Poor Hiei, once the Emperor’s favorite warship, she gets sent off to Guadalcanal to bombard a supposedly defenseless airfield under the cover of night, only to instead be forced into a midnight 5in shell pie-eating-contest with a swarm of USN cruisers & destroyers at point blank range, only to then get her steering knocked out by a heavy cruiser she’d already helped cripple earlier on in the fight. After that hellish all-nighter, she spends all morning doing donuts around Iron Bottom Sound, while B-17s and the Cactus Airforce’s own buzzard patrol try to finish her off, her hope of surviving rising & falling with each new wave of attacking aircraft, until finally, torpedo bombers from Enterprise (Why does it ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ENTERPRISE??!!!) put a couple of fish into her and finally seal her fate. Not only is she the first Japanese battleship lost in the war, but one of the very few Japanese capital ships that, instead of being intentionally scuttled, has to be completely abandoned by its entire remaining crew, including a forcibly removed, kicking & screaming Captain Nishida - by order of Admiral Yamamoto, to serve as a distraction to the enemy while the Japanese pulled back their ships to regroup.
Hiei's bridge was actually a template for the Yamato class battleship. It was great that she, and her sistership, Kirishima was discovered by the team of researchers funded by the late Microsoft co-founder, Paul G. Allen. Hopefully others will be discovered, such as Shinano, Yamato's half sistership. Take care, and all the best.
Hiei, a battleship/cruiser fighting the little American tin-can turned out to be no Laffey matter, after the fight, the next morning, Hiei was left with much to sink about.
@@yoseipilot she may not have "lost" to Laffey, but after her onslaught Hiei was doing the equivalent of trying to hold her skull together while profusely hemorrhaging from the nose and ears (i/e her superstructure was peppered, the admiral's chief of staff and much of the bridge crew was killed, and R Adm. Abe himself was critically injured)
@@yoseipilot Read one treatise that American ships were almost as good at hitting their own as the Japanese. Destroyers Barton, Cushing, Laffey and Monssen and light cruiser Atlanta sunk on the first night, and Admirals Callaghan and Scott killed.
Sister Kirishima met the South Dakota and Washington the night following Hiei's demise. SD had an embarrassing loss of electricity but Washington sank the Kirishima with gunfire very quickly.
I like the simplicity of this guys channel. Just straight facts, pics with analysis, short stories on the vessel and battle that sunk it. No bs music and fancy shmancy graphics. You do great work. Subbed.
Hiei was mauled by US cruiser and destroyer fire. Her command and control functions were completely wrecked. Her bridge was turned into a burning charnel house. Just figuring out who was actually in command took some time. Time she didn't have.
Second only to Ise overall in my opinion. Also entertaining to listen to someone who isn’t into the Pacific War, or knows nothing about Japanese pronunciation attempt to read a loud.
I imagine that the IJN likes Hiei the most out of her sister ships. They preserved her as a training ship, made her the Emperor's Ship, and fitted prototype of Yamato's pagoda mast on her. A navy doesn't do that for just any ship hahaha.
As a teenager I had such a contempt for these ships. Thinking them too old, and lightly armored for much use. Time, age, and experience alters one's perception of events. The Kongo class, despite their age, proved to be among the most effective ships of the type. All over the world, there served numerous battleships. Most would see little real combat at sea, against other ships. Precisely because they were not fast enough to be used. Heavy armor proved in the end, to be an impediment to mobility. If the ship is too slow to accomplish the mission? What good is it? Numerous ships with much heavier armor sank, without having that armor penetrated. Making the armor more of an impediment to buoyancy than protection for the ship. It's fortunate for the US Navy, that Japan had only four fast ships like the Kongo class. Losing two of these ships off Guadalcanal, was a bigger blow to the Japanese Navy than one might be inclined to think.
@@jaiclary8423 By 1942, most Japanese capitols ships had some form of radar. But those sets were greatly inferior even to the older sets of American ships. In particular the Japanese radars were basic surface search and air search types. They didn't have fire control radars, like those used by USS Washington at Guadalcanal. The radars available were so unreliable that they were not often used. So in comparison to US Navy ships? They might as well have not had radar at all. So it's very possible that Japanese radars were present. Yet, had little if any impact on the battle.
The KONGOs were indeed valuable to the Japanese navy because of their speed, but a secondary benefit of their machinery and their construction for speed was that they had a longer operating radius than typical Japanese ships. In their early war role as escorts for Kido Butai, the Japanese carrier fleet, they served as tankers for refueling the fleet's destroyers (always short-ranged), in situations where conventional tankers could not operate with the fleet.
