Very well done, I dont think Ive seen anyone actually account for range and angle of the shell alongside the plate angle. I love to see it. Also someone else pointed out the 660mm plate thickness but its just 10mm at the end of the day still very well done!
0:41, just some quick calculations, that backface deformation causes the a pressure wave of 1 ATM to propagate through the cabin, and a 197 Db soundwave. In short everyone probably lived but is now mildly concussed, and vomiting violently out of sheer pain and vertigo caused by blown out ears.
The main counterpoint is not knowing how to use effectively their ships. The Japanese could have won if they knew what they were doing, but no, they had no idea.
@@elgranfreezer9117no shit Sherlock, the japanese could have won if they had been better, had more resources, a better industry, more men and aircraft and hadn't attacked the USA
@@grass_enjoyer2305no what he mean that if the japanesse had a better stratégie they would won. At the begin of the war, japanasse had clearly à advantage in number of ship and power. They just lost every thing little by little due to their stratégie and couldn't rebuild their ship in time.
@amaurycap8034 what exactly was their strategy? Do you mean the fact that they started to build big ahhh battleships instead of aircraft carriers or what?
I actually recall speaking to Nathan Okun on those matter before his passing. Many believe the Yamato's lower quality of her belt armor would've made her susceptible to the Iowa's main guns, but he said at combat ranges, (~20km) neither of these ships are gonna be able to reliably penetrate one another. Iowa can't get through the belt of Yamato and Yamato's shell flaws mean that she can't get through the belt of Iowa due to the angle of impact. In reality, it'll come down to who gets lucky first
@@seangunn4772 It's really her only advantage, unless her armor proves tougher than theorized. I've no doubts that her turret faces would shrug off just about anything, but I think her hull would take some bad hits if the 16" SH shells find a decent angle to hit at and dig in. With the Iowas' aforementioned much better FCS systems, radar guided guns, better speed and comparable firepower... In anything other than a sunny clear day with calm seas, Yamato is going to have difficulties keeping a good solution on the Iowa, who in turn won't have nearly as bad a time. Plus, the Iowa class's superior speed means that they can control the engagement so long as damage doesnt negate this (though thats a given for anything- It doesnt work if it gets shot). Ultimately, the Iowa class would have an easier time hitting Yamato. Short of Yamato getting lucky early on in an engagement or the Iowa's Captain making some bad decisions, the Iowa has a lot of advantages that I don't think the Yamato could overcome all else being fair.
Where was the steel for Yamato sourced from? China? Japan has historically had problems with metallurgy hence why Katanas and other items were made the way they were. I've always wondered if the Yamato's metal quality was actually as good as Western ships.
@hellcatdave1 for the most part, due to possibly the best (and most unhinged) quality control, most Japanese armor is roughly around western nation's in quality. For Yamato's belt, they correctly calculated they could compromise quality for the sake of cost and time to manufacture. The angle and thickness of the plate still mostly prevents penetrations from basically anything unless it's very close
The IOWA’s 16” Mark 7 lightweight 50 cal rifle firing the 2700 lb super heavy shell was nearly the ballistic equivalent of the YAMATO’s 18” gun and AP projectile combination. An amazing achievement by USN Bureau of Ordnance and the Naval Gun Factory. With superior speed, range, and fire control, IOWA could shape the battle sea at will and engage the YAMATO on IOWA’s terms.
Accuracy wasn't really refined until her modernization in the 80's. The USN tried making her even more accurate, but you can only do so much with the dispersion of a 406mm gun. A top speed of a ship and her cruising speed has a considerable gap, and it takes quite a while to even reach that speed, and when you're making maneuvering around, it'll bleed that speed unless Iowa is sailing in a straight line, but at that point, where will she have the room to dictate the rules of engagement? Also, even if the 16" SHS and Yamato's Type 1 AP shells have similar ballistics, there is still a huge gap between the raw kinetic energy from one of these shells, ~356'644'450 Joules vs ~444'132'000 Joules. Even if we say the armaments of these ships are equal, Iowa will lack on the armor department. Her longer hull limited due to panamax, and speed just doesn't have the same level of protection as the Yamato. I mean just look at the difference between their displacements and of how much percentage the armoring alone took up. Where Iowa does have advantage is her detection systems. On calm seas in the daylight, both ships are almost on equal terms. Yamato too did have solutions computers onboard and the best OPTICAL rangefinders at the time. On rough seas, Iowa will easily detect Yamato and fire more accurately as she'll detect her first and have the first strike on her. Iowa shines here due to her radar, not her rangefinders. Separate systems. It'll be a bit closer of a fight in nighttime and stormy seas, otherwise, I don't think Iowa will hold up well in a long engagement.
@ the Iowa was much faster than the Yamato, had far greater range and much better fire control. She could shape the battle space at will and engage on her terms. People don’t realize what a technological leap the Iowas were over the Yamatos in every respect.
@iowa61 The mk8 shell fired from the 16 inch/50 gun could penetrate the deck at very long range,but that is a matter of chance. Between 20 and 30 km the yamato would have had an immunity zone against it,and at a distance of less than 30 km the 18.1 inch could penetrate the belt of an Iowa class. People don't realize that the US thought that the Yamatos were 45000 t battleship with 410 mm guns.
When the 16" shell moving at Mach Jesus just bounces off the turret and flops on the ground, but anyone close enough to watch is seeing the Andromeda Galaxy and hearing the echoes of the Horn of Jericho.
not really, considering that it is 25 inches of armor, so a 16-inch projectile is not really going to be able to do much as long as the arkor isn't just mild steel
@@twinkyoctopus they tested one of the shinano's(the third planned yamato class battleship that was converted to a carrier before launch and sunk in port) turret plate against a 16 inch gun at point blank range and you can see the results at wilmington navy yard, granted said hit was under ideal conditions i imagine the first hit in this video would have still been a penetrating it once the bursting charge detonated
@@jakegrube9477Those were rejected plates not the actual main plates. Besides, that was 410mm belt armor plate not the turret plates. Shinano conversion was begun when she isn’t even complete the hull of the ship. So it would not making any sense for making a turret Steel plate when the hull isn’t properly ready. In many sources, it was Yamato’s armor belt plate that have very low quality in steel. Which results the Japanese Engineers rejected those plates. What American tested those armor plates on is the rejected plates that are very poor quality in steel. I know Japanese Steel aren’t as good as any Steel in any nations. But, Japanese aren’t stupid.
@@tsuaririndoku If you're referring to the well known picture what is often wrongly referred to as "Yamato" armor being penetrated by a 16in shell, that was, in fact, 26in turret face armor (the penetration was near one of the gun ports) intended for Shinano that went unused and was kept in case Yamato or Musashi ever needed one of thiers repaired/replaced. Things like turrets and guns are usually designed and built way ahead of the actual ship. In fact, most ships are built around the guns, not the other way around. I don't think any Yamato-class belt armor was ever recovered by the allies. Even if it had, it was already understood that 16 guns could penetrate 16 of belt armor outside the "immunity zone". And most Japanese steel had some degree of flaws, used or not used. Even Yamato was plagued with issues with her guns due to flaws with the materials used. No one said Japan was stupid, they used the best they could get.
@@177SCmaro Like I said. I know Armor plate of the Japanese is flawed but it doesn’t means they are stupid not to know this. They do know what is good quality of steel they can have or poor steel quality they got. What US get was the rejected plates. Shinano’s plate of 605mm plates might no longer needed but from what I heard of. It is a rejected plates. Means this steel quality is worse than quality they built on Yamato Class. Means, steel quality on Yamato despite being poor quality, it still decent enough. France has the best quality steel in WWII, it just that they make poor mass production of it. German Krupp steel also decent at the time. Japanese despite having worse quality than the US. IJN steel quality still better than USSR.
what is impressive about this is that, you could probebly feel the impact even if you wherent in the turret and merely an anti air gun on the other side of the ship
The AA gunners would not be anywhere near it. In a battleship on battleship fight, which this is obviously simulating, the crews of all non turreted guns would be withdrawn into the hull or superstructure of the Battleship SPECIFICALLY to protect them against the blast of the main battery firing. The Navies of the time were not stupid, they well understood the blast effects of battleship guns firing on exposed crew. All non turret crew withdrawing into the ships hull or superstructure was standard practice for all Navies operating Battleships.
@@alganhar1 1. Multiple weapons are dual purpose weapons 2. I indicated the other side of the ship, this is an earth shaking impact. 3. I'll provide a counter argument that having all of your aa gunners withdrawal into the hull and then you go under aircraft attack would be a tactical fallacy. You cannot determine when you will need to use specific weapons for varying importance, In a battlefield situation. *provide me a proper source for this information please.*
@@mmkr1-gl5bg well, japan is mostly surrounded by ocean anyway, and their direct neighbor china isn't that impressive military wise, and china is pretty much the only country that japanese tanks needed (and can) to go to (europe was a tad too far). since the china didn't have that much military infrastructure at the time, the shitty tincans that japan had was more than enough, at least until the shermans came around, tried to do something about it, resulting in later chi-ri (s), but too little too late in the end.
