The Kongo class battleships were the only ones Japan had that were fast enough to get in to the Guadalcanal battle zone at night, do whatever it was that they planned, and get out before daylight and the subsequent US air raids could attack them. Yamatos technically could do the same, but they consumed too much fuel (and I guess they were too busy being used as hotel spaces for admirals anyway).
The problem with sending something as huge as Yamato-class battleships into "Ironbottom Sound" is their turning radius is so poor (in comparison to the Kongo-class's) that it makes them extremely vulnerable to destroyers firing torpedoes. A division of destroyers charging alongside could wreck them in no time once in position, due to their slower speed and larger turning radius. In open water the Yamato-class battleships have more time to get their guns on target and they could send their own destroyers to intercept them easier.
@@metaknight115 They were busy tearing apart her sister ship Musashi. Which sank after dozens of torpedo hits on both sides. Yamato was easier to sink because the US learned to hit one side of the ship so it would capsize earlier.
@@LostShipMate I was talking about operation Ten Go. The first wave consisted of 280 aircraft. While Yahagi and four destroyers were mangled, Yamato survived with only two bombs and a torpedo hit.
It was a matter of selecting ships to comprise a force to achieve a goal. The Kongōs were fast enough to be the center force, that included cruisers and destroyers making 30 knots. In addition of what had been mentioned, I will add the Yamatos had less range with higher fuel consumption. Many objectives were out of range without refueling from bases or slower tankers.
This goes to Ryan and every one of the great staff and volunteers of Battleship New Jersey. Thank you for all the amazing work each of you give to all of us! You make sure our history is not forgotten. I am a very proud Army Desert Storm Combat Veteran, and an even prouder son of a Navy Vietnam Veteran who proudly served on the CV 19 Hancock. I have been as of late doing much research into our Naval history during WW1 all the way to the Persian Gulf. I have found your channel Ryan to be my favorite and I have learned so much about the Iowa's and especially the Mighty Jersey! The education I have received from your videos has opened up new conversations between my father and myself about his time at sea, and for that I am so appreciative and grateful to you all! I have gained an entirely new respect and appreciation for what life was like for all the brave ship Crew members. As an "Army" guy I had only my perspective military life to go on, and now with this channel I have a new one as well. I can relate to some aspects of life on the ship though. In the Army I was Field Artillery so I can relate to a great deal of the things you explain within the turret itself. We share basically the same concept. I was on an M-109 Howitzer so a bit smaller than the Jersey, but the same premise...lol Keep up the amazing work Ryan and everyone there, and I hope to soon be able to come visit the ship in person and see all it's greatness in person!
Ryan, another great video! What I learned most from this one is that the Kongo's were the reason for of the creation of the Iowa class fast battleships. In all of my quite extensive WW II research and learning, I had never heard this before, and it makes a lot of sense since the Iowa's could travel so much faster than ALL the other battleships. I see that this video was from 2020, and hopefully you are getting enough funding now to keep going. I love your video's as well as Drach's. I still remember you climbing thru the 16" barrel!
Its interesting that a British yard built a ship for the Japanese that was, at the time, superior to the most recent class of battlecruiser that they just built for the Royal Navy.
The British were in an arms race with germany. Good enough and numbers were the name of the game. This shows post war where most of the battle Cruiser fleet is scrapped post war. (ships with less potential went first). The Japanese knew they would be using the kongo's for a long time so quality and technology was had higher priority.
@@michaeltruett817 Yup, getting the revolutionary ships that would become the Queen Elizabeths was quite the struggle, as they where deemed to complicated and expensive. However, using them as a fast battle squadron was deemed sufficient reason. Numbers where cut down a bit and priority was given to the Revenge, that reverted a bit back to a design closer to an Iron Duke but with a QE armerment.
Not the first time it happened. The first Japanese pre-dreadnoughts were made in British shipyards. The Japanese looked at what the British were making and made their own designs that were based off of the British design but with improvements here and there. The first Japanese pre-dreadnoughts were basically slightly better versions of the Majestic class of I remember correctly. Sometimes, the British would notice these improvements and adopt them into their own new designs along with their own improvements, like with HMS Tiger.
I gotta say the Kongo class is imo the most beautiful warship class ever, they look so long and sleek, the spacing between their aft guns, the high freeboard, etc. They dont even look top heavy (unlike the Fusos) I think Nagato comes close to it but it looks a bit too stubby for my taste
Good, knowledgeable, factual presentation though the closing "who would win" summary is, at least in this case, wholly superfluous. Rather like comparing a "Deutschland" and a "Dunkerque", when the second class of ship was in any case built explicitly to overmatch the first and did so in every salient respect. Wrt the Iowas, in reality almost nothing else that was actually built compares favourably 'on balance', despite some classes/ships possessing advantages in one or two specific regards. There are, of course, always the "Yamatos", but even their marked 'on paper' net superiority does not truly reflect the realities 'on the water'. For several reasons (inter alia, the Iowas' significant speed margin, more advanced and innately accurate main armament in the 16"/50 Mk7 gun and Mk8 'super heavy' AP shell that at 2700lbs was 84% as heavy as the Yamatos' own 18" munitions, combined crucially with the US ship's immense advantage in effective radar-directed fire control). So to be honest (irritating for a British patriot like me to say), the Iowas likely represent the holistically best battleship design ever realised in practice by actually being built. OK, it's arguable that in her final, as-completed form, "Vanguard" was a superior 'platform' in most respects. Yet it's at best a purely academic point. Vanguard was always an opportunistic "one-off" build in any case. Conceived initially to give the RN one more capital ship "quickly" (hahaha) using existing turrets removed from Fisher's "large light cruisers" (known in the RN as 'Spurious', 'Curious' and 'Outrageous') when they were mercifully converted into aircraft carriers. With 15"/42 Mk1 guns from the 'R' class battleships' pool of spares. In consequence of which, the verdict passed upon her by RN wits was that "she's been given her aunties' teeth". One can wish (as Churchill did when our eternally po-faced establishment were at last forced to give him a job) that someone with sense had dragged HMG kicking and screaming away from its pious drivel about the London Treaty and a 14" max main armament limit. Or had at least kicked the idiots into expediting development of a new 16" gun anyway, so the option of invoking the escalator would at least be available and COULD be used if warranted (as the USA concluded rightly to be the case re the "North Carolinas"). Of course in that case we'd never have built Vanguard at all. YET, we would have ended up with (I estimate) three somewhat larger, 16"/45 Mkii/iii armed KGVs... and seen the final two laid down c9mths later than they were in our timeline to emerge, not in spring and summer 1942 as "Howe" and "Anson", but in early to mid 1943 as "Lion" and "Temeraire" Each of which c30kt ships with full load displacement of c51,000 tons, would've packed 9 x 16"/45 cal Mkiv guns capable of hurling (at 40 degrees elevation) a 2,375lb APC shell
While I largely agree with your assessment, Yamato-class battleships could take the hits of an Iowa-class battleship's 16" guns without the armor being penetrated, whereas the Iowas could not take the Yamato's 18" gun hits. With that said however, the Iowa's better radar and fire control would've allowed them to strike more often and I believe the repeated hits would've equalized this factor. Still, the reality was that by the time the Iowa-class battleships were operational, Japan couldn't win the war, and all of the previous American battleship classes were no match for the Yamato and Musashi. Yamato was functional (if not fully operational) at the time of Pearl Harbor and nothing present at the time was her equal.
