IJN Tone - Guide 076
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ก.ย. 2024
- The Tone class, heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy are today's subject.
Next on the list:
-HMS Warrior (1860)
-IRN Potemkin
-Hipper class
-KMS Prinz Eugen
-Yamato class
-Italia class
-Tsesarevich
-Βασίλισσα Ολγα (Basilissa Olga)
-Nagato class
-Monitor Parnaiba
-G-class destroyer
-HMS Glowworm
-Town class cruisers
-USS Wichita
-Lord Nelson class
-Essex class
-Slava (Pre-dreadnought)
-USS Massachusetts
-Pensacola class
-HIJMS Oyodo
-Riachuelo (NB)
-I-19
-HMS Ark Royal
-ORP Błyskawica
-USS West Virginia
-Amagi Class
-Tosa Class
-Alaska class
-Derfflinger class
-Yorktown class
-Tre Kronor class
-Nelson class
-Gato class
-Admiralen class
-H class (NB)
-Greek 'Monarch' class destroyers
-'Habbakuk' project
-USS Texas
-USS Olympia
-HIJMS Mikasa
-County class
-KMS Tirpitz
-Montana class
-Florida class
-USS Salt Lake City
-Storozhevoy
-Flower class
-USS San Juan
-HMS Sheffield
-USS Johnston
-Dido class
-Hunt class
-HMS Vanguard
-Mogami class
-Almirante Grau
-Surcouf
-Von der Tann
-Massena
-HMCS Magnificent
-HMCS Bonaventure
-HMCS Ontario
-HMCS Quebec
-Lion class BC
-USS Wasp
-HMS Blake
-HMS Romala/Ramola
-South Dakota (1930's)
-SMS Emden
-Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen
-Destroyer Velos
-U.S.S. John R. Craig
-C class
-HMS Caroline
-HMS Hermes
-Iron Duke
-Kronprinz Erzerzorg Rudolph.
-HMS Eagle
-Ise class
-18 inch monitor
-Mogami
-Vanguard
-De Zeven Provinciën
-South American Dreadnoughts
-Fletcher class
-USS Langley
-Kongo class
-Grom class
-St Louis class
-H class special
-All-big-gun designs
-USS Oregon
-Gascogne
-Alsace
-Lyon and Normandie classes
-Leander class
-HMS Ajax
-Project 1047
-O class
-R class
-Battle class
-Daring class
-USS Indianapolis
-Atago/Takao
-Midway class
-Graf Zeppelin
-Bathurst class
-RHS Queen Olga
-HMS Belfast
-Aurora
-Imperator Nikolai I
-USS Helena
-USS Tennesse
-Von der Tann
-HMNZS New Zealand
-HMS Queen Mary
-USS Marblehead
-New York class
-L-20e
-Abdiel class
Specials:
-Fire Control Systems
-Protected Cruisers
-Scout Cruisers
-Naval Artillery
-Tirpitz (damage history)
-Treaty Battleship comparison
-Warrior to Pre-dreadnought
-British BC Ammo Handling
-Naval AA Special
-Plan Z
Everyone gushes over the Yamato and Musashi but I think that Japan's cruisers were their most aesthetically pleasing ships.
German Cruisers looked better IMO, not that these are ugly by any stretch. And the Yamato, well it's the Yamato, it was a work of art from an aesthetic stand point.
Evilstorm11 In my opinion of course all of them look beautiful. But if ihave to choose British will come in last place. They look like Rectangular Boxes stacked together.
Deplorable_Bitter_Clinger , The IJN destroyers are aesthetically cool too. Their only drawback is that not all of them are equipped with radar. 🇯🇵
Not these two though.
The ijn takao class is one of the most beautiful cruiser lines ever made. In my opinion at least.
What each country does with spare deck space:
Britain: Another turret, guv
Germany: Torpedoes, Hans! All ze torpedoes!
USA: *MOAR DAKKA!*
Japan: We could put a floatplane there!
British: sorry we don't do that here, we need our tea space
Also Japan: let’s make those floatplanes dive-torpedo bombers! :D
Italy:quickly, paint it in red and white stripes!
@hognoxious You mean that doesn’t go in the very center of the armored citadel?
On maya there is an onboard zoo for the monkey
"What are they putting on the back"
Floatplanes
FLOATPLANES
ALL THE FLOATPLANES.
Maverick Raphael H. Sebastian got
And more Float Planes!
MORE DAKKA=MORE FLOATPLANES!!!!!!
How about towing "FLOAT PLANE" behind the ship.
@@user-ro9zf9kz1h just replace the main battery with floatplanes!
Wow, the Tone and Chikuma saw more action than the entire Russian Navy in WW2!
"Hey, we've got these carriers that carry aircraft, but they can't scout, so we need more seaplanes."
"Well where are we gonna put all the seaplanes? It's not like we have some kind of ship dedicated exclusively to carrying and servicing aircraft."