Very unlikely to penetrate. The Iowa's turret face is 431.8mm (17in) thick laminated on a 63.5mm (2.5in) backer for a total thickness of 495.3mm (19.5in) sloped at 50° to an effective thickness of 646.6mm (25.5in).
Material quality matters. The US had better armor plating. So it could have the same performance as foreign plate at thinner, and so lighter, dimensions. Perfomance wise, the Iowa's armor was almost equivalent to Yamato's, but thinner and lighter.
Something to mention: you can't simply calculate effective thickness by using trigonometric functions, neither horizonal nor vertical. The value would differ for different calibre/length shells in the penetrating progress, since shells are not a simple point of mass, thus you have to think over the T/D (actual armor thickness to shell diameter) ratio.
It's neat to see how the sloped armor is optimized to more easily shrug off shorter-ranged more accurate fire while still being capable of surviving an incredibly lucky 25km hit at a relatively flat angle.
The plate thickness was actually 660mm. Just sayin...EDIT: See "Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1868-1945: The Yamato Class and Subsequent Planning: Chapters 1-3". Other than that, great video and WELL DONE.
@@simulationbros Your initial thoughts were correct and are backed by several sources backing the 660mm plate thickness number. The main sources are coming from both US testing documents and Japanese native sources on this topic. For the US source you can find "U.S. Naval Proving Ground, Dahlgren, Virginia, Report #5-47, "Ballistic tests and Metallurgical Examination of Japanese Heavy Armor Plate" (November 1947)" to be of value. This document is easily googled online and specifically states the turret face plate as 26 inches thick, which is just over 660mm. The book which the starting comment mentioned as well goes into depth as to why the 660mm figure is correct, along side that they also got a large volume of information from author Nathan Okun, who also confirms the 660mm figure. As for Japanese sources, plenty of books can be found and nearly all of them will list 660mm. As for Japanese sources there are plenty, but I can point to one notorious example, Senkan Musashi Kenzō Kiroku, of which I own a copy of, that also explains this plate being 660mm using left over plans from the Mitsubishi yards and documents for Musashis construction.
@@orangegear8435 Dang….. Well actually the simulations are 660mm, the dialogue is just 650mm because half way through I thought I was wrong and would literally lose my mind if I had to do this all over again, sorry 🫠
@@simulationbros Its all good man. In the world of simulation with plates as thick as this, I wouldnt think a 10mm difference would make any difference had you simulated with 650mm instead of 660mm.(I myself have no experience in this field, so please forgive me if experience on your end proves me wrong.) Just watching your videos alone show me that these simulations are very tricky to do in the first place, and the effort you put in to make sure they are as accurate as possible makes people who actually read a lot on this subject very happy. Thank you for taking your time to make this simulation for us ship folk!
They actually did this test on the shinano turret face armor and it's still sitting in the Washington DC Naval Yard you can look it up on the internet the 16-inch shell punched a hole clean through it ,granted this armor wasn't supported in a turret
Well that was really damn awful test because plate was way too close and not angled like it would be if mounted on turret. They lowered powder charge, but not nearly enough to make test any way realistic.
@@Sarfangerthat test wasnt awfull it was absolute perfect simulation of a hit at 22mile combat range… The angle and the shell velocity were matching impact at 22mile range there is plenty of official data from the testfire from the official documents and also from the 16” Mark8 balistics table…
@@17tomashavlin Good for you if you believe that using rejected plate, at non-realistic angle, distance and with no backing is realistic. Also shells don't come down at perfect angle because of their spin people think that the shell always keeps the nose pointing forward, but this is not the case when you shoot shells that spin around their axis. Also velocity wasn't matching 22miles. At 22 miles velocity would around 420m/s while they used point blank reduced shot that was over 600m/s. Even if shell followed perfect angle US document BuOrd OP 770 states at 22miles angle would 47.73 degrees and not 45 degree. October 16th 1946: Impact # 33443 Projectile Used: U.S. Navy 2700-lb 16" Mark 8 Mod 6 AP with inert filler Striking Velocity 1992 feet/second (607.2 m/sec) Obliquity Near-normal (0°)
@@Sarfangerfirst of all the plate was not rejected…. It was manufactured and supposed to be used on Shinano the third Yammato class battleship which was converted to aircraft carrier thus the plate was left in the shipyard unused…. When fitted on the battleship turret the armour plate angle was 45 degree and that combined with the 47.7 degree impact angle of the shell at 22mile range gives 92 degree angle so pretty much flat on like it was during the test fire…. That same document you mention BuOrd OP 770 states for the Mk 8 shell used in the test fire a velocity of 490m/s at 36 580m(22.7miles) so your numbers are quite of as the shell actualy acclerates during its final part of flight at wuch long distance due to the gravity pulling it back down…. First test shot was too hot at 607m/s but the second shot at 502m/s was within 10m/s from what the balistic table for this type of shell lists for the 22mile range… And if you think 2,5degree of angle and 10m/s is a difference that makes the test totaly unrealistic at such scale and froces involved in test firing 16” guns you must be crazy…. Its pretty much as realistic as you can get without actualy firing at the 22mile range where it would be impossible to hit the plate….. Shell fired at such distance can easily vary its speed by more than 10m/s or a 1-2degree simply due to weather conditions…. The test was well calculated and was representative of rear world firing scenario at that distance…..
What I'm most surprised about is how little velocity the round lost even at such a long range and high arch making the distance travelled even greater.
My Father Kenneth McLaughlin served on CVE -73 USS Gambier Bay which was fired upon and hit by Yamato during the battle of Samar, October 25, 1944 the Gambier Bay is the only American aircraft carrier to be sunk by naval shellfire alone. Let’s keep in mind that the Yamato and her sister ship Musashi both were turned into underwater reefs by the US Navy before the wars end.Also direct fire tests were conducted on Turret Face armor from the 3 Yamato Class ship and it was peneterated fully.
I would like to see how a modern apfsds round would perform against this type of armor, maybe at normal tank engaging distances, so it would have a chance at doing anything.
Problem is that APFSDS core has to be longer then steel plate that is penetrating. Only APFSDS in production that is longer then 650mm is Russian Vacuum-1 for T-14 tank ,but I have only seen single shell manufactured.
Saw a video on the damage Musahi suffered when she was sunk. There were issues with the armour belts due to their excessive thickness. The Japanese did not possess the welding technology to join the thick plates together for those armour belts so they developed a special riveting method. Some of the photos of the underwater wreckage show that those rivet joints failed and the armour came apart at the seams. This caused leaks and excessive flooding at those joints which were impossible to repair in the battle. 19 torpedo hits were recorded and about the same number of direct bomb hits and near misses. 1 Ton armour piercing 16” shells have a lot more punch than anything dropped from a plane so the amount of damage on these riveted joints would have been massive as well. Just goes to show the battleship as an offensive weapon was highly over rated in WW2 when it came to sinking ships. None of the Yamato class ever lived up to their hype as a weapons platform.
It would be amazingo to make simulations testing the actual ship armor, how it is on the belt , plunging fire etc. with different ships like Bismarck, Iowas, KGV etc
The real issue is the USN had Radar directed first round probable hit at distance in any weather. Whereas the IJN was confined to Optical sighting. The Mk 1 and 2 Ford analog computer survived. Until the digital age due to this accuracy in any weather.
The Germans had a 31cm smoothbore "Anzio Annie" railroad gun fireing a 12cm 120kg farrow at 1600meters per second. An armor piecering arrow from this gun, installed on a cruiser, would simulate a modern 120mm tank gun on a grand scale. I wonder how a 12cm apdsfs arrow would have performed on a battleship. Would it go clean through? What is sure is that anything in a penetrated compartment would be vaporized.
I know that American shells and ballistics were optimized for deck hits (horizontal armor) at long ranges, but I was surprised at how much of a divot/bulging at 25k meters. I just have always considered the Yamato turret faces to be impervious to essentially ALL ww2 weapons. Now I need to check how thick the turret roof was. Quite possibly still immune, but maybe ?? Regardless, I don’t think it would be pleasant in any battleship turret getting tapped by any battleship AP shell even if they fall far short of full penetration. My ears are ringing just thinking about it!
Thou not penetrated, considering that this shell hit, you can quite fairly assume that a second hit was somwhere close. Even if not, the sheer energy of the hit, along with HE mixture detonation, would make this turret most likely temporary out of action. Everyone in at least the top level of the turret is at this point unconcious, has a concussion and throws up, and most likely all of them are deaf.
Well done simulation, but i have a question what if you make yamato shell hit iowa turret with same simulation that used here can you make it please ?!
Now calculate for a bursting charge, and use turret roof and deck armor thickness. Then apply the 45.7° impact of a 2,700 lb shelf at 20 nautical miles. (3 miles beyond the effective range of Yamato's main guns), and you will see what USS Washington would do.