@@takashitamagawa5881 The value of these ships is still underestimated today. For decades I accepted the views of heavy armor advocates. Until I began thinking about why no more battleships were being built. Then I considered the short lived career of HMS Vanguard. A ship which would probably never have existed, save for two factors. More than 30 years of battleship components lying about unused. Then there was the continued existence of the Iowa class. What all these ships had in common, was an ability to reach speeds of 30 knots, or greater. Talking to a Boiler Technician from USS New Jersey BB-62. I learned than with half her boilers OFF LINE! She could cruise for weeks at 27 knots! In 1983, her top speed was still classified information! To this day, the US Navy has never admitted that these ships were faster than 32 knots. It was then, I began to reevaluate my views on battleship size and armor. Armor offers great strength and protection where it is. Only small, isolated areas can be heavily armored. This is due to the weight of the armor. Armor cannot stop a major fire from consuming the ship. Nor is armor much use against progressive flooding. Instead it's weight drags the ship towards the sea floor. Then I remembered a damage report published in a history book. A book on the operational history of US battleships in WW-II. Only one report was published, but only that report was needed. It detailed the damage inflicted to USS South Dakota during the naval battle for Guadalcanal. A 14" armor piercing shell, penetrated 14" deep into the 15" thick barbet armor. When it exploded, that explosion vented up through three decks. Steel fragments severely damaged the barrels of all 6 forward 16" guns. The turret above was jammed in train, and could not be moved. One hit had knocked out six of nine 16" main guns! The explosion left a pit 14" deep in the armor. Armor piercing shell hits on heavy armor. All left 5," 6," and 8," deep pits in the ship's heavy armor. That published report was the battleship's death knell. South Dakota was repaired and returned to service for the rest of the war. Afterwards her remaining service was short lived. As was that of all other battleships, except for the Iowa class. The heavily damaged armor was costly to repair. Large sections of armor would need to be replaced. The cost of everything was too much. Not when fires, large bombs, and torpedoes were unaffected by all that expensive armor. Mobility was what really mattered. The slowest battleships spent the war escorting freighter convoys and bombarding shore targets. In nearly every naval battle the slow battleships remained largely useless. Too slow to use their guns, and justify their existence. Moderate to light armor used aboard cruisers proved more effective. Fighting most battles at sea made these cruisers, the defacto frontline battleships of the war. Their primary weapons were 6" or 8" guns, with 4" to 5" secondary multipurpose batteries. HMS Dreadnought was too big, and too slow, her 12" guns had a rate of fire that was too low. As were all of the slow moving battleships built later. Jutland could have revealed that truth, but instead of a guadalcanal like night battle. The German High Seas fleet fled back to port. Turning a minor tactical victory into the ultimate strategic defeat. Smaller faster, and less costly ships would have been better. Today's warships are smaller, faster, and less expensive. Otherwise we might have mighty battleships, launching equally mighty missiles at each other.
@@scottjackson5173 Warships less expensive? EVEN accounting for inflation a destroyer today is more costly then a Battleship then. As regards armor, well Hiei was lost because her armor was not thick enough. South Dakota survived point blank firing from heavy cruisers and a battleship and while put out of action was never in danger of sinking. So your claim about armor is rather ricidulous
@@gruntforever7437 Interesting perspective but fundamentally flawed. South Dakota is precisely my point! Did you actually READ her damage report? I did. Yes she survived the battle. But Ihe battle damage demonstrated two big weaknesses. 1. She lost all power, in battle! Making her a helpless target for the Japanese. All South Dakota clss ships had that problem. Shock from firing the main guns tripped the main breakers. 2. A single 14" hit failed to penetrate the 15" barbett armor. But it left a 14" pit in the armor. The explosion vented up through the decks above. Jamming the turret above. Steel fragments severely damaged the barrels of all 6 foreword 16" guns. Hits from 5", 6", and 8" shells. Left pits that deep in the armor. So the turrets were too close to each other. One hit having silenced 6 of 9 main guns. More over she was fortunate NOT to have taken a hit aft in the rudder machinery. So none of the South Dakota class lasted long after tha war. Having some of the shortest service lives of any battleship. How much heavy armor do you see on modern ships today? Too heavy, too expensive, and no protection from fires and flooding. That's what WW-II demonstrated about battleships. It's also why nobody builds missile armed battleships today.
The naval battles in support of Guadalcanal were savage and the USN was taken to the woodshed by IJN units. IJN destroyers with their ‘Long Lance’ torpedoes were terrifyingly effective despite the USN having radar advantage. I read somewhere that the USN lost five sailors for every soldier lost on land during that campaign.
Alot of the earlier defeats were due to commanders lack of faith in radar....and apparently a lack of understanding in how nasty the long Lance was. Which by then seems crazy.
@@rodjbosch lack of faith in some situations. Other times screen clutter from all the surrounding land masses, and even fire control radar all concentrating on the biggest ship in the enemy line. The USN learned some very hard lessons. The number of cruisers we lost was staggering.
@@francisbusa1074 There was a lot of information about the Long Lance but Naval Intelligence (sic) did not want to believe it. At Tassafaronga, several of the captains did believe it but the Admiral who was completely new to the Pacific did not and there you are.
@5:18 I think I know what video you're talking about but to be sure does it involve the Russian ship "Kamchatka"? Lol now I have to go watch it again after I finish this one! Great video my friend!
2:32 Vickers Design 472C. In World of Warships, this is the exact model of the Tier 4 battlecruiser Ishizuchi. Also, the in-game model of Tier 5 battlecruiser Kongo is actually Hiei.
Most serious losses in the Pacific were due to failures in Flag Officer leadership, and despite this, great performances by a 90% plus Reserve Force & Intelligence breakthroughs, produced great successes on the Pacific Battle Front. One example was, Admiral Halsey chasing a Japanese decoy force, almost cost us over a quarter million casualties and an Amphibious Fleet. Thank God the lightly armed American Destroyers sacrificed themselves, and the IJN Center Force unbelievably turned back just before achieving victory!
@@francisbusa1074 I'm sure that's how Admiral Kinkaid felt at the time. Interestingly, that's how the Japanese felt also, Mongolian Invasion foiled by the "Divine Wind" the Russian Fleet destroyed x 2 in 1904, as well as their numerous early successes in WW II. Thank you for your response! 👍🏾
Center Force would not have made it out alive from Leyte Gulf - the US had enough air assets to track them for the rest of the US fleet - but would have had something to show for their inevitable loss.
The Kongos and Kakos had a lot of similarities. Older and less armament than other classes, put right out front in the fighting, and individual ships even being lost (or not) by similar methods.
Hopefully you do videos for all her sisters. I like how you said that her sisters would have more...........exiting lives. Well kirishima got railed to the seabed by washington. Kongo was asserting dominance over yamato (especially at samar) and huruna was from what i can tell was doing similar thing as kongo. Admittedly the details ive forgetten because its been so long since i looked at the kongo sisters. So excuse me if ive got anything wrong.