I'd love to know how shipyards lengthen a ship - I presume they are actually cut into two parts and a section added? Seems like that would be a weak point, but I guess that's exactly how the newest US aircraft carriers are built in the first place: in large sections welded together.
I think it's usually things like adding length to, or installing a false bow (the front) A lot of early ships had ram bows and things of that sort, and it was later decided to give them pointier bows like the Iowas have.
@@rinnafarcoast2216 Agreed in most cases. The exceptions I can think of are the Gearing class Destroyers (had a 14' hull section added near the bridge which did, indeed, create a weak point), and some more modern (i.e.: cold war era) submarines.
When USS Sealion II attacked the Kongo, its captain, Commander Eli Reich (the former XO and chief engineer of USS Sealion I, which sank at the Cavite Naval Yard on December 10, 1941 during the Japanese bombing of the yard and other military facilities in the Philippines) had ordered the Sealion II's forward torpedo room crew to write the name of four men on four of the torpedoes targeted on the Kongo. Those four names were Commander Reich's shipmates on Sealion I, who died in the aft engine room of that sub when a Japanese bomb struck it. These were their names: Chief Electrician's Mate Sterling Cecil Foster Chief Electrician's Mate Melvin Donald O'Connell Electrician's Mate Third Class Vallentyne Lester Paul Motor Machinist's Mate Ernest Ephrom Ogilvie.
Kirishima got a soft kill against South Dakota. It was her misfortune to also be fighting Washington and a superior gunnery tactician in Ching Lee. The Kingo class were good ships for their time, but the rebuilds with the pagoda towers and too little reserve buoyancy made them vulnerable to capsizing, as occurred with a couple of the class.
Speaking of Kirishima, her final captain, Sanjo Iwabuchi, is now considered a hated figure in Philippine history, due to his role as the commander of the 31st Naval Base Force and its subsequent role in the Battle of Manila, where his men undertook an orgy of indiscriminate killings and rape - the infamous Manila Massacre of 1945.
Really good Video. 👍Could you make a similar Video with the Fuso in comparison. (I have a softspot For The japanese Pagoda Type Mast/Superstrukture) greetings from Germany 🙋
4:02 - Admittedly, none of the Kongōs surviving WWII isn't exactly saying much; very few of the IJN's capital ships survived WWII (IIRC, they had a grand total of one serviceable battleship, _Nagato,_ and one serviceable aircraft carrier, _Katsuragi,_ and that was _it._ )
@@B52Stratofortress1 In that case, make it just _Katsuragi,_ out of all the IJN's capital ships, that survived WWII in serviceable condition (and her only because, by the time she was finished, the IJN couldn't field an air wing for her, so she spent the remainder of WWII in harbor disguised as a city park, complete with planting trees on her flight deck).
In my view, Alaska's greater speed and much superior RaDAR would allow her to sit at maximum range, dropping shells through a Kongo's deck armor-its Achilles heel. I say this in full appreciation of Kongo's beauty, and my less than salutary opinion of the Alaskas.
@@WildBillCox13 Problem is that the Alaska is only as accurate as its guns are. That's the issue with the "fire control" argument. None of the US ships can take full advantage of its fire control at such distances because their guns simply aren't accurate enough to get those type of hits in.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 I know the the Iowas, at least during ww2, were no where near as accurate as their amazing fire control would make you think. I think Yamato showed better gunnery during a single battle than the Iowa did during her near 3 year service in ww2 and the following few years
There's a very in-depth analysis of Kirishima's loss at Guadalcanal over on the NavWeaps website. It details how the combination of heavy caliber penetrations pretty much destroyed Kirishima's watertight integrity above and below the main belt armor, and opened a lot of transverse space to the sea. She may have been an adequate combatant for naval warfare when built, but by WW2, advances in gunnery, explosive power, and armor penetration, Kirishima and her sisters were not much more than targets. Pretty much from the moment Washington opened fire, Kirishima was doomed. She faced a much more heavily armed, much more heavily armored opponent with far better fire control, and pretty much barring a "golden BB" there was only one way that fight was going to end. Her only saving grace at that point was that, with South Dakota driven out of the fight by losing her fire control, Kirishima didn't have to face both US BBs at the same time. www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/Kirishima_Damage_Analysis.pdf The thing that really struck me about the Kirishima's experience vis-a-vis your comments about the Kongo class' divided engineering spaces vs. an Iowa's open engineering spaces was the flooding of the spaces *above* engineering, which were open across the ship. The Kongos didn't have much stability as you noted, and had low freeboard and very little reserve buoyancy. Having that much water able to move port and starboard that high in the ship set Kirishima to swinging like a pendulum, and her crew's attempts at counterflooding only exacerbated the situation.
The Japanese should've never tried sending any battleships into "Ironbottom Sound" without proper air cover. If Rabaul couldn't provide it, then they should've reinforced the airbase and / or sent a carrier fleet to support them properly.