Yamato: see, I didn’t need that extra 10mm after all 💪 Very impressive stuff, thanks. Reverse Uno card for future video where we see how an Iowa would of fared on the return fire?
Turrets getting jammed by an impact is not unknown. The Massachusetts jammed Jean Bart's turret at Casablance. Even if the turret ring is ok, possibly the shock could damage the drive mechanism. I also wonder about spalling from the back face of the armor.
So is the armor homogeneous or face hardened? If memory serves, the IJN armor was about WW1 standard as they wanted more elasticity in it. Also the shell didn't normalize on impact. Just 2 things we need to know about the sim.
Considering the range the chances of a hit on the turret face are minimal. How would the 16inch heavy shell fair against deck armor and the ships main belt. That is where most hits would be.
I dont know the filler of this 406mm, but usually US didnt have that much filler on their shells, i would assume between 8 to 15kg in this shell, i dont think it is enough to break that much of armor that lasted
The 16" .50 cal. shell had a ~40~ lb. bursting charge of dunnite (a.k.a. Explosive D). The 18" .45 cal. shell had a ~74~ lb. bursting charge of Trinitroanasol (TNA).
It’s absolutely crazy that a 16” shell could just snap in half like that. Also, please correct me if I am wrong, but in testing didn’t a 16” shell manage to penetrate the turret front of the Yamato during post war ballistic testing, alibis the plate was of poor quality?
@@williamgandarillas2185 poor quality to the point where it was rejected, also that was at a flat angle, I did simulate this at a flat angle and up to 15km it would penetrate. I sadly accidentally deleted the footage and only had these 45 degree armor shots like on the turret.
That test used the same 16"/50 Mark 7 guns against a spare front plate meant originally for Shinano's turrets with no angle on the plate at point blank. An impossible shot since at point blank you wouldn't be able to get that kind of angle on the turret unless Yamato was listing 45 degrees to nullify said angle.
@@simulationbros The plate was not rejected due to poor quality. It was set aside due to the decision to convert Shinano to an aircraft carrier and because the plate could be used in no other capacity in the Imperial Navy. Just sayin...
I may be wrong but from my understanding both HE and AP shells contained a small (for the AP round, bigger for the HE one) charge that was detonated moments after impact via a kinetic fuse. If that is the case then shouldn't this feature also be simulated. The impact alone does significant damage for sure, but coupled with an explosion i'm sure the damage model will change significantly.
The Japanese struggled to properly harden her thicker plates, it pushed the limits of their armor industry. I suspect her armor was loaded with defeats and unequal hardening.
I’m curious as to why the tip of the shell was hollow. I would imagine it would have a much easier time penetrating armor if it had a solid steel pointed tip.
It is ballistic cap of Armor piercing shell. It is there only to make it more aerodynamic and so lose less speed when traveling. It is hollow so it doesn't interfere with penetration. Steel cap that helps with penetration is behind it. Also you don't want pointed head in these shells because it would just shatter when hitting plate and make shell lose ton of penetration power.
In addition to the projectile hitting there is the explosive force that makes it pierce more when the powder ignites. The iowas were superior with their radar controlled guns. Having 2 inches more per gun does not make up for that and also some more armor. It's obvious that the torpedos when they exploded on the belt pierced the lower hull too.
But they actually tested Shinano's turret face plates after the war and the Mark 8 went clean through at point blank range. But don't know the angle of impact either.
@@manilajohn0182 first shot didn't pen. After subsequent tests the plate eventually caved and got penetrated but had fractures after 3 hits due to the prioritizing hardness and thus caused increased brittleness.
Japanese steel apparently varied heavily in quality, ranging from very poor to very durable. I think the plates used on the actually Yamato class were well tested and of a higher quality batch
@@williamgandarillas2185 If I remember correctly, I could be off mark, the thick belt and turret plates featured on Japanese warships were of rather low quality but the thinner secondary and deck plates were considered to be very high quality. So the first layer of armor would offer less resistance than expected but by comparison secondary layers would be rather resilient for their thickness
This simulation differs in the results from the actual point blank test performed by the US Navy. In that test there was a significant hole in the turret armor.
Interesting sim. So, the turrets would not be knocked out. But what about the super structure, range finders, internal comm, battle bridge, mechanical controls, if hit? I read some article that US Navy tests were done after the war and determined that the likelihood of running out of ammo was greater than either ship actually inflicting serious damage. Simply due to the distances involved, thus affecting accuracy even though the Iowa Class had better range finding. Apparently, these behemoths could turn pretty fast to avoid predicted shot fall. Each ship would know the others' re-loading time, and the time of flight at maximum range. The assumption was that Iowa would dart in just under max range, loose a volley, then dart away. Us Navy method was volley fire, while the Japanese fired in quick series, believing that it would cover any predicted travel of the target ship. A good theory that was very effective in the early battles with American forces. Anyone care to comment on this?
The faceplates were impenetrable, but the rest of the ship had an immunity zone (see below)- a range in which shell hits on the deck, belt, or a specific area of armor could be defeated. This varied according to range, target angle, and the pitching or rolling of both vessels. The speed of incoming shells and the resulting short flight time precluded maneuvering to avoid being hit. That was only done to avoid torpedo attack. The likely hood of shell hits at long range (20- 25,000 yards) was around 3- 6% even with fire control radar. Reloading times were not known during the war but were estimated. At the onset of the war, capital ships could maneuver or fire "accurately". They could not do both. This involved proceeding on a specified course while target vessel range, course, and speed were calculated and the information fed into a mechanical fire control computer. The main battery was elevated and trained to bear on target and a salvo (of as many guns as could be made ready) was fired. No specific areas of an enemy vessel were targeted. The intent was to get as many shells downrange as rapidly and as accurately as possible to increase the likely hood of hits. Simply outranging the enemy was not done because of the low probability of hits at long range. The idea was to estimate the enemy vessel's immunity zone and then engage it outside of its immunity zone, but while the firing vessel was inside its own. Whichever vessel first straddled the opposing vessel gained an advantage, as that gunnery team only had to recalculate enemy course and speed- while an avoiding vessel's gunnery team also had to recalculate one's own course and speed as well. The advent of fire control radar with remote power control offered the potential to change the "maneuver or fire accurately" mode to "maneuver and fire accurately". Remote power control was the ability of a ship's radar to directly control the main battery in either range, bearing, or both and maintain it on target in all visibility conditions. The Germans had RPC in range only, the British and French lacked RPC in both until late in the war, and the Italians and Japanese never had either. Gunnery in the Yamatos off Samar was based on averaging the range to target of the ship's foretop and after optical rangefinders and the Type 22 Mod 4 radar. The U.S. Navy had RPC for both range and elevation from the Mark 1 gunnery radar onward. However, the navy didn't realize the potential of RPC to enable them to maneuver and fire simultaneously, so that no tactics were developed to make use of this advantage during WW2. The first tests were undertaken in 1946. Range accuracy of the Mark 8 was about 45 yards at 25,000 yards. The foretop optics aboard Yamato had a range accuracy of 89 yards, while Yamato's Type 22 Mod 4 radar was 109 yards. Lastly, shell dispersion was the tendency of shells to distort one another's flight paths en route to target. This was effected by factors such as the rigidity of the firing vessel, the proximity of the guns to one another in the turret, the time at which the gun was fired, the time at which the shell left the barrel, and the effect that a shockwave produced by a shell traveling at supersonic speed had on a neighboring shell. This varied from class to class and could not be impacted by fire control radar or by optics. Only the IJN made a serious attempt to reduce shell dispersion, which paid off when they introduced the Type 98 Discharge Delay Unit in the Type 98 Fire Control System of the Yamato class. Source material is from the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordinance. Immunity zone of the Iowas vs. the 18.1" gun: Citadel 24,800- 29,800 (5,000 yards); Turret Faceplates 24,700- 31,600 (6,900 Yards); Barbettes 26,500- 31,600 (5,100 Yards); Steering 24,700- 28,800 (4,100 Yards); Control Tower 26,500- 31,600 (5,100 Yards). Immunity Zone of the Yamatos vs. the 16" .50 cal. gun: Citadel 17,000- 34,500 (17,500 Yards); Turret Faceplates (Impenetrable); Barbettes 16,600- 36,800 (20,200 Yards); Steering 19,100- 33,400 (14,300 Yards); Control Tower 16,600- 33,400 (16,800 Yards).
@@manilajohn0182 Fascinating. Thank you. I would have said riveting, but that would be too obvious a pun. The 6% likelihood of hits was something remember from reading.
Japanese steal was inferior to US steal at the time. I know there are videos that show how well US 16 inch guns would preform against the Yamato's turret armor because there were actually live fire tests that showed the results. The result was that while the 16 inch shells would not penetrate the turret armor of a Yamato class ship it would do so much damage to the armor as to render the turret inoperable because it actually broke the armor. This is against the best armor the Yamato class had. A outcome of a duel between a Yamato class and Iowa class battle ship would depend on a lot of variable and would be uncertain. The Yamato's had 18 in guns and thicker armor, and in battle took an enormous amount of damage before being destroyed. The Iowa's were faster, well armored, had better fire control systems, very good damage control crews, and radar which would give the Iowa's a great advantage in night engagements.