Especially at Samar? Yamato sank the escort carrier Gambier Bay and the destroyer Johnston, helped to sink the destroyer Hoel, and damaged the escort carrier White Plains beyond repair. Kongo helped to sink Hoel, sank the frigate Samuel B Roberts, and.......maybe but very unlikely scored a hit on Gambier Bay Haruna, she's much worse. From what I can tell, she only scored a few straddles on an escort carrier or two. I've always found the Kongo's careers very overrated. I mean, they were used more than the other battleships, but that doesn't mean they did much of note, as doing more than spending most of the war tied in port or serving as large and powerful troop ferries and cargo ships, and then being sunk at Leyte Gulf or afterwards while only managing to damage or sink a few escort carriers, destroyers, and frigates off Samar isn't a very high bar to jump. They mainly saw a bunch of convoy and carrier escorting, with the occasional shore bombardment. The only exceptions were Hiei and Kirishima sinking Edsall in the Indian Ocean and Hiei and Kirishima getting their ass kicked off Guadalcanal.
@@metaknight115 I thought kongo sank gambler Bay. Wasn't it her captain who was first to figure out that the ships they were engaging lightly armoured vessels and switched to HE? Johnston attacked her own ships? Wait am I reading that wrong? Edit yes I did I'm not saying that the kongo class did amazing but I wouldn't say they did bad overall considering all things. They just didn't see much action in their lifespan. At samar whenever I see the US losses. Kongo was a common appearance. Granted not the only one but if I remember correctly she had scored hits on all the ships lost in that battle. I'm not saying that she sank them all or anything but considering how the battle went on the Japanese side. I wouldn't say she did bad. I blame most of that on Kurita who despite it being an unexpected and confusing battle. He did still make some........interesting decisions himself like pulling back a destroyer squadron when he didn't need to.
@@Caktusdud. Many of her alleged hits were misattributed to her and belonged to other ships. Most famously, at 7:30, Johnston had just crippled the heavy cruiser Kumano when three battleship caliber shells gouged into her, cutting her speed to 17 knots and disabling 3/5ths of her main guns, and according to the state of her wreck split her in two when under fire from a destroyer line. These hits were recorded as being 14-inch shells from Kongo at 12,300 yards, but as it would turn out Kongo was much farther and was blinded by a rain quill, unable to fire her guns at targets. However, at a distance of 20,300 yards, battleship Yamato claimed numerous first salvo hits on a US "cruiser" at the exact moment Johnston was hit. The destroyer Kishinami and the light cruiser Noshiro also observed Yamato hitting a US "cruiser" matching Johnston's location. It was the heavy cruiser Chikuma who noticed noticed Gambier Bay was an escort carrier and fired HE shells, lighting her flight deck aflame. At 8:20, a battleship caliber shell, claimed by both Kongo and Yamato severely damaged Gambier Bay, but most agree that Yamato scored the hit due to housing the shorter range and the correct firing angle. After that at 8:23, a fatal hit was scored as a shell flooded Gambier Bay's engine and severely cracked her hull leaving her dead in the water and slowly sinking. Initially it was though that she was fatally hit by an 8-inch cruiser shell, likely from Chikuma, but later studies state that she was more likely hit by another 18.1-inch shell from Yamato. Her hits on Hoel and Heerman are undisputed, from what I can tell.
@@Caktusdud. Thanks I also main a mistake by stating "Her hits on Hoel and Heerman are disputed, from what I can tell". I meant to say UNDEISPUTED, as from what I can tell these hits are definitively from Kongo
She was indeed the first Japanese BB sunk, but she wasn't alone for long. _Kirishima_ returned the following night and was sunk by _USS Washington._ For her part, she did manage one direct hit on the rear turret of _USS South Dakota_ in the same battle.
The Kongos were the IJN’s most active big-gun capital ships, but personally I can’t understand the argument that they were far more useful because of how active they were given their rather poor track record in WWII in spite of that activity, from half the class being lost during the two Night Battles of Guadalcanal to Kongo’s supposed hits on Taffy 3 turning out to have almost all been miscredited at the expense of other Japanese vessels. Mind you, having lacklustre careers isn’t unusual for capital ships (even those that weren’t part of the last, doomed generation of battleships), but the issue is that the Kongos (among other vessels) are too often argued to have been significantly more successful or important than they really were.
Honestly though I can't think of a another class of battleship that had to carry more weight for their respective navy then the Kongos. For being a pre-WW1 battlecruiser design, those four ships put a lot of km on the clock in the pacific theater and had to face ships decades more modern then themselves. They were the only capital ships the IJN had that were fast enough to escort CVs and just their presence in theater dictated a lot of the choices the USN had to make in 1942-43. Their use in the escort role was the direct reason the Iowas had to do 30 knots. If I recall correctly they sacrificed both guns and armour in the original design because they absolutely had to be able to catch and kill the Kongos. I'm not sure of a single capital ship class from any navy that put in the same amount of work over that many years except the Queen Elizabeths.
Well, in comparison to the two next newer classes of battleships, the Fuso and Ise class, the Kongos were far more useful. Ise and Hyuga became FrankenBattleCarriers, but were too slow to steam with fleet carriers. Fuso and Yamashiro fought in one engagement, the Battle of Surigao Strait, where things went poorly for them (USN DD torpedoes finally actually worked!).
Very agreeable comment, though almost all of Kongo's alleged hits being miscredited at Samar is a bit of an over exaggeration. Yea, Kongo's alleged three crippling (and eventually fatal) hits against Johnston were actually from Yamato, and a hit she claimed on Gambier Bay at 8:20 was, again, probably from Yamato, but I believe her three fatal hits on Samuel B Roberts and critical hits on Hoel are undisputed.
