badly damaged by 1 torpedo from USS Skate, taking 3000 tons of water and having 1 main magazine flooded.
During the final battle of Yamato, the first torpedo caused a flood of 2400tons of water and reduction of speed to 18kts (later increased to 22).

P.S.: Still the size of torpedoes and warheads was essential. There was a big difference between Skate's Mark XIV torpedoes and the smaller, aewrial launched torpedoes droped by the Swordfishes vs Bismarck, for instance.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Steve Crandell »

alecsandros wrote:P.S.: Still the size of torpedoes and warheads was essential. There was a big difference between Skate's Mark XIV torpedoes and the smaller, aewrial launched torpedoes droped by the Swordfishes vs Bismarck, for instance.
I believe one of the swordfish torpedoes hit Bismarck's main armor belt, which implies that it was running shallow and wouldn't do much damage there.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

Musashi took 3000tons of water and droped speed to 22kts after the initial torpedo hit and initial bomb hit; she also lost her main gunnery director due to the shock of the torpedo explosion; Yamato was badly damaged by 1 torpedo from USS Skate, taking 3000 tons of water and having 1 main magazine flooded.
During the final battle of Yamato, the first torpedo caused a flood of 2400tons of water and reduction of speed to 18kts (later increased to 22).
I think it's even tougher to compare the effects of a torpedo hit by hit, as the effects of any one torpedo is highly variable. If you compare the effects of a group of torpedoes, they generally will average out a bit better.

That being said, if both the Yamato and Scharnhorst took in the realm of 2400-3000 tons from a torpedo, this would IMO favor the Yamato to some decent degree,

Reason why - I would think the Yamato with double the displacement could take on twice the amount of water of the Scharnhorst, If both take the same amount of water from a torpedo, the Scarnhorst would be twice as far along when it comes to sinking.

And even though the Yamato has twice the displacement, I don't think anyone expected it to take twice the below waterline damage of a vessel half it's size. Above waterline damage - yes, perhaps twice or even more depending on what it was struck by as armor plays a big factor. But below waterline damage is different.

But really comparing one torpedo at a time is tough. I think the cumulative effects of torpedoes has a greater relevancy. Even comparing speed loss after one torpedo strike is tough, as this speed loss was often a temporary thing once the damaging strike(s) had ended.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

Still the size of torpedoes and warheads was essential. There was a big difference between Skate's Mark XIV torpedoes and the smaller, aewrial launched torpedoes droped by the Swordfishes vs Bismarck, for instance.
I think the Mark 14 would be of the mod 10 variety at this point in the war, 668 lbs of torpex, or 1002 pounds tnt equivalent.

The aerial torpedoes used on Yamato and Musahi were probably the Mark 13 mod 10? 606 pounds of torpex or 909 pounds TNT equivalent.

The swordfish used the Mark 7 in the early war I think, 388 pounds of TNT equivalent.

I think the destroyer torpedoes used on the Scharnhorst were the Mark IX I'm thinking, 750 pounds of TNT equivalent. There was a later model with 805 lbs of Torpex, I'm not sure which model was used.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by tommy303 »

I think the destroyer torpedoes used on the Scharnhorst were the Mark IX I'm thinking, 750 pounds of TNT equivalent. There was a later model with 805 lbs of Torpex, I'm not sure which model was used.
If I recall correctly, aerial torpedoes had priority in the use of torpex until 1944 when torpex warheads became standard in all RN torpedoes then in use.

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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Francis Marliere »

Gentlemen,

I know and enjoy Command at Sea, which is IMHO a good game. I am not sure however that the modelisation of ship damage is so accurate : the rules trade off realism for the sake of simplicity. A game such as Seekrieg 5, while not perfect, has more realistic (but more complex) rules.

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Francis Marliere
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Garyt »

I am not sure however that the modelisation of ship damage is so accurate : the rules trade off realism for the sake of simplicity.
Trust me Francis, I do indeed know where you are coming from.

I think there are two problems with it - criticals are too rare, and above waterline damage and fire damage both sink vessels too easily, though a burnt out vessel the sinks in command at sea may still be floating in real life - but it would be completely useless by this point.

EDIT - Let me add a third issue I have. Armor rating are not specific enough for me. They are limited pretty much to either belt (horizontal) and deck (vertical), ecen for turrets. And to get this it averages the armor from a the various locations in a weighted average. Plus armor penetration has no randomness - it either does or does not penetrate. Of course as non-penetrating hits still do 1/2 damage, when most studies have shown a penetrating hit inflicts about 3 times the damage, it compensates a bit for it's all or nothing penetration rules in this manner.

BTW - Check out Seas of War sometimes. It's a good product if you like detail, but more playable than Seekrieg. It has a few glitches as well to fix as any game does, and of course it's not packaged as well as Command at Sea, but it's free and suprisingly accurate and detailed in many ways.

So I understand the games shortcomings as a model of damage.

However, as I mentioned, their below water damage figures, most notably torpedo damage seem pretty accurate as a damage model. The only area where I see much of a shortcoming is you will not get a strike like the torpedo the Prince of Wales took. But for how many torpedoes generally can be taken before a vessel sinks it's pretty accurate.

I'm familiar with Seekrieg, more familiar with Seekrieg 4. But more detail does not always mean more accuracy. Seekrieg 4 used linear damage models tied to displacement, which are not an accurate model. I'm not sure if Seekrieg 5 follows this same linear model.

But with Command at Sea and a one Japanese Aerial torpedo, you will get some damage points and a bit of flooding that should be easy to correct, and if really unlucky another critical (maybe an 18% chance), that has about a 3% chance of jamming the rudder, a 1% chance of an engine room explosion, a 1% of one of the magazines going up, and the most common result being additional flooding or engineering damage causing a small fire and reduction of speed.

While Command at Sea lacks detail however, it's overall results from ow many torpedoes it take to sink a vessel barring something like the Prince of Wales Torpedo are pretty accurate.

Again, detail does not always mean accuracy in the big scheme of things, though it might be more "fun" :D

And it's pretty accurate using this to compare the damage taking capabilities from one vessel to another in the broad scheme of things.
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Re: Yamato + Musahi - Damage taken

Post by Mostlyharmless »

Garyt wrote:...snip...
But with Command at Sea and a one Japanese Aerial torpedo, you will get some damage points and a bit of flooding that should be easy to correct, and if really unlucky another critical (maybe an 18% chance), that has about a 3% chance of jamming the rudder,...snip...
I think that there were far more hits damaging rudders and screws in WW2 than you would calculate. I suspect that captains always steered to avoid torpedoes and sometimes nearly avoided torpedoes.
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