Only APFSDS that could pen front plate of Yamato turret would be if Russians sources are correct Vacuum-1 APFSDS from T-14 tank. It is only APFSDS that has longer length then thickness of the turret front. DM63 and M829A3 both fall short 20-30mm to have chance of penetrating.
Both armour designs were defective as while penetrating their respective side armour protection was unlikely under the typical combat ranges, both arrangements directed the shell fragments into the Torpedo protection system that would also lead to fragmentation penetrating the outer skin of that system thus degrading the system, causing flooding that leads to the degradation of the Reserve Buoyancy equation which would lead in battle situation similar to the Bismarck's and Scrnhorst's last battles that brings into question the survivability of the respective designs been inferior to the German designs.
The chance of actually hitting the turret front is very low. Similarly, the hit could occur at the turret roof, where the armor is much thinner, or much more likely just anywhere else on the ship.
A clear design flaw. They didn't do a rounded turret where the angle of impact doesn't matter because the thickness would be equal in every direction. In this case, a flat plate demonstrates it's weakness, because it can have only 660mm or a little bit more depending of the angle.
No HEAT warhead was ever build for battleships. Also powers that HEAT shell would have to endure during firing would probably make the shell collapse unless it was made with thicker walls.
The Iowa is not only aiming for the turrets. Hits will happen all over the Yamato. I don't know if the Iowa would prevail but it would be interesting to watch the encounter.
Like the video but the reality of such an engagement would have been plunging fire of main armaments on the deck armor. The RN couldn’t sink Bismarck even point blank and the she only sunk due to being scuttled.
Why do you not have the bursting charge going off? Except we know that Iowa would penetrate the Yamato at point blank range because the USN tested this and it did.
According to the numbers, bumble bees cannot fly. According to your numbers, a 16 inch solid slug could not penetrate Yamamato's turret. You didnt seem to include the explosive charge into your calculations.
On paper the Yamato has thicker armor and heavier primary weapons. In practice, the Iowa class is faster, more maneuverable, and at this stage in the war has far superior gunnery. She is going to hit her target with a higher rate of more accurate fire.
Closest the shell came to penetrating was at 25 km since it was coming in at a relatively good angle. True the closer you are the more energy the shell would have but you also have more armor to go through since its coming in at a steeper angle
There was a whole thing with shell design back in the 20s and 30s where the drawing board consisted of how to have shells not strike the main armor belt. Its quite an interesting read about USN research vs IJN research where IJN tried a creative method of a shell diving into the water and using the hydrodynamic properties of the shell shape to direct it below the main belt like a torpedo. Called diving/torpedo shells, their design was that they could carry sufficient penetration force roughly 20 times the shell caliber making near misses also quite deadly. In actuality though, the shells failed to meet this standard and traveled less distance underwater plus carried less energy to reach penetration at the closer hits in addition to having poorer direct hit performance of similar caliber shells designed for direct penetration.
In a hypothetical ship v ship engagement, Iowas were so superior to Yamatos it's ridiculous. Speed and radar range finding vs spotter planes and colored smoke from the Yamatos. All Iowas would have to do is wait to engage Yamatos on terms favorable (night and foggy/rain etc) and Yamatos can't respond because they can't use their spotter planes. Greater speed of Iowas also mean they dictate the terms of the engagement. Damage from superstructure hits, hits outside of the citadel etc all add up quickly. Bismarck succumbed similarly - got to a point where they couldn't respond effectively and got hammered into submission. What would be really interesting is if the speeds were similar and the Yamatos had radar range finding as good as the Iowas. See the tech advantage is profound in the Iowas. Level that then you'd have to put your money on the Yamatos wouldn't you? If the Yamatos were still stuck at 27kts and had Iowa's radar range finding still you'd have to put your money on the Yamatos.
US armor piercing shells were designed to plunge through decks and bunkers using fire control radar. The Yamato was made to duke it our at relatively close range. If Yamato managed to close with the Iowa class battleships it would win easily.
Not so fast there... While the Yamato's turret faces were immune, the rest of her was not. The 16"/50's caried by Iowa were more than capable of penetrating Yamato's hull in the close range fight you suggest. At that point, it becomes an issue of who can land hits faster. Another thing you should consider is the conditions of the engagement. Are we in day? Night? Squals? Fog? Any of these would be incredibly detrimental to Yamato's gunnery, since her radar assist only accounted for about half the equation, and she still needed visual contact to resolve the other parts of the solution. The Iowas on the other hand were fully capable of shooting when completely blind visually, as proven by USS Washington (a North Carolina class) during the Guadalcanal campaign. Washington scored 40 main battery hits on Kirishima at a range under 10,000 yd. In those kinds of conditions (especially at that point in the war when Yamato didn't yet have her radar), Yamato gets carved up like a cake.
@@mechakid Iowa would have to get too close and be Swiss cheese before then. Iowa's strategy would be to maintain a long-range and use superior accuracy.
Very well done, I dont think Ive seen anyone actually account for range and angle of the shell alongside the plate angle. I love to see it. Also someone else pointed out the 660mm plate thickness but its just 10mm at the end of the day still very well done!
0:41, just some quick calculations, that backface deformation causes the a pressure wave of 1 ATM to propagate through the cabin, and a 197 Db soundwave. In short everyone probably lived but is now mildly concussed, and vomiting violently out of sheer pain and vertigo caused by blown out ears.
yea, that turret would be out of commision for a good bit till either the crew was replaced or managed to pull themselves together
SRY, COULD U ELABORATE JUST A BIT, WHAT CALCULATIONS DID YOU DO, JUST OUT OF CURIOSITY
I am also curious as to how you calculated that
Oops, had the caps on, my bad
You know you can edit a post@@afonsoalves9704
"Counterpoint: torpedo bombers"
--Nimitz, probably
The main counterpoint is not knowing how to use effectively their ships. The Japanese could have won if they knew what they were doing, but no, they had no idea.
@@elgranfreezer9117no shit Sherlock, the japanese could have won if they had been better, had more resources, a better industry, more men and aircraft and hadn't attacked the USA
@@grass_enjoyer2305no what he mean that if the japanesse had a better stratégie they would won. At the begin of the war, japanasse had clearly à advantage in number of ship and power. They just lost every thing little by little due to their stratégie and couldn't rebuild their ship in time.
@amaurycap8034 what exactly was their strategy? Do you mean the fact that they started to build big ahhh battleships instead of aircraft carriers or what?
@@amaurycap8034What strategy? They were gonna rebuild their navy regardless
Yeahhh Japan war thunder hangar music
Man, been a while since I heard it. I modded my sounds, so kinda nostalgic
I actually recall speaking to Nathan Okun on those matter before his passing. Many believe the Yamato's lower quality of her belt armor would've made her susceptible to the Iowa's main guns, but he said at combat ranges, (~20km) neither of these ships are gonna be able to reliably penetrate one another. Iowa can't get through the belt of Yamato and Yamato's shell flaws mean that she can't get through the belt of Iowa due to the angle of impact. In reality, it'll come down to who gets lucky first
And with Iowas better FCS and and radar she would more reliably get rounds on target. Meaning she'll probably get lucky first.
@huntermurphy2148 she has the advantage there, yes. Yamato's biggest advantage is she will do more damage when she hits
@@seangunn4772 It's really her only advantage, unless her armor proves tougher than theorized. I've no doubts that her turret faces would shrug off just about anything, but I think her hull would take some bad hits if the 16" SH shells find a decent angle to hit at and dig in.
With the Iowas' aforementioned much better FCS systems, radar guided guns, better speed and comparable firepower... In anything other than a sunny clear day with calm seas, Yamato is going to have difficulties keeping a good solution on the Iowa, who in turn won't have nearly as bad a time. Plus, the Iowa class's superior speed means that they can control the engagement so long as damage doesnt negate this (though thats a given for anything- It doesnt work if it gets shot).
Ultimately, the Iowa class would have an easier time hitting Yamato. Short of Yamato getting lucky early on in an engagement or the Iowa's Captain making some bad decisions, the Iowa has a lot of advantages that I don't think the Yamato could overcome all else being fair.
Where was the steel for Yamato sourced from? China? Japan has historically had problems with metallurgy hence why Katanas and other items were made the way they were. I've always wondered if the Yamato's metal quality was actually as good as Western ships.
@hellcatdave1 for the most part, due to possibly the best (and most unhinged) quality control, most Japanese armor is roughly around western nation's in quality. For Yamato's belt, they correctly calculated they could compromise quality for the sake of cost and time to manufacture. The angle and thickness of the plate still mostly prevents penetrations from basically anything unless it's very close
The IOWA’s 16” Mark 7 lightweight 50 cal rifle firing the 2700 lb super heavy shell was nearly the ballistic equivalent of the YAMATO’s 18” gun and AP projectile combination. An amazing achievement by USN Bureau of Ordnance and the Naval Gun Factory.