The loss of life is tragic and you comment that 200 is not a high figure. I wonder, for the layman amongst us, if when looking at the weaponry, speed, etc you might also tell us what sort of crew numbers there are on these ships? Thanks
It's an extremely niche but increasingly irritating pet peeve being someone deeply interested in early-mid 20th century naval history AND the Japanese language 🤣 I know Japanese is often said to be a "flat" language where you don't put emphasis on any particular syllable, and yet native English speakers STILL have this almost preternatural ability to put emphasis on the wrong syllable in any given Japanese word. "Yo-ko-SU-ka" instead of "Yo-KO-su-ka," "Hi-E-i" instead of "HI-e-i," etc. And that's before we get to the tendency to replace the "eh" sound on the end of any word ending in "e" with an "ee" sound (i.e. "sah-kee" instead of "sah-keh"). I can forgive not nailing the Japanese "R" sound since that's not a sound we have natively in English, or subtle things like the "F" sound since that can be hard for a non-Japanese speaker to even hear, but most of these mistakes are down to a simple lack of effort (at least in the context of a video, where the creator had time to stop and look up a pronunciation before putting it in the video).
Her armour was pretty thin for a fast battleship. 8 inch belt armour is not very thick. Ideally, she should have had a 12 inch belt. That is why she could not go toe to toe with a comparable American battleship. Her gunnery also left a lot to be desired.
@@rohanthandi4903 A: I assumed that you were just talking about any WW1 era battleship, not specifically ships that were older than her. B: The Kongos each only served in one or two battles. Kongo and Haruna only partook in the battle off Samar, where Haruna only straddled two escort carriers while Kongo sank the Frigate Samuel B Roberts and helping to sink the destroyer Hoel. Meanwhile, Hiei and Kirishima as stated sank USS Edsall and fought at Guadalcanal, where Hiei sank two destroyers while the pair disabled the cruiser San Fransisco, followed by Hiei's sinking, while Kirishima then crippled the battleship South Dakota but was in turn sunk by the battleship Washington. Revenge and Royal Oak both partook in the battle of Jutland, where they scored hits on the battlecruiser Derfflinger, while Resolution served in the battle of Mers El Kiber where she helped to sink the battle ship Provence and helped to cripple the battleship Bretagne before she was sunk by HMS Hood, and the Battle of Dakar where she lightly damaged the battleship Richelieu. Warspite was involved in four naval engagements, while Malaya, Barham, and Valiant were all involved in three each. Renwoon engaged the battleship Scharnhorst and Gniesnaeu off Norway, where she and Gnienseau both scored numerous hits on eachother, while Repulse partook in the 2nd Battle of Helgoland Bight where she forced the battleships Kaiser and Kaiserin off from engaging a cruiser force.
When I was in High School in the late '60's me and my friends played a lot of Avalon Hill Games - one of which was _Midway_ . I played both sides repeatedly and as with the _Jutland_ game many of these ships became my old friends. _Hiei_ and _Kirishima_ were lost in the 1st and 2nd nights of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Unlike his predecessors - and to his lasting fame - Halsey sent his ships in to take on the Japanese and the two sides shot each other to pieces - giving Iron Bottom Sound it's well deserved nickname. Here, while the Japanese had started the war with a highly trained, excellent Navy, the Americans could replace their losses and the Japanese could not. As Carrier Escorts, the Kongo Class ships were not nearly as effective as their American Counterparts with their 5"/38 and 40mm Anti-Aircraft guns which were also bristling with 20mm's where ever there was a spot to put one. The Japanese 5" and 25mm guns were simply horrible in comparison, lacking in quantity, range, rate of fire and lethality. IIRC from Parshall and Tully's _Shattered Sword_ most of the AA protection of the Japanese Carriers - came from the Carriers themselves - and it was woefully lacking. The real protection the Carriers received from American Air Attacks was from the Japanese Combat Air Patrol A6M's. .
The port of Yokosuka is pronounced "Yo- Kus- Ka" I suspect it's much like the contractions of names in English , like Worcestershire being contracted to "Wooster" or Woostershire"
Considering how bad her gunnery was, how good a training ship could she have been? Sounds more like she was a dumping ground for second and third rate Officers.
@@yoseipilot by the time of Guadalcanal we knew what the Yamato was. Not even close to a secret and had not been for a while. I had not heard about shortage of bombardment shells but that is certainly possible because Yamato wssupposed to fight it out with other BBs and armor piercing is what matters there
Poor Hiei, once the Emperor’s favorite warship, she gets sent off to Guadalcanal to bombard a supposedly defenseless airfield under the cover of night, only to instead be forced into a midnight 5in shell pie-eating-contest with a swarm of USN cruisers & destroyers at point blank range, only to then get her steering knocked out by a heavy cruiser she’d already helped cripple earlier on in the fight. After that hellish all-nighter, she spends all morning doing donuts around Iron Bottom Sound, while B-17s and the Cactus Airforce’s own buzzard patrol try to finish her off, her hope of surviving rising & falling with each new wave of attacking aircraft, until finally, torpedo bombers from Enterprise (Why does it ALWAYS HAVE TO BE ENTERPRISE??!!!) put a couple of fish into her and finally seal her fate. Not only is she the first Japanese battleship lost in the war, but one of the very few Japanese capital ships that, instead of being intentionally scuttled, has to be completely abandoned by its entire remaining crew, including a forcibly removed, kicking & screaming Captain Nishida - by order of Admiral Yamamoto, to serve as a distraction to the enemy while the Japanese pulled back their ships to regroup.
Murica!!!!!!
Because at the time, Enterprise was "Enterprise vs. Japan."
@@seventhson27 Accurate.
Enterprise is the Hero Ship of WW2. A shame they scrapped her.
Well, Roosevelt's ship was the cruiser USS Houston, which was sunk by the Japanese in the Sunda Strait, 1 March 1942, so I guess this makes "us" even!
Hiei's bridge was actually a template for the Yamato class battleship.
It was great that she, and her sistership, Kirishima was discovered by the team of researchers funded by the late Microsoft co-founder, Paul G. Allen.
Hopefully others will be discovered, such as Shinano, Yamato's half sistership.
Take care, and all the best.
Hiei: "Oh, you're approaching me?"
Laffey: "I can't beat the shit out of you without getting closer"
Hiei, a battleship/cruiser fighting the little American tin-can turned out to be no Laffey matter, after the fight, the next morning, Hiei was left with much to sink about.