Likely three or four of them working like a group of destroyers I would imagine could sink an Iowa class battleship, or damage her severely. But their armor means the Iowa's shells will get through, resulting in like the loss of at least one of the Kongos.
I believe the Iowas had more accurate and sophisticated radar fire control than the Yamatos, as well as a several knot speed advantage. Probably a slight advantage in main battery rate of fire. Certainly a superior air defense capability.
Guns: It’s pretty obvious, while Iowa could rival Yamato’s penetration power from long ranges, Yamato would still be able to hit more vital areas and was completely superior at short and, most importantly, mid ranges. (A select few sources claim that Iowa’s guns were better than Yamato’s guns due to a higher muzzle velocity, by this makes no sense for a number of reasons, including the fact that Iowa had a muzzle velocity that was 100 feet per second slower than Yamato’s muzzle velocity). Yamato also had a much superior secondary armament. Accuracy: This is a tricky one. On paper, Iowa should have much more accurate guns, but during things like live firing tests and combat near the time both ships were afloat, Yamato’s guns seem to be the more accurate of the two. Iowa should most likely spot Yamato first, though, due to superior radar. Armor: Yamato takes the cake, the box containing the cake, the table the box is on, the house she’s in, the city, the country, and quite possibly the world itself. I mean. Yamato’s armor is thicker on an average of 4 or more inches. Most notably, Iowa’s belt was very poorly protected, while Yamato’s belt was the best in the world in terms of protection. Speed:We see Iowa’s first, and possibly only win when it comes to speed. I mean, Iowa’s 37.9 mph versus Yamato’s 31.5 mph. It’s not even a contest.
I have to say the experimental and deployment nature of battle Cruisers it is so wider than battleships but needless to say the Congo class battle Cruisers here certainly seem to suffer from the same detrimental armor scheme that eventually ended all their other patrons and again the Japanese like everyone else not anything unique to Japan that always want to thrust them into the same circumstances as battleships out of desperation or necessity Yet the results are almost always the same the Japanese Mass system I've always found odd they just want to overload the top of the ship and yeah it seems to be the biggest detriment causes the ships to rock and roll heavily listing it's a major design flaw that I can only imagine is simply Japanese stanchion tradition of saying oh well it'll be okay. I do like the Kongos I think they're extremely well-balanced I think they were as effective as battle Cruisers were supposed to be and it would appear that during most of their careers they were utilized correctly but then I don't know I can't call them battleships because they're design construction and Genesis employed them to be battle Cruisers. I don't believe the Japanese really reinforce their armor plates by any significant margin replacing additions but they were pretty much to spec without enhancements so battle Cruisers they are battle Cruisers they were to call them battleships without significant modification it's like HMS hood without some structural change in layers and armor protection the term just can't be applied successfully I had folks say to me over and over again well HMS Hood had thicker armor belts than the proceeding class of Battleship to which I've always contended well the Queen Elizabeth class was in comparison to HMS Hood yesterday's design and yes she had thicker armor belts on the side but Hood's overall armor scheme was absolutely subpar and anemic The Kongos here were much more balanced in their distribution but still nevertheless an emphasis on speed generally met a sacrifice an armor and sacrifice they did by the Second World War the prioritization of armor wasn't necessarily as a parent with the adaptation and implementation of Naval Aviation but even when they did replace armor plates they never really did increase overall thickness even though a lot of sources I've read have told me that the deck armor was incrementally improved depending on which ship you're talking about but still Definitely the way forward though had the original Lexington class battle Cruisers been implemented in response to these Congos I believe it would have pointed the way to the future of how the evolution of warfare was going the progenitors of the Iowa class will always be the Lexington class battle Cruisers in the American line Phil throughout most their career I think the Japanese did use these battle Cruisers correctly as Scouts and escorts just can't get over the superstructure I would really love Ryan to do an in-depth analysis of the rationale and reason behind it it just seems like a liability ruins the lines of the ship and well there were better ways to do that stacking.
Hmm Kongo vs Iowa that is an interesting question. Umm one v one Iowa should win but 2 Kongos if they spread out and flank is a different story. Now this is assuming this is without any backup, and clear weather.
I doubt very much you'd be able to get two Kongos into a tactical position to split an Iowa's fire; Iowa's a couple knots faster and has much better radar and fire control, not to mention the heavier, much longer ranged guns. An Iowa would be free to dictate the terms of the engagement, and Washington demonstrated quite effectively that any Kongo that came into range of a 16" gunned US BB was going to die.
@@mrz80 true I didn't really think about that but then again we can never really calculate for every variable. On paper Iowa is the better ship in terms of equipment. We can never really factor the human aspect because there were plenty of times where a force had far superior equipped yet still lost.
I'd go with all 4×Kongo vs 1×Iowa and expect to loose a ship... If I was seriously going after an Iowa, I'd send both Yamato and Musashi with Nagato and Mutsu in support and have the 4×Kongo's working the flanks... 😅👍
Finally! Found a Kongos vs Iowa: What I think: So the Iowa can’t take advantage of superior speed, at close range and very clear and calm skies, four Kongo class battleships can definitely wreck the Iowa. Sheer firepower and numbers, an American thing, can be applied against the American ship. Assuming the same conditions as above, it would only take 2-3 Kongo class battleships to fight a South Dakota or North Carolina. In the Yamato vs Iowa, at close ranges American radar does not matter (since this is a thought experiment anyway let’s just assume they teleported that close), and Yamato and Iowa will slug it out. Yamato wins, but barely. At long range Yamato loses, but barely. Whilst the South Dakota class is very powerful, and at long ranges sadly has a good chance of hurting Yamato a lot, if the American commander didn’t know about the Yamato’s capabilities, he would close the range, where Yamato’s advantages come more into play and the opposite happening to the American ship. The same happens to the North Carolina. Note that Yamato is devastating at close range thanks in no part to her very powerful secondary armament of light cruiser guns. If Yamato is fighting at long range and during a calm day, if manned by a superb commander with better intelligence than a North Carolina (so Yamato fires first), thanks to North Carolina’s weaker armour compared to later classes, Yamato would have a chance. At night, this all changes and the Japanese lose most of the scenarios I described. I think four Kongo class battleships, if they can get the jump on a North Carolina or South Dakota will still win at night. If would take both Yamato and Musashi to sink an Iowa at night.