With superior speed, range, and fire control, IOWA could shape the battle sea at will and engage the YAMATO on IOWA’s terms.
Exactly
Accuracy wasn't really refined until her modernization in the 80's. The USN tried making her even more accurate, but you can only do so much with the dispersion of a 406mm gun.
A top speed of a ship and her cruising speed has a considerable gap, and it takes quite a while to even reach that speed, and when you're making maneuvering around, it'll bleed that speed unless Iowa is sailing in a straight line, but at that point, where will she have the room to dictate the rules of engagement?
Also, even if the 16" SHS and Yamato's Type 1 AP shells have similar ballistics, there is still a huge gap between the raw kinetic energy from one of these shells, ~356'644'450 Joules vs ~444'132'000 Joules.
Even if we say the armaments of these ships are equal, Iowa will lack on the armor department. Her longer hull limited due to panamax, and speed just doesn't have the same level of protection as the Yamato. I mean just look at the difference between their displacements and of how much percentage the armoring alone took up.
Where Iowa does have advantage is her detection systems. On calm seas in the daylight, both ships are almost on equal terms. Yamato too did have solutions computers onboard and the best OPTICAL rangefinders at the time. On rough seas, Iowa will easily detect Yamato and fire more accurately as she'll detect her first and have the first strike on her. Iowa shines here due to her radar, not her rangefinders. Separate systems.
It'll be a bit closer of a fight in nighttime and stormy seas, otherwise, I don't think Iowa will hold up well in a long engagement.
Still ,her immunity zone was much smaller .
@ the Iowa was much faster than the Yamato, had far greater range and much better fire control. She could shape the battle space at will and engage on her terms.
People don’t realize what a technological leap the Iowas were over the Yamatos in every respect.
@iowa61 The mk8 shell fired from the 16 inch/50 gun could penetrate the deck at very long range,but that is a matter of chance. Between 20 and 30 km the yamato would have had an immunity zone against it,and at a distance of less than 30 km the 18.1 inch could penetrate the belt of an Iowa class.
People don't realize that the US thought that the Yamatos were 45000 t battleship with 410 mm guns.
When the 16" shell moving at Mach Jesus just bounces off the turret and flops on the ground, but anyone close enough to watch is seeing the Andromeda Galaxy and hearing the echoes of the Horn of Jericho.
Surprised at how well it stood up
not really, considering that it is 25 inches of armor, so a 16-inch projectile is not really going to be able to do much as long as the arkor isn't just mild steel
@@twinkyoctopus they tested one of the shinano's(the third planned yamato class battleship that was converted to a carrier before launch and sunk in port) turret plate against a 16 inch gun at point blank range and you can see the results at wilmington navy yard, granted said hit was under ideal conditions i imagine the first hit in this video would have still been a penetrating it once the bursting charge detonated
@@jakegrube9477Those were rejected plates not the actual main plates. Besides, that was 410mm belt armor plate not the turret plates. Shinano conversion was begun when she isn’t even complete the hull of the ship. So it would not making any sense for making a turret Steel plate when the hull isn’t properly ready. In many sources, it was Yamato’s armor belt plate that have very low quality in steel. Which results the Japanese Engineers rejected those plates. What American tested those armor plates on is the rejected plates that are very poor quality in steel. I know Japanese Steel aren’t as good as any Steel in any nations. But, Japanese aren’t stupid.
@@tsuaririndoku
If you're referring to the well known picture what is often wrongly referred to as "Yamato" armor being penetrated by a 16in shell, that was, in fact, 26in turret face armor (the penetration was near one of the gun ports) intended for Shinano that went unused and was kept in case Yamato or Musashi ever needed one of thiers repaired/replaced.
Things like turrets and guns are usually designed and built way ahead of the actual ship. In fact, most ships are built around the guns, not the other way around.
I don't think any Yamato-class belt armor was ever recovered by the allies. Even if it had, it was already understood that 16 guns could penetrate 16 of belt armor outside the "immunity zone".
And most Japanese steel had some degree of flaws, used or not used. Even Yamato was plagued with issues with her guns due to flaws with the materials used. No one said Japan was stupid, they used the best they could get.
@@177SCmaro Like I said. I know Armor plate of the Japanese is flawed but it doesn’t means they are stupid not to know this. They do know what is good quality of steel they can have or poor steel quality they got. What US get was the rejected plates. Shinano’s plate of 605mm plates might no longer needed but from what I heard of. It is a rejected plates. Means this steel quality is worse than quality they built on Yamato Class. Means, steel quality on Yamato despite being poor quality, it still decent enough. France has the best quality steel in WWII, it just that they make poor mass production of it. German Krupp steel also decent at the time. Japanese despite having worse quality than the US. IJN steel quality still better than USSR.
what is impressive about this is that, you could probebly feel the impact even if you wherent in the turret and merely an anti air gun on the other side of the ship
Everyone would feel that
You just had a used Honda Civic slam into the turret at 2500ft/s. Everyone is going to feel that. XD
The AA gunners would not be anywhere near it.
In a battleship on battleship fight, which this is obviously simulating, the crews of all non turreted guns would be withdrawn into the hull or superstructure of the Battleship SPECIFICALLY to protect them against the blast of the main battery firing.
The Navies of the time were not stupid, they well understood the blast effects of battleship guns firing on exposed crew. All non turret crew withdrawing into the ships hull or superstructure was standard practice for all Navies operating Battleships.
@@alganhar1
1. Multiple weapons are dual purpose weapons
2. I indicated the other side of the ship, this is an earth shaking impact.
3. I'll provide a counter argument that having all of your aa gunners withdrawal into the hull and then you go under aircraft attack would be a tactical fallacy. You cannot determine when you will need to use specific weapons for varying importance, In a battlefield situation.
*provide me a proper source for this information please.*
Spalling may kill the gun crews anyway.
Jesus that's a lot of steel
All that work, just to have some asshole sink it
The production of this vessel cost japan a years worth of income, for the whole country
@@TTalksVA Should have better built tanks. 😅
@@mmkr1-gl5bg well, japan is mostly surrounded by ocean anyway, and their direct neighbor china isn't that impressive military wise, and china is pretty much the only country that japanese tanks needed (and can) to go to (europe was a tad too far).
since the china didn't have that much military infrastructure at the time, the shitty tincans that japan had was more than enough, at least until the shermans came around, tried to do something about it, resulting in later chi-ri (s), but too little too late in the end.
Having been on the USS Alabama a number of times, the thickness of the turret steel is insane, let alone other "protected" parts.
yamato vs iowa turret face next?
reduced to atoms
@@sterlingarcher813 I know but I wanna see, iowa has 17 in thick turret faces so it would probably go right threw
Ever seen swiss cheese? Something like that except the cheese is 40+ thousand tons of steel
Very unlikely to penetrate. The Iowa's turret face is 431.8mm (17in) thick laminated on a 63.5mm (2.5in) backer for a total thickness of 495.3mm (19.5in) sloped at 50° to an effective thickness of 646.6mm (25.5in).
Material quality matters. The US had better armor plating. So it could have the same performance as foreign plate at thinner, and so lighter, dimensions. Perfomance wise, the Iowa's armor was almost equivalent to Yamato's, but thinner and lighter.
A clear demonstration of the effectiveness of sloped armor.
Something to mention: you can't simply calculate effective thickness by using trigonometric functions, neither horizonal nor vertical. The value would differ for different calibre/length shells in the penetrating progress, since shells are not a simple point of mass, thus you have to think over the T/D (actual armor thickness to shell diameter) ratio.
Amazing simulation,I have to ask if it is FHA though.
It's neat to see how the sloped armor is optimized to more easily shrug off shorter-ranged more accurate fire while still being capable of surviving an incredibly lucky 25km hit at a relatively flat angle.
The plate thickness was actually 660mm. Just sayin...EDIT: See "Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1868-1945: The Yamato Class and Subsequent Planning: Chapters 1-3". Other than that, great video and WELL DONE.
Thats what I thought then found out that it said **ALMOST** and that it is actually 650mm.
Came here just to say that lmao
@@simulationbros Your initial thoughts were correct and are backed by several sources backing the 660mm plate thickness number. The main sources are coming from both US testing documents and Japanese native sources on this topic. For the US source you can find "U.S. Naval Proving Ground, Dahlgren, Virginia, Report #5-47, "Ballistic tests and Metallurgical Examination of Japanese Heavy Armor Plate" (November 1947)" to be of value. This document is easily googled online and specifically states the turret face plate as 26 inches thick, which is just over 660mm. The book which the starting comment mentioned as well goes into depth as to why the 660mm figure is correct, along side that they also got a large volume of information from author Nathan Okun, who also confirms the 660mm figure. As for Japanese sources, plenty of books can be found and nearly all of them will list 660mm. As for Japanese sources there are plenty, but I can point to one notorious example, Senkan Musashi Kenzō Kiroku, of which I own a copy of, that also explains this plate being 660mm using left over plans from the Mitsubishi yards and documents for Musashis construction.