@@yoseipilot Hiel died at the end so SHE LOST to smaller warships !
"Hoho! Then come as close as you like!"
@@yoseipilot she may not have "lost" to Laffey, but after her onslaught Hiei was doing the equivalent of trying to hold her skull together while profusely hemorrhaging from the nose and ears (i/e her superstructure was peppered, the admiral's chief of staff and much of the bridge crew was killed, and R Adm. Abe himself was critically injured)
@@yoseipilot Read one treatise that American ships were almost as good at hitting their own as the Japanese. Destroyers Barton, Cushing, Laffey and Monssen and light cruiser Atlanta sunk on the first night, and Admirals Callaghan and Scott killed.
That first picture with the sun behind the Hiei is probably the most beautiful photo taken to a warship ever.
Sister Kirishima met the South Dakota and Washington the night following Hiei's demise. SD had an embarrassing loss of electricity but Washington sank the Kirishima with gunfire very quickly.
"Ironbottom Sound"
A very appropriate name 😎
I like the simplicity of this guys channel. Just straight facts, pics with analysis, short stories on the vessel and battle that sunk it. No bs music and fancy shmancy graphics. You do great work. Subbed.
Japanese ships were something I overlooked for extremely long, nowadays I absolutely love Fusō, but also the Kongo class
Me too.
loved Hiei in KanColle
Hieeiiiiiiii
Read about her in the expanded fanfic verse...she's even more lovable.
Hiei was mauled by US cruiser and destroyer fire. Her command and control functions were completely wrecked. Her bridge was turned into a burning charnel house.
Just figuring out who was actually in command took some time. Time she didn't have.
Superb work again and to clarify myths and anomalies in previous historical appraisals.
Interesting with a measure of grim humour
I like the name hiei, probably my favorite from the class.
Second only to Ise overall in my opinion. Also entertaining to listen to someone who isn’t into the Pacific War, or knows nothing about Japanese pronunciation attempt to read a loud.
I imagine that the IJN likes Hiei the most out of her sister ships. They preserved her as a training ship, made her the Emperor's Ship, and fitted prototype of Yamato's pagoda mast on her. A navy doesn't do that for just any ship hahaha.
Great work Skynea. Thanks for the Ishizuchi mention, I like that premium ship.
The Kongo class is my favorite of the Japanese battleships.
As a teenager I had such a contempt for these ships. Thinking them too old, and lightly armored for much use.
Time, age, and experience alters one's perception of events. The Kongo class, despite their age, proved to be among the most effective ships of the type. All over the world, there served numerous battleships. Most would see little real combat at sea, against other ships. Precisely because they were not fast enough to be used. Heavy armor proved in the end, to be an impediment to mobility. If the ship is too slow to accomplish the mission? What good is it? Numerous ships with much heavier armor sank, without having that armor penetrated. Making the armor more of an impediment to buoyancy than protection for the ship.
It's fortunate for the US Navy, that Japan had only four fast ships like the Kongo class. Losing two of these ships off Guadalcanal, was a bigger blow to the Japanese Navy than one might be inclined to think.
@@jaiclary8423 By 1942, most Japanese capitols ships had some form of radar. But those sets were greatly inferior even to the older sets of American ships. In particular the Japanese radars were basic surface search and air search types. They didn't have fire control radars, like those used by USS Washington at Guadalcanal. The radars available were so unreliable that they were not often used. So in comparison to US Navy ships? They might as well have not had radar at all. So it's very possible that Japanese radars were present. Yet, had little if any impact on the battle.
The KONGOs were indeed valuable to the Japanese navy because of their speed, but a secondary benefit of their machinery and their construction for speed was that they had a longer operating radius than typical Japanese ships. In their early war role as escorts for Kido Butai, the Japanese carrier fleet, they served as tankers for refueling the fleet's destroyers (always short-ranged), in situations where conventional tankers could not operate with the fleet.
@@takashitamagawa5881 The value of these ships is still underestimated today. For decades I accepted the views of heavy armor advocates. Until I began thinking about why no more battleships were being built. Then I considered the short lived career of HMS Vanguard. A ship which would probably never have existed, save for two factors. More than 30 years of battleship components lying about unused. Then there was the continued existence of the Iowa class. What all these ships had in common, was an ability to reach speeds of 30 knots, or greater. Talking to a Boiler Technician from USS New Jersey BB-62. I learned than with half her boilers OFF LINE! She could cruise for weeks at 27 knots! In 1983, her top speed was still classified information! To this day, the US Navy has never admitted that these ships were faster than 32 knots.
It was then, I began to reevaluate my views on battleship size and armor. Armor offers great strength and protection where it is. Only small, isolated areas can be heavily armored. This is due to the weight of the armor. Armor cannot stop a major fire from consuming the ship. Nor is armor much use against progressive flooding. Instead it's weight drags the ship towards the sea floor.
Then I remembered a damage report published in a history book. A book on the operational history of US battleships in WW-II. Only one report was published, but only that report was needed. It detailed the damage inflicted to USS South Dakota during the naval battle for Guadalcanal. A 14" armor piercing shell, penetrated 14" deep into the 15" thick barbet armor. When it exploded, that explosion vented up through three decks. Steel fragments severely damaged the barrels of all 6 forward 16" guns. The turret above was jammed in train, and could not be moved. One hit had knocked out six of nine 16" main guns! The explosion left a pit 14" deep in the armor. Armor piercing shell hits on heavy armor. All left 5," 6," and 8," deep pits in the ship's heavy armor. That published report was the battleship's death knell. South Dakota was repaired and returned to service for the rest of the war. Afterwards her remaining service was short lived. As was that of all other battleships, except for the Iowa class. The heavily damaged armor was costly to repair. Large sections of armor would need to be replaced. The cost of everything was too much. Not when fires, large bombs, and torpedoes were unaffected by all that expensive armor.