I doubt the New Jersey could penetrate Super Yamato’s armor, who was supposed to be equipped with armor thicker than Yamato’s armor on an average of 2 inches
But the Super Yamato would have needed two armour plates because Japan couldn’t produce them that thick, a major problem. I don’t think it can take on a Montana if it has superior fire control.
It depends on if it is at night and who is in command. If adm Lee is in command, all four Kongos wouldn't get the better of an Iowa. If it's at night with someone else in command, they would have a much better chance of taking on an Iowa. In WW2 naval battles a lot depended on the competence of a commander and the training of the crews.
I'd go with all four Kongo's. If you start adding the other period Japanese battleships, then it begins to equalize real quick (at least in terms of armor and firepower as speed was never matched). Once the Yamato and Musashi get involved things start to tilt heavily against them and you need to start adding Iowa's! 😅
@@tyree9055 I'd even match SoDaks or North Carolinas against the Yamatos, especially at long range. With an Iowa or two maneuvering to constrain their wiggle room, a solid formation of South Dakotas and/or Washingtons would stand every chance of crushing the two Yamatos. Remember, though slightly shorter ranged, the 16"/45 had better long range horizontal armor penetration than the 16"/50, owing to the slightly slower projectiles' more-nearly-vertical terminal trajectory. Really, I think that any grouping of the three classes of last-gen US battleships would most likely have ripped apart any practically achievable squadron of Japanese BBs. I might be a bit further out on a limb here, but if you could contrive a tactical situation where the Kongos' superior speed could be taken out of the equation, like catching them at one end or the other of Iron Bottom Sound and crossing their T, I'd put money on a competently commanded group of Tennessees and Colorados against the Kongos.
@@mrz80 But they can't even penetrate the Yamato's armor at shorter ranges (point blank, yes... but longer, no) and you have to hit at the longest ranges for plunging fire to bypass their belt armor. Possible, but highly improbable and the Yamato's ability to absorb punishment is high enough that I doubt they could knock them out before they were knocked out themselves because the Yamato's 18" guns could penetrate the Iowa's armor at nearly any range and it only gets worse as they close the distance.
@@tyree9055 The US BB's at wars end all had gunnery radar. It makes a big difference. I still say a lot more depends on the people in command and the situation, ie- location, time of day, weather.
Man you are making all the comparissons unfair... USNavy had BY FAR the best radar FCS AA system. Not even the British had that level of AA, let alone the rest of the nations (excluding German soil in late war) so comparing USNavy ships to foreign nation's ships and pointing that they had lesser AA its wrong since you are taking USNavy AA as the "average" while it was by far the leader in that regard. That being said, Kongos 1941/42 AA was much better than Italian Soviet or German AA naval AA, and was kind of "on pair" with the legacy fitted AA that many USNavy standar BB (and most cruisers) had by 12/7/41. Kongos AA capabilities in 1944 sits far behind USNavy and a little less but still quite behind UK... Nevertheless they were quite relevant compared what most nations had in their ships. They just happened to be against to an overwhelming force able to deploy massive airstrikes with top of the technology aircraft commanded by the most experienced pilots in the world, an airwing that would have even overwhelmed the defense of the own USNavy ships (but taking way heavier losses). But since we can use our imagination to put Iowas against the 300 aircraft who sunk Yamato, we can also use our imagination to think about how much better could have a heavy AA reinforced Kongo BB/BC covered allied carriers against inexperienced pilots striking in older slower IJN planes. I think not as good as USNavy nor UK ships, but i do think quite well if compared to the rest of the nations in the world
‘South Dakota’ was a victim of an electrical failure and subsequent riddled by a lot of the Japanese Task Force. Crew casualties and serious damage was minimal. Adm Willis Lee was an old school gunnery expert that embraced the new Radar Technology gunnery and ‘Washington’ was likely the deadliest warship afloat that night. ‘Kirishima’ never stood a chance.
The sadness in your voice about furloughs was intense. Glad that this was 18 months ago and you are still surviving.
The Kongo class battleships were the only ones Japan had that were fast enough to get in to the Guadalcanal battle zone at night, do whatever it was that they planned, and get out before daylight and the subsequent US air raids could attack them. Yamatos technically could do the same, but they consumed too much fuel (and I guess they were too busy being used as hotel spaces for admirals anyway).
The problem with sending something as huge as Yamato-class battleships into "Ironbottom Sound" is their turning radius is so poor (in comparison to the Kongo-class's) that it makes them extremely vulnerable to destroyers firing torpedoes. A division of destroyers charging alongside could wreck them in no time once in position, due to their slower speed and larger turning radius. In open water the Yamato-class battleships have more time to get their guns on target and they could send their own destroyers to intercept them easier.
@@tyree9055 Idk, I know Yamato survived 286 aircraft with only a single torpedo hit and two bomb hits
@@metaknight115 They were busy tearing apart her sister ship Musashi. Which sank after dozens of torpedo hits on both sides. Yamato was easier to sink because the US learned to hit one side of the ship so it would capsize earlier.
@@LostShipMate I was talking about operation Ten Go. The first wave consisted of 280 aircraft. While Yahagi and four destroyers were mangled, Yamato survived with only two bombs and a torpedo hit.
It was a matter of selecting ships to comprise a force to achieve a goal. The Kongōs were fast enough to be the center force, that included cruisers and destroyers making 30 knots.
In addition of what had been mentioned, I will add the Yamatos had less range with higher fuel consumption. Many objectives were out of range without refueling from bases or slower tankers.
This goes to Ryan and every one of the great staff and volunteers of Battleship New Jersey. Thank you for all the amazing work each of you give to all of us!
You make sure our history is not forgotten. I am a very proud Army Desert Storm Combat Veteran, and an even prouder son of a Navy Vietnam Veteran who proudly served on the CV 19 Hancock. I have been as of late doing much research into our Naval history during WW1 all the way to the Persian Gulf. I have found your channel Ryan to be my favorite and I have learned so much about the Iowa's and especially the Mighty Jersey!