@@orangegear8435 Dang….. Well actually the simulations are 660mm, the dialogue is just 650mm because half way through I thought I was wrong and would literally lose my mind if I had to do this all over again, sorry 🫠
@@simulationbros Its all good man. In the world of simulation with plates as thick as this, I wouldnt think a 10mm difference would make any difference had you simulated with 650mm instead of 660mm.(I myself have no experience in this field, so please forgive me if experience on your end proves me wrong.) Just watching your videos alone show me that these simulations are very tricky to do in the first place, and the effort you put in to make sure they are as accurate as possible makes people who actually read a lot on this subject very happy. Thank you for taking your time to make this simulation for us ship folk!
Glorious, please do Iowa turret V Yamato shell. I remember you did Iowa belt V Yamato shell and that was great too.
That's great and all, next simulate Yamato's torpedo belt armor receiving seven torpedo hits.
They actually did this test on the shinano turret face armor and it's still sitting in the Washington DC Naval Yard you can look it up on the internet the 16-inch shell punched a hole clean through it ,granted this armor wasn't supported in a turret
Well that was really damn awful test because plate was way too close and not angled like it would be if mounted on turret. They lowered powder charge, but not nearly enough to make test any way realistic.
@@Sarfangerthat test wasnt awfull it was absolute perfect simulation of a hit at 22mile combat range…
The angle and the shell velocity were matching impact at 22mile range there is plenty of official data from the testfire from the official documents and also from the 16” Mark8 balistics table…
@@17tomashavlin Good for you if you believe that using rejected plate, at non-realistic angle, distance and with no backing is realistic. Also shells don't come down at perfect angle because of their spin people think that the shell always keeps the nose pointing forward, but this is not the case when you shoot shells that spin around their axis.
Also velocity wasn't matching 22miles. At 22 miles velocity would around 420m/s while they used point blank reduced shot that was over 600m/s. Even if shell followed perfect angle US document BuOrd OP 770 states at 22miles angle would 47.73 degrees and not 45 degree.
October 16th 1946:
Impact # 33443
Projectile Used: U.S. Navy 2700-lb 16" Mark 8 Mod 6 AP with inert filler
Striking Velocity 1992 feet/second (607.2 m/sec)
Obliquity Near-normal (0°)
@@Sarfangerfirst of all the plate was not rejected…. It was manufactured and supposed to be used on Shinano the third Yammato class battleship which was converted to aircraft carrier thus the plate was left in the shipyard unused….
When fitted on the battleship turret the armour plate angle was 45 degree and that combined with the 47.7 degree impact angle of the shell at 22mile range gives 92 degree angle so pretty much flat on like it was during the test fire….
That same document you mention BuOrd OP 770 states for the Mk 8 shell used in the test fire a velocity of 490m/s at 36 580m(22.7miles) so your numbers are quite of as the shell actualy acclerates during its final part of flight at wuch long distance due to the gravity pulling it back down….
First test shot was too hot at 607m/s but the second shot at 502m/s was within 10m/s from what the balistic table for this type of shell lists for the 22mile range…
And if you think 2,5degree of angle and 10m/s is a difference that makes the test totaly unrealistic at such scale and froces involved in test firing 16” guns you must be crazy….
Its pretty much as realistic as you can get without actualy firing at the 22mile range where it would be impossible to hit the plate…..
Shell fired at such distance can easily vary its speed by more than 10m/s or a 1-2degree simply due to weather conditions….
The test was well calculated and was representative of rear world firing scenario at that distance…..
@@Sarfanger not to forget the plate was put under multiple tests and the strain on the metal had already caused fractures prior to penetration.
What I'm most surprised about is how little velocity the round lost even at such a long range and high arch making the distance travelled even greater.
I think thats what you could reliably call a "significant emotional event" for the crew.
I wonder if anyone in the turret would survive such an impact and the power of the explosion.
My Father Kenneth McLaughlin served on CVE -73 USS Gambier Bay which was fired upon and hit by Yamato during the battle of Samar, October 25, 1944 the Gambier Bay is the only American aircraft carrier to be sunk by naval shellfire alone. Let’s keep in mind that the Yamato and her sister ship Musashi both were turned into underwater reefs by the US Navy before the wars end.Also direct fire tests were conducted on Turret Face armor from the 3 Yamato Class ship and it was peneterated fully.
@@markmclaughlin2690 yeah wow that’s amazing. Assume you’ve read The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors? If not check it out! It’s all about Taffy 3.
I would like to see how a modern apfsds round would perform against this type of armor, maybe at normal tank engaging distances, so it would have a chance at doing anything.
Problem is that APFSDS core has to be longer then steel plate that is penetrating. Only APFSDS in production that is longer then 650mm is Russian Vacuum-1 for T-14 tank ,but I have only seen single shell manufactured.
Saw a video on the damage Musahi suffered when she was sunk. There were issues with the armour belts due to their excessive thickness. The Japanese did not possess the welding technology to join the thick plates together for those armour belts so they developed a special riveting method. Some of the photos of the underwater wreckage show that those rivet joints failed and the armour came apart at the seams. This caused leaks and excessive flooding at those joints which were impossible to repair in the battle. 19 torpedo hits were recorded and about the same number of direct bomb hits and near misses. 1 Ton armour piercing 16” shells have a lot more punch than anything dropped from a plane so the amount of damage on these riveted joints would have been massive as well. Just goes to show the battleship as an offensive weapon was highly over rated in WW2 when it came to sinking ships. None of the Yamato class ever lived up to their hype as a weapons platform.
It would be interesting to see the reverse what the 18.1 inch rounds could do to the Iowas
It would be amazingo to make simulations testing the actual ship armor, how it is on the belt , plunging fire etc. with different ships like Bismarck, Iowas, KGV etc
Could the charge going off not be modeled or would it just not make any difference?
The real issue is the USN had Radar directed first round probable hit at distance in any weather. Whereas the IJN was confined to Optical sighting. The Mk 1 and 2 Ford analog computer survived. Until the digital age due to this accuracy in any weather.
The Germans had a 31cm smoothbore "Anzio Annie" railroad gun fireing a 12cm 120kg farrow at 1600meters per second. An armor piecering arrow from this gun, installed on a cruiser, would simulate a modern 120mm tank gun on a grand scale. I wonder how a 12cm apdsfs arrow would have performed on a battleship. Would it go clean through? What is sure is that anything in a penetrated compartment would be vaporized.
I know that American shells and ballistics were optimized for deck hits (horizontal armor) at long ranges, but I was surprised at how much of a divot/bulging at 25k meters. I just have always considered the Yamato turret faces to be impervious to essentially ALL ww2 weapons.
Now I need to check how thick the turret roof was. Quite possibly still immune, but maybe ??
Regardless, I don’t think it would be pleasant in any battleship turret getting tapped by any battleship AP shell even if they fall far short of full penetration. My ears are ringing just thinking about it!
Thou not penetrated, considering that this shell hit, you can quite fairly assume that a second hit was somwhere close. Even if not, the sheer energy of the hit, along with HE mixture detonation, would make this turret most likely temporary out of action. Everyone in at least the top level of the turret is at this point unconcious, has a concussion and throws up, and most likely all of them are deaf.
Well done simulation, but i have a question what if you make yamato shell hit iowa turret with same simulation that used here can you make it please ?!
Volumetric pixels are fucking awesome.
Can you do something similar with Bismarck ?
16in Super heavy shell is certainly very powerful and can do a LOT of things, but penetrating almost 40inch of effective armor is not one of them.
Now calculate for a bursting charge, and use turret roof and deck armor thickness. Then apply the 45.7° impact of a 2,700 lb shelf at 20 nautical miles. (3 miles beyond the effective range of Yamato's main guns), and you will see what USS Washington would do.
Yamato: see, I didn’t need that extra 10mm after all 💪
Very impressive stuff, thanks. Reverse Uno card for future video where we see how an Iowa would of fared on the return fire?
Seriously impressive, but you have to wonder if the turret ring would survive such an impact.
He did another test with the whole barbette against 800mm shell and it held up pretty well. This wouldn't have much of an effect
Turrets getting jammed by an impact is not unknown. The Massachusetts jammed Jean Bart's turret at Casablance. Even if the turret ring is ok, possibly the shock could damage the drive mechanism. I also wonder about spalling from the back face of the armor.
So is the armor homogeneous or face hardened? If memory serves, the IJN armor was about WW1 standard as they wanted more elasticity in it. Also the shell didn't normalize on impact.
Just 2 things we need to know about the sim.
i would love to know if the turret ring would still function after a 2700 lb 700ms impact
Is there precedent for the shell breaking in half?
That looks really weird.
How does an adjacent gun barrel fare?