Mobility was what really mattered. The slowest battleships spent the war escorting freighter convoys and bombarding shore targets. In nearly every naval battle the slow battleships remained largely useless. Too slow to use their guns, and justify their existence.
Moderate to light armor used aboard cruisers proved more effective. Fighting most battles at sea made these cruisers, the defacto frontline battleships of the war. Their primary weapons were 6" or 8" guns, with 4" to 5" secondary multipurpose batteries.
HMS Dreadnought was too big, and too slow, her 12" guns had a rate of fire that was too low. As were all of the slow moving battleships built later. Jutland could have revealed that truth, but instead of a guadalcanal like night battle. The German High Seas fleet fled back to port. Turning a minor tactical victory into the ultimate strategic defeat. Smaller faster, and less costly ships would have been better. Today's warships are smaller, faster, and less expensive. Otherwise we might have mighty battleships, launching equally mighty missiles at each other.
@@scottjackson5173 Warships less expensive? EVEN accounting for inflation a destroyer today is more costly then a Battleship then.
As regards armor, well Hiei was lost because her armor was not thick enough. South Dakota survived point blank firing from heavy cruisers and a battleship and while put out of action was never in danger of sinking. So your claim about armor is rather ricidulous
@@gruntforever7437 Interesting perspective but fundamentally flawed. South Dakota is precisely my point! Did you actually READ her damage report? I did. Yes she survived the battle. But Ihe battle damage demonstrated two big weaknesses.
1. She lost all power, in battle! Making her a helpless target for the Japanese. All South Dakota clss ships had that problem. Shock from firing the main guns tripped the main breakers.
2. A single 14" hit failed to penetrate the 15" barbett armor. But it left a 14" pit in the armor. The explosion vented up through the decks above. Jamming the turret above. Steel fragments severely damaged the barrels of all 6 foreword 16" guns. Hits from 5", 6", and 8" shells. Left pits that deep in the armor. So the turrets were too close to each other. One hit having silenced 6 of 9 main guns. More over she was fortunate NOT to have taken a hit aft in the rudder machinery.
So none of the South Dakota class lasted long after tha war. Having some of the shortest service lives of any battleship. How much heavy armor do you see on modern ships today? Too heavy, too expensive, and no protection from fires and flooding. That's what WW-II demonstrated about battleships. It's also why nobody builds missile armed battleships today.
That first picture with the sunset behind it is actually pretty cool looking.
The naval battles in support of Guadalcanal were savage and the USN was taken to the woodshed by IJN units. IJN destroyers with their ‘Long Lance’ torpedoes were terrifyingly effective despite the USN having radar advantage.
I read somewhere that the USN lost five sailors for every soldier lost on land during that campaign.
Alot of the earlier defeats were due to commanders lack of faith in radar....and apparently a lack of understanding in how nasty the long Lance was.
Which by then seems crazy.
@@rodjbosch lack of faith in some situations. Other times screen clutter from all the surrounding land masses, and even fire control radar all concentrating on the biggest ship in the enemy line. The USN learned some very hard lessons. The number of cruisers we lost was staggering.
@@rodjbosch
The USN only found out about the Long Lance in 1943, even though they had intelligence on it as early as 1940!
@@bkjeong4302 SNAFU for sure! I wasn't aware of that. Very interesting.
@@francisbusa1074 There was a lot of information about the Long Lance but Naval Intelligence (sic) did not want to believe it. At Tassafaronga, several of the captains did believe it but the Admiral who was completely new to the Pacific did not and there you are.
Very interesting info and history about Hiei and what Japan's navy was doing between the wars. I subbed.
@5:18
I think I know what video you're talking about but to be sure does it involve the Russian ship "Kamchatka"?
Lol now I have to go watch it again after I finish this one!
Great video my friend!
Do you see torpedo boats?
2:32 Vickers Design 472C. In World of Warships, this is the exact model of the Tier 4 battlecruiser Ishizuchi. Also, the in-game model of Tier 5 battlecruiser Kongo is actually Hiei.
What differentiates kongo from hiei?
Nice video.
15:19 I thought it was Hiei and Kongo with the invasion force. With Kirishima and Haruna on carrier escort (for all the help that did).
That is correct. The pairings of the four KONGO class battleships were switched for the Midway battle, as documented in numerous sources.
Read Neptune's Inferno by James D. Hornfischer. Brutal nighttime fighting, gun to gun . IJN put up one helluva fight after Midway.
Talking about Drachinifel's video on the russia/japanese war? Because it's pretty entertaining
Most serious losses in the Pacific were due to failures in Flag Officer leadership, and despite this, great performances by a 90% plus Reserve Force & Intelligence breakthroughs, produced great successes on the Pacific Battle Front. One example was, Admiral Halsey chasing a Japanese decoy force, almost cost us over a quarter million casualties and an Amphibious Fleet. Thank God the lightly armed American Destroyers sacrificed themselves, and the IJN Center Force unbelievably turned back just before achieving victory!
Rear Admiral Kincaid said of the sudden and unexpected Japanese withdrawl, "We were saved by the partiality of Almighty God."
@@francisbusa1074 I'm sure that's how Admiral Kinkaid felt at the time. Interestingly, that's how the Japanese felt also, Mongolian Invasion foiled by the "Divine Wind" the Russian Fleet destroyed x 2 in 1904, as well as their numerous early successes in WW II. Thank you for your response! 👍🏾
Center Force would not have made it out alive from Leyte Gulf - the US had enough air assets to track them for the rest of the US fleet - but would have had something to show for their inevitable loss.
Vickers gun salesman when he finally gets Japan to buy the 14-inch: “Ha! Got one!”
The Kongos and Kakos had a lot of similarities. Older and less armament than other classes, put right out front in the fighting, and individual ships even being lost (or not) by similar methods.
She was a handsome ship in her first iteration..
Hopefully you do videos for all her sisters.
I like how you said that her sisters would have more...........exiting lives. Well kirishima got railed to the seabed by washington.