The education I have received from your videos has opened up new conversations between my father and myself about his time at sea, and for that I am so appreciative and grateful to you all!
I have gained an entirely new respect and appreciation for what life was like for all the brave ship Crew members.
As an "Army" guy I had only my perspective military life to go on, and now with this channel I have a new one as well. I can relate to some aspects of life on the ship though. In the Army I was Field Artillery so I can relate to a great deal of the things you explain within the turret itself. We share basically the same concept. I was on an M-109 Howitzer so a bit smaller than the Jersey, but the same premise...lol
Keep up the amazing work Ryan and everyone there, and I hope to soon be able to come visit the ship in person and see all it's greatness in person!
Learned so much from these that's why second line battleships are a major part of my story
After watching y'all's videos for almost a year now, I decided to donate to the video fund. It ain't much, but I hope it helps.
Good stuff. The issue of the Kongos' underwater protection was one I hadn't fully understood till now.
Same here, interesting that the bulkhead separating the spaces ultimately defeated them
Ryan, another great video! What I learned most from this one is that the Kongo's were the reason for of the creation of the Iowa class fast battleships. In all of my quite extensive WW II research and learning, I had never heard this before, and it makes a lot of sense since the Iowa's could travel so much faster than ALL the other battleships. I see that this video was from 2020, and hopefully you are getting enough funding now to keep going. I love your video's as well as Drach's. I still remember you climbing thru the 16" barrel!
Its interesting that a British yard built a ship for the Japanese that was, at the time, superior to the most recent class of battlecruiser that they just built for the Royal Navy.
Not the first time they did that, the British also built Minas Gerias, which was, when built, the world's most powerful dreadnought
The British were in an arms race with germany. Good enough and numbers were the name of the game. This shows post war where most of the battle Cruiser fleet is scrapped post war. (ships with less potential went first). The Japanese knew they would be using the kongo's for a long time so quality and technology was had higher priority.
@@michaeltruett817 Yup, getting the revolutionary ships that would become the Queen Elizabeths was quite the struggle, as they where deemed to complicated and expensive. However, using them as a fast battle squadron was deemed sufficient reason. Numbers where cut down a bit and priority was given to the Revenge, that reverted a bit back to a design closer to an Iron Duke but with a QE armerment.
P-51A/Mustang I similarity?
Not the first time it happened. The first Japanese pre-dreadnoughts were made in British shipyards. The Japanese looked at what the British were making and made their own designs that were based off of the British design but with improvements here and there. The first Japanese pre-dreadnoughts were basically slightly better versions of the Majestic class of I remember correctly. Sometimes, the British would notice these improvements and adopt them into their own new designs along with their own improvements, like with HMS Tiger.
A PHD level dissertation. Outstanding !
So that's why Kongou and Iowa are often shipped.
I gotta say the Kongo class is imo the most beautiful warship class ever, they look so long and sleek, the spacing between their aft guns, the high freeboard, etc. They dont even look top heavy (unlike the Fusos) I think Nagato comes close to it but it looks a bit too stubby for my taste
Man I absolutely adore this channel
I think I got my pills mixed up, I could swear I saw Ryan teleport at 7:41
He did! How tf?
🤣👍
Great Presentation. Thank you.
Would love to see a comparison to a pre-dreadnought battleship, maybe the Mikasa since it still exists and can be visited?
Good, knowledgeable, factual presentation though the closing "who would win" summary is, at least in this case, wholly superfluous. Rather like comparing a "Deutschland" and a "Dunkerque", when the second class of ship was in any case built explicitly to overmatch the first and did so in every salient respect. Wrt the Iowas, in reality almost nothing else that was actually built compares favourably 'on balance', despite some classes/ships possessing advantages in one or two specific regards.
There are, of course, always the "Yamatos", but even their marked 'on paper' net superiority does not truly reflect the realities 'on the water'. For several reasons (inter alia, the Iowas' significant speed margin, more advanced and innately accurate main armament in the 16"/50 Mk7 gun and Mk8 'super heavy' AP shell that at 2700lbs was 84% as heavy as the Yamatos' own 18" munitions, combined crucially with the US ship's immense advantage in effective radar-directed fire control).
So to be honest (irritating for a British patriot like me to say), the Iowas likely represent the holistically best battleship design ever realised in practice by actually being built. OK, it's arguable that in her final, as-completed form, "Vanguard" was a superior 'platform' in most respects. Yet it's at best a purely academic point. Vanguard was always an opportunistic "one-off" build in any case. Conceived initially to give the RN one more capital ship "quickly" (hahaha) using existing turrets removed from Fisher's "large light cruisers" (known in the RN as 'Spurious', 'Curious' and 'Outrageous') when they were mercifully converted into aircraft carriers. With 15"/42 Mk1 guns from the 'R' class battleships' pool of spares. In consequence of which, the verdict passed upon her by RN wits was that "she's been given her aunties' teeth".
One can wish (as Churchill did when our eternally po-faced establishment were at last forced to give him a job) that someone with sense had dragged HMG kicking and screaming away from its pious drivel about the London Treaty and a 14" max main armament limit. Or had at least kicked the idiots into expediting development of a new 16" gun anyway, so the option of invoking the escalator would at least be available and COULD be used if warranted (as the USA concluded rightly to be the case re the "North Carolinas"). Of course in that case we'd never have built Vanguard at all. YET, we would have ended up with (I estimate) three somewhat larger, 16"/45 Mkii/iii armed KGVs... and seen the final two laid down c9mths later than they were in our timeline to emerge, not in spring and summer 1942 as "Howe" and "Anson", but in early to mid 1943 as "Lion" and "Temeraire"
Each of which c30kt ships with full load displacement of c51,000 tons, would've packed 9 x 16"/45 cal Mkiv guns capable of hurling (at 40 degrees elevation) a 2,375lb APC shell
While I largely agree with your assessment, Yamato-class battleships could take the hits of an Iowa-class battleship's 16" guns without the armor being penetrated, whereas the Iowas could not take the Yamato's 18" gun hits. With that said however, the Iowa's better radar and fire control would've allowed them to strike more often and I believe the repeated hits would've equalized this factor.