In which program did you do the simulation?
are you using Material Point Method ?
Considering the range the chances of a hit on the turret face are minimal. How would the 16inch heavy shell fair against deck armor and the ships main belt. That is where most hits would be.
dang now I'm REALLY mad we did the IRL test with the plate flush upright.
They did it that way because they knew it was the only way to defeat the plate.
@@sharkface129 Exactly this.
Wasn't that belt armor, not turret face?
@@Josh-iv2bw It was a turret face intended for Shinano which was originally the same class as Yamato before being converted to an aircraft carrier.
does these projectiles have explosive filler? If so, I imagine it could do some spall damage or eventually, repeated hits would weaken the structure
You can see the filler cavity doesn't even come close to entering the armor. On the best shot it would have exploded harmlessly.
I dont know the filler of this 406mm, but usually US didnt have that much filler on their shells, i would assume between 8 to 15kg in this shell, i dont think it is enough to break that much of armor that lasted
Also, getting a hit so near a spot weakened by a previous hit is incredibly difficult for ships firing at each other from those distances.
@@CChiefmk3 This is a Mark 8 Super-Heavy AP shell with an explosive bursting charge of 18.55kg (40.9lbs) of Explosive D filler
The 16" .50 cal. shell had a ~40~ lb. bursting charge of dunnite (a.k.a. Explosive D). The 18" .45 cal. shell had a ~74~ lb. bursting charge of Trinitroanasol (TNA).
I may have misunderstood his parameters. It looked like the shells were impacting with the same energy regardless of distance they were fired from.
damm that so cool, can you do BLU-109 vs Yamato?
Shrapnel from the shell would have damaged one or more of the 18.1" barrels
concussion would have taken out the turret or gun crew or bent the trunnions enough to ruin the aiming
@@gglovatothat’s what I’m thinking the machinery definitely wouldn’t be happy
Any way you can provide the 16in shell models?
Now what about the belt armor?
Shouldn’t it explode on impact?
No.
It’s absolutely crazy that a 16” shell could just snap in half like that.
Also, please correct me if I am wrong, but in testing didn’t a 16” shell manage to penetrate the turret front of the Yamato during post war ballistic testing, alibis the plate was of poor quality?
I believe it was tested at point blank and at an unrealistic angle.
@@williamgandarillas2185 poor quality to the point where it was rejected, also that was at a flat angle, I did simulate this at a flat angle and up to 15km it would penetrate. I sadly accidentally deleted the footage and only had these 45 degree armor shots like on the turret.
That test used the same 16"/50 Mark 7 guns against a spare front plate meant originally for Shinano's turrets with no angle on the plate at point blank. An impossible shot since at point blank you wouldn't be able to get that kind of angle on the turret unless Yamato was listing 45 degrees to nullify said angle.
@@simulationbros The plate was not rejected due to poor quality. It was set aside due to the decision to convert Shinano to an aircraft carrier and because the plate could be used in no other capacity in the Imperial Navy. Just sayin...
@@manilajohn0182it was due to poor quality, from Drach
So can you examine the turtleback armor on German ships?
I may be wrong but from my understanding both HE and AP shells contained a small (for the AP round, bigger for the HE one) charge that was detonated moments after impact via a kinetic fuse. If that is the case then shouldn't this feature also be simulated. The impact alone does significant damage for sure, but coupled with an explosion i'm sure the damage model will change significantly.
The Japanese struggled to properly harden her thicker plates, it pushed the limits of their armor industry. I suspect her armor was loaded with defeats and unequal hardening.
Can you do a shipwreck missile vs Iowa class side armor?
I’m curious as to why the tip of the shell was hollow. I would imagine it would have a much easier time penetrating armor if it had a solid steel pointed tip.
It is ballistic cap of Armor piercing shell. It is there only to make it more aerodynamic and so lose less speed when traveling. It is hollow so it doesn't interfere with penetration. Steel cap that helps with penetration is behind it. Also you don't want pointed head in these shells because it would just shatter when hitting plate and make shell lose ton of penetration power.
2 pixel thumbnail?
wdym?
@@simulationbros idk it looks very pixelated, maybe its just me idk, funny tho
@@gurin3374 schizophrenia
@@matthelord7695 oh no...
@@gurin3374don't worry, we're in this together! the thumbnail is pixelated for me too
Love the music
In addition to the projectile hitting there is the explosive force that makes it pierce more when the powder ignites. The iowas were superior with their radar controlled guns. Having 2 inches more per gun does not make up for that and also some more armor. It's obvious that the torpedos when they exploded on the belt pierced the lower hull too.
But they actually tested Shinano's turret face plates after the war and the Mark 8 went clean through at point blank range. But don't know the angle of impact either.
Other comment said it was perpendicular for the irl test, so it would favor the 16" gun even more than any of the scenarios in this video.
From a range of 400 feet with a 90- degree impact angle.
@@manilajohn0182 But with a reduced propellant charge to simulate a hit from a distance and not the 400 ft.
@@jimbro5223 The conclusion of the USNPG report cited the inability of the 16" .50 cal. shell to penetrate the plate at any combat range.
@@manilajohn0182 first shot didn't pen. After subsequent tests the plate eventually caved and got penetrated but had fractures after 3 hits due to the prioritizing hardness and thus caused increased brittleness.
The only bad thing about this is that it doesn't take into account the explosion dynamics of the shells on impact.
is this taking into account lower quality japanese steel? or would it not have mattered?
Japanese steel apparently varied heavily in quality, ranging from very poor to very durable. I think the plates used on the actually Yamato class were well tested and of a higher quality batch
@@williamgandarillas2185 If I remember correctly, I could be off mark, the thick belt and turret plates featured on Japanese warships were of rather low quality but the thinner secondary and deck plates were considered to be very high quality. So the first layer of armor would offer less resistance than expected but by comparison secondary layers would be rather resilient for their thickness
The difference in armor quality of all the major navies in WW2 was minimal.
are you going to do the belts?
This simulation differs in the results from the actual point blank test performed by the US Navy.
In that test there was a significant hole in the turret armor.
なんか、抜刀隊以外の曲流してるひと久しぶりに見た気がする
Ah, but at distances most shells will be plunging, and not hitting the belt. How does the top of the citadel like 16'' super heavy AP?
Interesting sim. So, the turrets would not be knocked out. But what about the super structure, range finders, internal comm, battle bridge, mechanical controls, if hit? I read some article that US Navy tests were done after the war and determined that the likelihood of running out of ammo was greater than either ship actually inflicting serious damage. Simply due to the distances involved, thus affecting accuracy even though the Iowa Class had better range finding. Apparently, these behemoths could turn pretty fast to avoid predicted shot fall. Each ship would know the others' re-loading time, and the time of flight at maximum range. The assumption was that Iowa would dart in just under max range, loose a volley, then dart away. Us Navy method was volley fire, while the Japanese fired in quick series, believing that it would cover any predicted travel of the target ship. A good theory that was very effective in the early battles with American forces.
Anyone care to comment on this?
The faceplates were impenetrable, but the rest of the ship had an immunity zone (see below)- a range in which shell hits on the deck, belt, or a specific area of armor could be defeated. This varied according to range, target angle, and the pitching or rolling of both vessels. The speed of incoming shells and the resulting short flight time precluded maneuvering to avoid being hit. That was only done to avoid torpedo attack. The likely hood of shell hits at long range (20- 25,000 yards) was around 3- 6% even with fire control radar. Reloading times were not known during the war but were estimated. At the onset of the war, capital ships could maneuver or fire "accurately". They could not do both. This involved proceeding on a specified course while target vessel range, course, and speed were calculated and the information fed into a mechanical fire control computer. The main battery was elevated and trained to bear on target and a salvo (of as many guns as could be made ready) was fired. No specific areas of an enemy vessel were targeted. The intent was to get as many shells downrange as rapidly and as accurately as possible to increase the likely hood of hits. Simply outranging the enemy was not done because of the low probability of hits at long range. The idea was to estimate the enemy vessel's immunity zone and then engage it outside of its immunity zone, but while the firing vessel was inside its own. Whichever vessel first straddled the opposing vessel gained an advantage, as that gunnery team only had to recalculate enemy course and speed- while an avoiding vessel's gunnery team also had to recalculate one's own course and speed as well.
The advent of fire control radar with remote power control offered the potential to change the "maneuver or fire accurately" mode to "maneuver and fire accurately". Remote power control was the ability of a ship's radar to directly control the main battery in either range, bearing, or both and maintain it on target in all visibility conditions. The Germans had RPC in range only, the British and French lacked RPC in both until late in the war, and the Italians and Japanese never had either. Gunnery in the Yamatos off Samar was based on averaging the range to target of the ship's foretop and after optical rangefinders and the Type 22 Mod 4 radar. The U.S. Navy had RPC for both range and elevation from the Mark 1 gunnery radar onward. However, the navy didn't realize the potential of RPC to enable them to maneuver and fire simultaneously, so that no tactics were developed to make use of this advantage during WW2. The first tests were undertaken in 1946. Range accuracy of the Mark 8 was about 45 yards at 25,000 yards. The foretop optics aboard Yamato had a range accuracy of 89 yards, while Yamato's Type 22 Mod 4 radar was 109 yards.