"I know right?"
"Why don't we put them on the cruisers?"
"But there's not enough room on the cruisers."
"Let's design a cruiser that has all of the guns on the front and none on the back. Then we put seaplanes on the back."
"Brilliant."
Although this is hilarious, it was a doctrinal decision by the Japanese to employ cruiser and battleship float planes for search operations, to avoid diluting carrier strike forces. US Navy carriers employed scout bomber squadrons for search operations.
Also: we have two of these cruisers. Should we send each with one carrier division?
Nah, let's always put them together.
@@MrDgwphotos Plus if you look at the US Navy scout squadrons, they were equipped with dive bombers so scouts could be used as strike aircraft as well.
@@billbutler335 japanese float plane can use as dive bomber with bombs, fighter with 20mm cannons and torpedo bomber, all can lauch from cruiser, battleship, seaplane tender and rarely from a submarine
@@duytranuc4025 Oh I agree but a dedicated fighter or dive bomber performs those duties better than a float plane can. Not saying they could not perform those roles but were suboptimal in those duties.
I think the Tone was pretty impressive compared to other Japanese ships. It participated in many major naval conflicts of the war and survived to the end, albeit laying on the sea bed slightly submerged.
Look! Out on the horizon! It's a cruiser! It's a seaplane tender!! It's a semi-submarine!!! It's......IJN TONE!!!!!!!
Brilliant design! Best commerce raider imaginable. Not it’s role, but imagine the possibilities!
One of my favorite ships. When I was last in Japan in 2019, visiting her museum was was on my list to do and I'm glad I did.
Japanese really suffered in AA protection due to the 25mm gun being poor and the lack of proximity fuses. Sticking more and more weapons on really didn't address the root causes; they needed a better weapon, better director control, better radar and, most importantly, the proximity fuse.
They could've kept the 40mm pom poms, but they didn't want to.
Don't forget a complete lack of mid range AA armaments. It was shown that weapons
Kosta Milanovic all lives matter equally, but I would rather be on the side that didn’t commit war crimes to the scale of Nanjing. An inadequate aa battery was key for American victories in the pacific, as that theater heavily relied on carriers for offensive capability.
The prox fuse was so top secret and we didn't even let the Army have it until the Battle of the Bulge. We weren't going to give it to the Japanese.
It's more than that, really. Small caliber AA might shoot down some planes, but not before they release their payloads in most circumstances. if you want to shoot down planes before they release their payloads, you need medium caliber AA (40mm) or large caliber AA (127mm-ish). The 20mm and 25mm AA lacks the range to shoot down incoming planes before they release their payloads. Prior to the 40mm Bofors, only the US had medium caliber AA, in the form of the 1.1-inch "Chicago Piano" guns (which actually did fairly well, all things considered).
Thus, while having good 25mm AA would have shot down more planes, it wouldn't have prevented more hits.
This is still important, though, because it DOES punish the enemy more heavily for attacking you, and ensures that future air attacks in the same battle will have fewer planes--if there even ARE future air attacks, since increased losses might discourage attacking again.
Ultimately, the 25mm guns were bad, but the lack of good fire control doomed them to failure as well.
Chikuma's crew was rescued by the destroyer Nowaki. The following day, Nowaki was caught by a U.S. surface force; crippled by gunfire from a cruiser, she was finished off by torpedoes from a destroyer, sinking with her entire crew, plus all of Chikuma's survivors. A single survivor from Chikuma - a Warrant Officer - was not picked up by Nowaki and later drifted ashore on his own. Whether he survived the war and returned to Japan is unknown.
I believe at the Battle of Midway, the search sector assigned to one of these ships' float planes happened to contain the American carriers, but the individual aircraft was launched over an hour late due to a broken down catapult. When it was repaired and the plane launched, it actually did discover the American carriers, but by that time it too late to avoid the strike force that sank the first three IJN carriers. It was just another of those bad luck moments that together doomed the Nagumo force, and not a failure of the ships' design or mission.
The funny thing is, had the scout been on time it would have missed the USN completely, so this was actually good luck for the Japanese... the only good luck they would have that day.
@ Chris Case. What doomed the IJN had nothing to do with scout planes, code, etc.
The IJN stupidity in their battle plan caused the loss. Had the IJN utilized their battleships properly they would have won. It don’t even matter if they were spotted first.
Kongo class fast battleships should have been sent out front as part of a lead force both north and south of Midway and head east. They were bound to run into the Us Task Force and be attacked.
The IJN should have also sent 5 battleships including Yamato on a route directly headed for Midway. They would shell the island.
So whether the US was positioned North or South and of course East of Midway wouldn’t really have mattered.
The carriers are there to provide CAP for the battleships forces and still have a small amount of bombers to lead an initial aerial attack on the island.