Still, the reality was that by the time the Iowa-class battleships were operational, Japan couldn't win the war, and all of the previous American battleship classes were no match for the Yamato and Musashi. Yamato was functional (if not fully operational) at the time of Pearl Harbor and nothing present at the time was her equal.
I don’t know. In theory, Iowa was more accurate, but in combat and various live firing tests, Yamato seems more accurate.
Thanks! I knew almost nothing about the Kongos. Now I know more than nothing.
I'd love to know how shipyards lengthen a ship - I presume they are actually cut into two parts and a section added? Seems like that would be a weak point, but I guess that's exactly how the newest US aircraft carriers are built in the first place: in large sections welded together.
I think it's usually things like adding length to, or installing a false bow (the front) A lot of early ships had ram bows and things of that sort, and it was later decided to give them pointier bows like the Iowas have.
@@rinnafarcoast2216 Agreed in most cases. The exceptions I can think of are the Gearing class Destroyers (had a 14' hull section added near the bridge which did, indeed, create a weak point), and some more modern (i.e.: cold war era) submarines.
I would like to see a comparison video of the Kongo's and the Alaska class
When USS Sealion II attacked the Kongo, its captain, Commander Eli Reich (the former XO and chief engineer of USS Sealion I, which sank at the Cavite Naval Yard on December 10, 1941 during the Japanese bombing of the yard and other military facilities in the Philippines) had ordered the Sealion II's forward torpedo room crew to write the name of four men on four of the torpedoes targeted on the Kongo. Those four names were Commander Reich's shipmates on Sealion I, who died in the aft engine room of that sub when a Japanese bomb struck it. These were their names:
Chief Electrician's Mate Sterling Cecil Foster
Chief Electrician's Mate Melvin Donald O'Connell
Electrician's Mate Third Class Vallentyne Lester Paul
Motor Machinist's Mate Ernest Ephrom Ogilvie.
Kirishima got a soft kill against South Dakota. It was her misfortune to also be fighting Washington and a superior gunnery tactician in Ching Lee.
The Kingo class were good ships for their time, but the rebuilds with the pagoda towers and too little reserve buoyancy made them vulnerable to capsizing, as occurred with a couple of the class.
Speaking of Kirishima, her final captain, Sanjo Iwabuchi, is now considered a hated figure in Philippine history, due to his role as the commander of the 31st Naval Base Force and its subsequent role in the Battle of Manila, where his men undertook an orgy of indiscriminate killings and rape - the infamous Manila Massacre of 1945.
Really good Video. 👍Could you make a similar Video with the Fuso in comparison. (I have a softspot For The japanese Pagoda Type Mast/Superstrukture) greetings from Germany 🙋
Interesting , Thank You
4:02 - Admittedly, none of the Kongōs surviving WWII isn't exactly saying much; very few of the IJN's capital ships survived WWII (IIRC, they had a grand total of one serviceable battleship, _Nagato,_ and one serviceable aircraft carrier, _Katsuragi,_ and that was _it._ )
Nagato wasn't even serviceable. It was damaged pretty badly and barely held water. It was in no condition to fight.
@@B52Stratofortress1 In that case, make it just _Katsuragi,_ out of all the IJN's capital ships, that survived WWII in serviceable condition (and her only because, by the time she was finished, the IJN couldn't field an air wing for her, so she spent the remainder of WWII in harbor disguised as a city park, complete with planting trees on her flight deck).
How would KONGO fair against ALASKA class?
Now that looks and sounds like a better comparison.
In my view, Alaska's greater speed and much superior RaDAR would allow her to sit at maximum range, dropping shells through a Kongo's deck armor-its Achilles heel. I say this in full appreciation of Kongo's beauty, and my less than salutary opinion of the Alaskas.
@@WildBillCox13 Problem is that the Alaska is only as accurate as its guns are. That's the issue with the "fire control" argument. None of the US ships can take full advantage of its fire control at such distances because their guns simply aren't accurate enough to get those type of hits in.
Not very well. The Alaska’s had more guns that were well equipped to penetrate Kongo’s armor, a better fire control and a higher speed.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 I know the the Iowas, at least during ww2, were no where near as accurate as their amazing fire control would make you think. I think Yamato showed better gunnery during a single battle than the Iowa did during her near 3 year service in ww2 and the following few years
There's a very in-depth analysis of Kirishima's loss at Guadalcanal over on the NavWeaps website. It details how the combination of heavy caliber penetrations pretty much destroyed Kirishima's watertight integrity above and below the main belt armor, and opened a lot of transverse space to the sea. She may have been an adequate combatant for naval warfare when built, but by WW2, advances in gunnery, explosive power, and armor penetration, Kirishima and her sisters were not much more than targets. Pretty much from the moment Washington opened fire, Kirishima was doomed. She faced a much more heavily armed, much more heavily armored opponent with far better fire control, and pretty much barring a "golden BB" there was only one way that fight was going to end. Her only saving grace at that point was that, with South Dakota driven out of the fight by losing her fire control, Kirishima didn't have to face both US BBs at the same time.
www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/Kirishima_Damage_Analysis.pdf
The thing that really struck me about the Kirishima's experience vis-a-vis your comments about the Kongo class' divided engineering spaces vs. an Iowa's open engineering spaces was the flooding of the spaces *above* engineering, which were open across the ship. The Kongos didn't have much stability as you noted, and had low freeboard and very little reserve buoyancy. Having that much water able to move port and starboard that high in the ship set Kirishima to swinging like a pendulum, and her crew's attempts at counterflooding only exacerbated the situation.
The Japanese should've never tried sending any battleships into "Ironbottom Sound" without proper air cover. If Rabaul couldn't provide it, then they should've reinforced the airbase and / or sent a carrier fleet to support them properly.
If any ships aside from the Yamato herself were in that position, they were going to be at the bottom of the ocean
Some damn detailed damage report there! It's amazing how much Admiral Lee pounded that poor ship. Amazing she stayed afloat for as long as she did.