Lastly, shell dispersion was the tendency of shells to distort one another's flight paths en route to target. This was effected by factors such as the rigidity of the firing vessel, the proximity of the guns to one another in the turret, the time at which the gun was fired, the time at which the shell left the barrel, and the effect that a shockwave produced by a shell traveling at supersonic speed had on a neighboring shell. This varied from class to class and could not be impacted by fire control radar or by optics. Only the IJN made a serious attempt to reduce shell dispersion, which paid off when they introduced the Type 98 Discharge Delay Unit in the Type 98 Fire Control System of the Yamato class.
Source material is from the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordinance.
Immunity zone of the Iowas vs. the 18.1" gun:
Citadel 24,800- 29,800 (5,000 yards);
Turret Faceplates 24,700- 31,600 (6,900 Yards);
Barbettes 26,500- 31,600 (5,100 Yards);
Steering 24,700- 28,800 (4,100 Yards);
Control Tower 26,500- 31,600 (5,100 Yards).
Immunity Zone of the Yamatos vs. the 16" .50 cal. gun:
Citadel 17,000- 34,500 (17,500 Yards);
Turret Faceplates (Impenetrable);
Barbettes 16,600- 36,800 (20,200 Yards);
Steering 19,100- 33,400 (14,300 Yards);
Control Tower 16,600- 33,400 (16,800 Yards).
@@manilajohn0182 Fascinating. Thank you. I would have said riveting, but that would be too obvious a pun. The 6% likelihood of hits was something remember from reading.
Japanese steal was inferior to US steal at the time. I know there are videos that show how well US 16 inch guns would preform against the Yamato's turret armor because there were actually live fire tests that showed the results. The result was that while the 16 inch shells would not penetrate the turret armor of a Yamato class ship it would do so much damage to the armor as to render the turret inoperable because it actually broke the armor. This is against the best armor the Yamato class had. A outcome of a duel between a Yamato class and Iowa class battle ship would depend on a lot of variable and would be uncertain. The Yamato's had 18 in guns and thicker armor, and in battle took an enormous amount of damage before being destroyed. The Iowa's were faster, well armored, had better fire control systems, very good damage control crews, and radar which would give the Iowa's a great advantage in night engagements.
Imagine the sounds of that hit.
The turret crew wouldn't be able to, they'd all be deafened if not permanently deaf.
Why was it all 650m at 45°
now it would be interessting to see some modern APFSDS rounds vs. the Yamato turret
Only APFSDS that could pen front plate of Yamato turret would be if Russians sources are correct Vacuum-1 APFSDS from T-14 tank. It is only APFSDS that has longer length then thickness of the turret front. DM63 and M829A3 both fall short 20-30mm to have chance of penetrating.
Isnt there another newer generation of APFSDS in the 73 and A4? I swear I've heard those shells being tossed around in a few discussions before
Both armour designs were defective as while penetrating their respective side armour protection was unlikely under the typical combat ranges, both arrangements directed the shell fragments into the Torpedo protection system that would also lead to fragmentation penetrating the outer skin of that system thus degrading the system, causing flooding that leads to the degradation of the Reserve Buoyancy equation which would lead in battle situation similar to the Bismarck's and Scrnhorst's last battles that brings into question the survivability of the respective designs been inferior to the German designs.
The chance of actually hitting the turret front is very low. Similarly, the hit could occur at the turret roof, where the armor is much thinner, or much more likely just anywhere else on the ship.
A clear design flaw. They didn't do a rounded turret where the angle of impact doesn't matter because the thickness would be equal in every direction. In this case, a flat plate demonstrates it's weakness, because it can have only 660mm or a little bit more depending of the angle.
Designers assume turrets will be pointed at the enemy when in combat so unless you're engaging multiple targets a front on shot is most likely.
could BBs use huge HEAT shells to damage BBs?
No HEAT warhead was ever build for battleships. Also powers that HEAT shell would have to endure during firing would probably make the shell collapse unless it was made with thicker walls.
The Iowa is not only aiming for the turrets. Hits will happen all over the Yamato. I don't know if the Iowa would prevail but it would be interesting to watch the encounter.
Gunkan March? The music
I find interesting how your simulation shows the Armor Piercing Shells penetrating less… hard to see how you came to this conclusion. 🧐
Wdym?
Anybody know how much one of those faceplates weighs??
Like the video but the reality of such an engagement would have been plunging fire of main armaments on the deck armor. The RN couldn’t sink Bismarck even point blank and the she only sunk due to being scuttled.
Can you imagine how unbelievably hot the point of impact would be?
I request tiger ll pzgr 39 vs jumbo Pershing side at 65 degrees
Why do you not have the bursting charge going off?
Except we know that Iowa would penetrate the Yamato at point blank range because the USN tested this and it did.
Yeah it penetrated turret front plate that was rejected by the navy from point blank with no angling at all. Not really meaningful test.
According to the numbers, bumble bees cannot fly. According to your numbers, a 16 inch solid slug could not penetrate Yamamato's turret. You didnt seem to include the explosive charge into your calculations.
Doesn't HE explode on contact?
Thats APHE
@@simulationbros APHE penetrates first before exploding
Let’s do Iowa turret next please
On paper the Yamato has thicker armor and heavier primary weapons. In practice, the Iowa class is faster, more maneuverable, and at this stage in the war has far superior gunnery. She is going to hit her target with a higher rate of more accurate fire.
No need to simulate obsolescent aircraft with torpedoes against the Yamato, I think we all know how that ended
i think the bursting charge detonating while the shell was halfway into the plate would have burst a hole through
Closest the shell came to penetrating was at 25 km since it was coming in at a relatively good angle. True the closer you are the more energy the shell would have but you also have more armor to go through since its coming in at a steeper angle
There was a whole thing with shell design back in the 20s and 30s where the drawing board consisted of how to have shells not strike the main armor belt. Its quite an interesting read about USN research vs IJN research where IJN tried a creative method of a shell diving into the water and using the hydrodynamic properties of the shell shape to direct it below the main belt like a torpedo. Called diving/torpedo shells, their design was that they could carry sufficient penetration force roughly 20 times the shell caliber making near misses also quite deadly. In actuality though, the shells failed to meet this standard and traveled less distance underwater plus carried less energy to reach penetration at the closer hits in addition to having poorer direct hit performance of similar caliber shells designed for direct penetration.
The velocity at range is way too high. Navweaps has the data on velocity and and angle of fall from official BuOrd reports.
In a hypothetical ship v ship engagement, Iowas were so superior to Yamatos it's ridiculous.
Speed and radar range finding vs spotter planes and colored smoke from the Yamatos. All Iowas would have to do is wait to engage Yamatos on terms favorable (night and foggy/rain etc) and Yamatos can't respond because they can't use their spotter planes. Greater speed of Iowas also mean they dictate the terms of the engagement. Damage from superstructure hits, hits outside of the citadel etc all add up quickly.
Bismarck succumbed similarly - got to a point where they couldn't respond effectively and got hammered into submission.
What would be really interesting is if the speeds were similar and the Yamatos had radar range finding as good as the Iowas.
See the tech advantage is profound in the Iowas. Level that then you'd have to put your money on the Yamatos wouldn't you?
If the Yamatos were still stuck at 27kts and had Iowa's radar range finding still you'd have to put your money on the Yamatos.
US armor piercing shells were designed to plunge through decks and bunkers using fire control radar. The Yamato was made to duke it our at relatively close range. If Yamato managed to close with the Iowa class battleships it would win easily.
Not so fast there... While the Yamato's turret faces were immune, the rest of her was not. The 16"/50's caried by Iowa were more than capable of penetrating Yamato's hull in the close range fight you suggest. At that point, it becomes an issue of who can land hits faster.
Another thing you should consider is the conditions of the engagement. Are we in day? Night? Squals? Fog? Any of these would be incredibly detrimental to Yamato's gunnery, since her radar assist only accounted for about half the equation, and she still needed visual contact to resolve the other parts of the solution. The Iowas on the other hand were fully capable of shooting when completely blind visually, as proven by USS Washington (a North Carolina class) during the Guadalcanal campaign. Washington scored 40 main battery hits on Kirishima at a range under 10,000 yd. In those kinds of conditions (especially at that point in the war when Yamato didn't yet have her radar), Yamato gets carved up like a cake.
@@mechakid Iowa would have to get too close and be Swiss cheese before then. Iowa's strategy would be to maintain a long-range and use superior accuracy.
Ive always thought it ironic to name a warship after the state of the union that is farther from the ocean than paris is from moscow.
Use miles and inches until you land a man on the moon.
800mm vs Yamato or Iowa
Looks like we found a way without needing to hit the turret 😉
7:28 KSP editor music