Kongo was asserting dominance over yamato (especially at samar) and huruna was from what i can tell was doing similar thing as kongo.
Admittedly the details ive forgetten because its been so long since i looked at the kongo sisters. So excuse me if ive got anything wrong.
Especially at Samar?
Yamato sank the escort carrier Gambier Bay and the destroyer Johnston, helped to sink the destroyer Hoel, and damaged the escort carrier White Plains beyond repair.
Kongo helped to sink Hoel, sank the frigate Samuel B Roberts, and.......maybe but very unlikely scored a hit on Gambier Bay
Haruna, she's much worse. From what I can tell, she only scored a few straddles on an escort carrier or two.
I've always found the Kongo's careers very overrated. I mean, they were used more than the other battleships, but that doesn't mean they did much of note, as doing more than spending most of the war tied in port or serving as large and powerful troop ferries and cargo ships, and then being sunk at Leyte Gulf or afterwards while only managing to damage or sink a few escort carriers, destroyers, and frigates off Samar isn't a very high bar to jump. They mainly saw a bunch of convoy and carrier escorting, with the occasional shore bombardment. The only exceptions were Hiei and Kirishima sinking Edsall in the Indian Ocean and Hiei and Kirishima getting their ass kicked off Guadalcanal.
@@metaknight115 I thought kongo sank gambler Bay. Wasn't it her captain who was first to figure out that the ships they were engaging lightly armoured vessels and switched to HE?
Johnston attacked her own ships? Wait am I reading that wrong?
Edit yes I did
I'm not saying that the kongo class did amazing but I wouldn't say they did bad overall considering all things. They just didn't see much action in their lifespan.
At samar whenever I see the US losses. Kongo was a common appearance. Granted not the only one but if I remember correctly she had scored hits on all the ships lost in that battle. I'm not saying that she sank them all or anything but considering how the battle went on the Japanese side. I wouldn't say she did bad. I blame most of that on Kurita who despite it being an unexpected and confusing battle. He did still make some........interesting decisions himself like pulling back a destroyer squadron when he didn't need to.
@@Caktusdud. Many of her alleged hits were misattributed to her and belonged to other ships.
Most famously, at 7:30, Johnston had just crippled the heavy cruiser Kumano when three battleship caliber shells gouged into her, cutting her speed to 17 knots and disabling 3/5ths of her main guns, and according to the state of her wreck split her in two when under fire from a destroyer line. These hits were recorded as being 14-inch shells from Kongo at 12,300 yards, but as it would turn out Kongo was much farther and was blinded by a rain quill, unable to fire her guns at targets. However, at a distance of 20,300 yards, battleship Yamato claimed numerous first salvo hits on a US "cruiser" at the exact moment Johnston was hit. The destroyer Kishinami and the light cruiser Noshiro also observed Yamato hitting a US "cruiser" matching Johnston's location.
It was the heavy cruiser Chikuma who noticed noticed Gambier Bay was an escort carrier and fired HE shells, lighting her flight deck aflame. At 8:20, a battleship caliber shell, claimed by both Kongo and Yamato severely damaged Gambier Bay, but most agree that Yamato scored the hit due to housing the shorter range and the correct firing angle. After that at 8:23, a fatal hit was scored as a shell flooded Gambier Bay's engine and severely cracked her hull leaving her dead in the water and slowly sinking. Initially it was though that she was fatally hit by an 8-inch cruiser shell, likely from Chikuma, but later studies state that she was more likely hit by another 18.1-inch shell from Yamato.
Her hits on Hoel and Heerman are undisputed, from what I can tell.
@@metaknight115 that's one detailed description fair enough.
@@Caktusdud. Thanks
I also main a mistake by stating "Her hits on Hoel and Heerman are disputed, from what I can tell". I meant to say UNDEISPUTED, as from what I can tell these hits are definitively from Kongo
She was indeed the first Japanese BB sunk, but she wasn't alone for long. _Kirishima_ returned the following night and was sunk by _USS Washington._ For her part, she did manage one direct hit on the rear turret of _USS South Dakota_ in the same battle.
The Kongos were the IJN’s most active big-gun capital ships, but personally I can’t understand the argument that they were far more useful because of how active they were given their rather poor track record in WWII in spite of that activity, from half the class being lost during the two Night Battles of Guadalcanal to Kongo’s supposed hits on Taffy 3 turning out to have almost all been miscredited at the expense of other Japanese vessels.
Mind you, having lacklustre careers isn’t unusual for capital ships (even those that weren’t part of the last, doomed generation of battleships), but the issue is that the Kongos (among other vessels) are too often argued to have been significantly more successful or important than they really were.
You wanna talk about a lackluster career wait until he does a video about Tirpitz
Honestly though I can't think of a another class of battleship that had to carry more weight for their respective navy then the Kongos. For being a pre-WW1 battlecruiser design, those four ships put a lot of km on the clock in the pacific theater and had to face ships decades more modern then themselves. They were the only capital ships the IJN had that were fast enough to escort CVs and just their presence in theater dictated a lot of the choices the USN had to make in 1942-43. Their use in the escort role was the direct reason the Iowas had to do 30 knots. If I recall correctly they sacrificed both guns and armour in the original design because they absolutely had to be able to catch and kill the Kongos. I'm not sure of a single capital ship class from any navy that put in the same amount of work over that many years except the Queen Elizabeths.
Well, in comparison to the two next newer classes of battleships, the Fuso and Ise class, the Kongos were far more useful. Ise and Hyuga became FrankenBattleCarriers, but were too slow to steam with fleet carriers. Fuso and Yamashiro fought in one engagement, the Battle of Surigao Strait, where things went poorly for them (USN DD torpedoes finally actually worked!).
It's like they were the only capital ships the IJN were willing to use for anything other than the mythic decisive battle.