Cool ship review
You need to get involved with private schools for tours.
Likely three or four of them working like a group of destroyers I would imagine could sink an Iowa class battleship, or damage her severely. But their armor means the Iowa's shells will get through, resulting in like the loss of at least one of the Kongos.
Slightly off-topic, but why are Ryan's edges pixellated?
NJ v Amagi/Atago class?
Every single video by you I watch.... I hate the invention of the torpedo a little bit more.
The Japanese torpedoes were doing damage from the start of the war, whereas the U.S. had to fix theirs...
😅
@@tyree9055 Yep. Witness the losses and damage at Pearl Harbor, the final loss of Yorktown, the loss of Wasp and damage to North Carolina, etc.
As one commentator remarked on the torpedoes vs. bombs controversy, it's better to let the water in the bottom than it is to let the air out the top.
At the close range Kirishima was at the 14 inch guns would have been effective, but she was dead to rights in the first salvo
I believe the Iowas had more accurate and sophisticated radar fire control than the Yamatos, as well as a several knot speed advantage. Probably a slight advantage in main battery rate of fire. Certainly a superior air defense capability.
Guns: It’s pretty obvious, while Iowa could rival Yamato’s penetration power from long ranges, Yamato would still be able to hit more vital areas and was completely superior at short and, most importantly, mid ranges. (A select few sources claim that Iowa’s guns were better than Yamato’s guns due to a higher muzzle velocity, by this makes no sense for a number of reasons, including the fact that Iowa had a muzzle velocity that was 100 feet per second slower than Yamato’s muzzle velocity). Yamato also had a much superior secondary armament.
Accuracy: This is a tricky one. On paper, Iowa should have much more accurate guns, but during things like live firing tests and combat near the time both ships were afloat, Yamato’s guns seem to be the more accurate of the two. Iowa should most likely spot Yamato first, though, due to superior radar.
Armor: Yamato takes the cake, the box containing the cake, the table the box is on, the house she’s in, the city, the country, and quite possibly the world itself. I mean. Yamato’s armor is thicker on an average of 4 or more inches. Most notably, Iowa’s belt was very poorly protected, while Yamato’s belt was the best in the world in terms of protection.
Speed:We see Iowa’s first, and possibly only win when it comes to speed. I mean, Iowa’s 37.9 mph versus Yamato’s 31.5 mph. It’s not even a contest.
I have to say the experimental and deployment nature of battle Cruisers it is so wider than battleships but needless to say the Congo class battle Cruisers here certainly seem to suffer from the same detrimental armor scheme that eventually ended all their other patrons and again the Japanese like everyone else not anything unique to Japan that always want to thrust them into the same circumstances as battleships out of desperation or necessity
Yet the results are almost always the same the Japanese Mass system I've always found odd they just want to overload the top of the ship and yeah it seems to be the biggest detriment causes the ships to rock and roll heavily listing it's a major design flaw that I can only imagine is simply Japanese stanchion tradition of saying oh well it'll be okay.
I do like the Kongos I think they're extremely well-balanced I think they were as effective as battle Cruisers were supposed to be and it would appear that during most of their careers they were utilized correctly but then I don't know I can't call them battleships because they're design construction and Genesis employed them to be battle Cruisers.
I don't believe the Japanese really reinforce their armor plates by any significant margin replacing additions but they were pretty much to spec without enhancements so battle Cruisers they are battle Cruisers they were to call them battleships without significant modification it's like HMS hood without some structural change in layers and armor protection the term just can't be applied successfully I had folks say to me over and over again well HMS Hood had thicker armor belts than the proceeding class of Battleship to which I've always contended well the Queen Elizabeth class was in comparison to HMS Hood yesterday's design and yes she had thicker armor belts on the side but Hood's overall armor scheme was absolutely subpar and anemic
The Kongos here were much more balanced in their distribution but still nevertheless an emphasis on speed generally met a sacrifice an armor and sacrifice they did by the Second World War the prioritization of armor wasn't necessarily as a parent with the adaptation and implementation of Naval Aviation but even when they did replace armor plates they never really did increase overall thickness even though a lot of sources I've read have told me that the deck armor was incrementally improved depending on which ship you're talking about but still
Definitely the way forward though had the original Lexington class battle Cruisers been implemented in response to these Congos I believe it would have pointed the way to the future of how the evolution of warfare was going the progenitors of the Iowa class will always be the Lexington class battle Cruisers in the American line
Phil throughout most their career I think the Japanese did use these battle Cruisers correctly as Scouts and escorts just can't get over the superstructure I would really love Ryan to do an in-depth analysis of the rationale and reason behind it it just seems like a liability ruins the lines of the ship and well there were better ways to do that stacking.
We’re in a pandemic it’ll pick back up
Regardless of how much armour Japanese put into those ships, they still battlecruiser that have no business fighting battleship
Hmm Kongo vs Iowa that is an interesting question. Umm one v one Iowa should win but 2 Kongos if they spread out and flank is a different story. Now this is assuming this is without any backup, and clear weather.
I doubt very much you'd be able to get two Kongos into a tactical position to split an Iowa's fire; Iowa's a couple knots faster and has much better radar and fire control, not to mention the heavier, much longer ranged guns. An Iowa would be free to dictate the terms of the engagement, and Washington demonstrated quite effectively that any Kongo that came into range of a 16" gunned US BB was going to die.
@@mrz80 true I didn't really think about that but then again we can never really calculate for every variable. On paper Iowa is the better ship in terms of equipment. We can never really factor the human aspect because there were plenty of times where a force had far superior equipped yet still lost.
I'd go with all 4×Kongo vs 1×Iowa and expect to loose a ship...
If I was seriously going after an Iowa, I'd send both Yamato and Musashi with Nagato and Mutsu in support and have the 4×Kongo's working the flanks...
😅👍
@@tyree9055 That’s....very over kill, but I could see your point if it was about 3 or 4 Iowas
Finally! Found a Kongos vs Iowa:
What I think:
So the Iowa can’t take advantage of superior speed, at close range and very clear and calm skies, four Kongo class battleships can definitely wreck the Iowa. Sheer firepower and numbers, an American thing, can be applied against the American ship.
Assuming the same conditions as above, it would only take 2-3 Kongo class battleships to fight a South Dakota or North Carolina.
In the Yamato vs Iowa, at close ranges American radar does not matter (since this is a thought experiment anyway let’s just assume they teleported that close), and Yamato and Iowa will slug it out. Yamato wins, but barely. At long range Yamato loses, but barely.
Whilst the South Dakota class is very powerful, and at long ranges sadly has a good chance of hurting Yamato a lot, if the American commander didn’t know about the Yamato’s capabilities, he would close the range, where Yamato’s advantages come more into play and the opposite happening to the American ship. The same happens to the North Carolina.
Note that Yamato is devastating at close range thanks in no part to her very powerful secondary armament of light cruiser guns.
If Yamato is fighting at long range and during a calm day, if manned by a superb commander with better intelligence than a North Carolina (so Yamato fires first), thanks to North Carolina’s weaker armour compared to later classes, Yamato would have a chance.
At night, this all changes and the Japanese lose most of the scenarios I described. I think four Kongo class battleships, if they can get the jump on a North Carolina or South Dakota will still win at night.
If would take both Yamato and Musashi to sink an Iowa at night.
KONGOU-DESSSSS!!!!! YAY BUCKY!
Maybe NJ VS the new super battleships there never build (the Japanese Super Yamato/Design A-150, Germanys H41-44 class and Russians Sovetsky Soyuz)
yeah good point i think, but it would be more fair georgia's, montana's and iowa's vs them.
I doubt the New Jersey could penetrate Super Yamato’s armor, who was supposed to be equipped with armor thicker than Yamato’s armor on an average of 2 inches
But the Super Yamato would have needed two armour plates because Japan couldn’t produce them that thick, a major problem. I don’t think it can take on a Montana if it has superior fire control.
@@carriewong68 I think it could. Montana would have a lot of trouble penetration A-150's armor, A-150 would not have the same problem
Kongou-desu!
Terrible shame you guys had to close.
We're back! On weekends only for now.
@@BattleshipNewJersey You guys are open normally now I presume?
sorry ryan, stay safe i will help
The guns were not Japanese they were British designed by Vickers
Feed the algo
3 Kongo for one Iowa. Iowa has superior RaDAR and Fire Control, superior speed, superior armor, not to mention superior guns.
It depends on if it is at night and who is in command. If adm Lee is in command, all four Kongos wouldn't get the better of an Iowa. If it's at night with someone else in command, they would have a much better chance of taking on an Iowa. In WW2 naval battles a lot depended on the competence of a commander and the training of the crews.
I'd go with all four Kongo's. If you start adding the other period Japanese battleships, then it begins to equalize real quick (at least in terms of armor and firepower as speed was never matched). Once the Yamato and Musashi get involved things start to tilt heavily against them and you need to start adding Iowa's!
😅
@@tyree9055 I'd even match SoDaks or North Carolinas against the Yamatos, especially at long range. With an Iowa or two maneuvering to constrain their wiggle room, a solid formation of South Dakotas and/or Washingtons would stand every chance of crushing the two Yamatos. Remember, though slightly shorter ranged, the 16"/45 had better long range horizontal armor penetration than the 16"/50, owing to the slightly slower projectiles' more-nearly-vertical terminal trajectory. Really, I think that any grouping of the three classes of last-gen US battleships would most likely have ripped apart any practically achievable squadron of Japanese BBs.
I might be a bit further out on a limb here, but if you could contrive a tactical situation where the Kongos' superior speed could be taken out of the equation, like catching them at one end or the other of Iron Bottom Sound and crossing their T, I'd put money on a competently commanded group of Tennessees and Colorados against the Kongos.
@@mrz80 But they can't even penetrate the Yamato's armor at shorter ranges (point blank, yes... but longer, no) and you have to hit at the longest ranges for plunging fire to bypass their belt armor. Possible, but highly improbable and the Yamato's ability to absorb punishment is high enough that I doubt they could knock them out before they were knocked out themselves because the Yamato's 18" guns could penetrate the Iowa's armor at nearly any range and it only gets worse as they close the distance.
@@tyree9055 The US BB's at wars end all had gunnery radar. It makes a big difference. I still say a lot more depends on the people in command and the situation, ie- location, time of day, weather.
9:56 - Japanese damage control in general was... not great.
Man you are making all the comparissons unfair...
USNavy had BY FAR the best radar FCS AA system. Not even the British had that level of AA, let alone the rest of the nations (excluding German soil in late war) so comparing USNavy ships to foreign nation's ships and pointing that they had lesser AA its wrong since you are taking USNavy AA as the "average" while it was by far the leader in that regard.
That being said, Kongos 1941/42 AA was much better than Italian Soviet or German AA naval AA, and was kind of "on pair" with the legacy fitted AA that many USNavy standar BB (and most cruisers) had by 12/7/41.
Kongos AA capabilities in 1944 sits far behind USNavy and a little less but still quite behind UK... Nevertheless they were quite relevant compared what most nations had in their ships.
They just happened to be against to an overwhelming force able to deploy massive airstrikes with top of the technology aircraft commanded by the most experienced pilots in the world, an airwing that would have even overwhelmed the defense of the own USNavy ships (but taking way heavier losses).
But since we can use our imagination to put Iowas against the 300 aircraft who sunk Yamato, we can also use our imagination to think about how much better could have a heavy AA reinforced Kongo BB/BC covered allied carriers against inexperienced pilots striking in older slower IJN planes. I think not as good as USNavy nor UK ships, but i do think quite well if compared to the rest of the nations in the world
If you'd like to see our video on the Kongo class, you can find it here: th-cam.com/video/S2r5dSEYngw/w-d-xo.html
I will need an address to send a money order
God bless America
Nice
‘South Dakota’ was a victim of an electrical failure and subsequent riddled by a lot of the Japanese Task Force. Crew casualties and serious damage was minimal.
Adm Willis Lee was an old school gunnery expert that embraced the new Radar Technology gunnery and ‘Washington’ was likely the deadliest warship afloat that night.
‘Kirishima’ never stood a chance.