Very agreeable comment, though almost all of Kongo's alleged hits being miscredited at Samar is a bit of an over exaggeration. Yea, Kongo's alleged three crippling (and eventually fatal) hits against Johnston were actually from Yamato, and a hit she claimed on Gambier Bay at 8:20 was, again, probably from Yamato, but I believe her three fatal hits on Samuel B Roberts and critical hits on Hoel are undisputed.
The loss of life is tragic and you comment that 200 is not a high figure. I wonder, for the layman amongst us, if when looking at the weaponry, speed, etc you might also tell us what sort of crew numbers there are on these ships? Thanks
As a rough estimate, for battleships 1200~2000, heavy/light cruisers 800~500 and for destroyers around 200.
The correct pronunciation for Yokosuka is Yo-ko-ska. The “u” in the third syllable is mostly silent.
It's an extremely niche but increasingly irritating pet peeve being someone deeply interested in early-mid 20th century naval history AND the Japanese language 🤣 I know Japanese is often said to be a "flat" language where you don't put emphasis on any particular syllable, and yet native English speakers STILL have this almost preternatural ability to put emphasis on the wrong syllable in any given Japanese word. "Yo-ko-SU-ka" instead of "Yo-KO-su-ka," "Hi-E-i" instead of "HI-e-i," etc. And that's before we get to the tendency to replace the "eh" sound on the end of any word ending in "e" with an "ee" sound (i.e. "sah-kee" instead of "sah-keh"). I can forgive not nailing the Japanese "R" sound since that's not a sound we have natively in English, or subtle things like the "F" sound since that can be hard for a non-Japanese speaker to even hear, but most of these mistakes are down to a simple lack of effort (at least in the context of a video, where the creator had time to stop and look up a pronunciation before putting it in the video).
Take some air out of the trailer tires. That could ower the total height by a few inches so it may clear.
Her armour was pretty thin for a fast battleship. 8 inch belt armour is not very thick. Ideally, she should have had a 12 inch belt. That is why she could not go toe to toe with a comparable American battleship. Her gunnery also left a lot to be desired.
I like Kongo Class
I don't think there's an older class of battleships that saw more service then the Kongos
Me too🤗 1:12
@@josephthomas8318
The Queen Elizebeth class
The Revenge class
The Renown class
@@rohanthandi4903 A: I assumed that you were just talking about any WW1 era battleship, not specifically ships that were older than her.
B: The Kongos each only served in one or two battles. Kongo and Haruna only partook in the battle off Samar, where Haruna only straddled two escort carriers while Kongo sank the Frigate Samuel B Roberts and helping to sink the destroyer Hoel. Meanwhile, Hiei and Kirishima as stated sank USS Edsall and fought at Guadalcanal, where Hiei sank two destroyers while the pair disabled the cruiser San Fransisco, followed by Hiei's sinking, while Kirishima then crippled the battleship South Dakota but was in turn sunk by the battleship Washington.
Revenge and Royal Oak both partook in the battle of Jutland, where they scored hits on the battlecruiser Derfflinger, while Resolution served in the battle of Mers El Kiber where she helped to sink the battle ship Provence and helped to cripple the battleship Bretagne before she was sunk by HMS Hood, and the Battle of Dakar where she lightly damaged the battleship Richelieu. Warspite was involved in four naval engagements, while Malaya, Barham, and Valiant were all involved in three each. Renwoon engaged the battleship Scharnhorst and Gniesnaeu off Norway, where she and Gnienseau both scored numerous hits on eachother, while Repulse partook in the 2nd Battle of Helgoland Bight where she forced the battleships Kaiser and Kaiserin off from engaging a cruiser force.
She really love her onee sama (Kongo)😂
When I was in High School in the late '60's me and my friends played a lot of Avalon Hill Games - one of which was _Midway_ .
I played both sides repeatedly and as with the _Jutland_ game many of these ships became my old friends.
_Hiei_ and _Kirishima_ were lost in the 1st and 2nd nights of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
Unlike his predecessors - and to his lasting fame - Halsey sent his ships in to take on the Japanese and the two sides shot each other to pieces - giving Iron Bottom Sound it's well deserved nickname.
Here, while the Japanese had started the war with a highly trained, excellent Navy, the Americans could replace their losses and the Japanese could not.
As Carrier Escorts, the Kongo Class ships were not nearly as effective as their American Counterparts with their 5"/38 and 40mm Anti-Aircraft guns which were also bristling with 20mm's where ever there was a spot to put one. The Japanese 5" and 25mm guns were simply horrible in comparison, lacking in quantity, range, rate of fire and lethality.
IIRC from Parshall and Tully's _Shattered Sword_ most of the AA protection of the Japanese Carriers - came from the Carriers themselves - and it was woefully lacking. The real protection the Carriers received from American Air Attacks was from the Japanese Combat Air Patrol A6M's.
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One of the BEST Avalon hills game was FLAT TOP, played the hell out of that game!!
The port of Yokosuka is pronounced "Yo- Kus- Ka"
I suspect it's much like the contractions of names in English , like Worcestershire being contracted to "Wooster" or Woostershire"
Nobody Blame Yukikaze
13:07 Chishimaretto on the background of the photo. My land.
Considering how bad her gunnery was, how good a training ship could she have been? Sounds more like she was a dumping ground for second and third rate Officers.
Search: pagoda…result: not found
Also TEAM LAFFEY
😀
Should've put Yamato in Guadalcanal. To see her sink earlier.
I read the reason the Yamato wasn't used there was a lack of 18.1" HE rounds for shore bombardment?
@@edtrine8692humm, impressive, I never read anything like that, but it could explain at least partially for not involving Yamato in those Battle
@@yoseipilot by the time of Guadalcanal we knew what the Yamato was. Not even close to a secret and had not been for a while. I had not heard about shortage of bombardment shells but that is certainly possible because Yamato wssupposed to fight it out with other BBs and armor piercing is what matters there
@@edtrine8692weren't they using Type-3 (sanshikidans) for such occasions?
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