@@f430ferrari5 The US Navy would NOT have allowed themselves to get into a surface action. In fact, Adm Spruance made certain that despite the best efforts on the part of the Japanese after they lost the carriers to initiate a surface action (it was, after all, the focus of the ENTIRE IJN's war planning, and not just part of the Midway plan, to draw US forces into a decisive surface action), that the US Navy force would NOT get involved in any surface action.
@@MrDgwphotos what you are saying is easier said than done pertaining to not getting involved in surface action.
Here is the lead attack formation the IJN could have used.
Northern Lead Force - 2 Kongo class battleships, 6 cruisers, and 12 destroyers. Subs ahead. This body is 100 miles north of Midway and heading east. They will not venture too far east. The are well ahead of any other body of vessels.
There is a similar body of vessels south of Midway but they are trailing.
The strategy concept is that the US carriers could have been anywhere east of Midway. These lead body of IJN vessels are there to engage or prevent enemy carriers from attacking.
The US didn’t know the entire plan of the IJN and the US still needed scout planes to confirm.
So you’re trying to claim that the Us would have abandoned those on Midway if they saw this Northern Lead Force approaching?
Before you answer you may want to take a look at what happened with the officer in charge of Saratoga when she failed to engaged the enemy and Wake Island fell in late Dec 1941.
@@f430ferrari5 Spruance was under orders to allow the Japanese to make an attempt to land on Midway if he felt that he could not engage the Japanese without losing a significant portion of his fleet.
A bit of a footnote on the Tone's participation at the battle of Midway. The delay in the detection of the American carrier fleet was (at least) two part. First there was a malfunction with one of the Tone catapults. Thus delayed the launch of the (critical) float plane launched in the vector of the approaching American fleet(s). Also this particular float plane had radio problems that didn't allow transmission of a warning to the Japanese fleet (at least initially). In hindsight Japanese doctrine relying on battleship & cruiser based float planes and not using carrier based long range Kate torpedo bombers or even Zero fighters was not wise. Admittedly not sure what Japanese aircraft were carrying radios at that time.
Non-scoutplanes had no radios
@@attilakatona-bugner1140 not completely true. Many Japanese aircraft were intended to carry radios, but the quality of the radios were often so poor that most pilots preferred to leave them on the ground to save weight. End result is, of course, still the same.
I don't see how that's a flaw in the idea of a scout aviation cruiser, or in the design of the ship. It's a flaw in the Japanese ability to execute what is otherwise a fairly practical concept. Remember that today pretty much every major surface combatant carries at least what the Tone class did, or more. The Burke has a sizable hangar and embarks multiple helicopters for ASW, reconnaissance, transport, etc. So you could argue that today's navies love "aviation cruisers". We just call them destroyers now.
I think it's a bit more complicated. Contrary to the USN's carrier force, which had no dedicated recon monoplanes but relied instead on bomber scouts like the SB2A Buccaneer and, of course, the Catalina flying boat, the IJN actually developed the impressive Nakajima Saiun ('43), in addition to also fielding a variant of the Suisei dive bomber ('42) that traded its payload for observation equipment and extended fuel tanks. The problem was that the IJN had switched to carrier doctrine a few years too late, and had invested more into cruisers and battleships than its carrier divisions. As a consequence, there just weren't enough carriers and recon planes available to perform this role compared to the quickly growing US war machine, an issue that only grew worse with each carrier sunk. In the end, the Japanese put floatplanes on pretty much everything to try and compensate for the loss of their carrier groups, just look up the crazy refits for battleships/"battlecarriers" Ise and Hyuuga.
Attila Katona-Bugner many IJN Fighter Pilots actually REMOVED their radios to lighten their Zero Fighters. Japanese Air Ace remarked on this in his autobiography “Samurai!”
There is some controversy as to Tone's blame for the Japanese defeat at Midway. Japanese sloppy search which failed to find the American carriers in time was more than just the fault of Tone. Overconfidence and reluctance to commit precious Kate torpedo bombers to search instead of strike missions was in the end their downfall, Banzai.
No, midway was won because the Americans had broken the Japanese communications and knew exactly the time and place of the battle. As with so many battles, including the Uboat battle in the Atlantic, the allies won because they broke the code and the axis never even suspected.
@@magnaviator The US Navy DID not know exactly the time and place. We had a rough idea of both, but never the precise details that are often attributed to the code breaking effort at Midway. Craig Symonds' book on the Battle of Midway goes in depth into the code breaking effort and what we knew from it.
@@MrDgwphotos Yes I agree, but given the vast expanses of the Pacific, that's as good as it gets. The US set the ambush, concentrated it's remaining carrier and land air forces and the battle was decided and became the turning point. But for the code breaking, the Japanese plan would have succeeded, and given the force they committed (arguably the best they ever had or would ever have in WW2), they would have easily overwhelmed anything and everything the US might have had under a normal wartime garrison.
@@magnaviator Plumbing broke on midway durign the invasion:
Here is an example of what wouldve happened
US Midway Island: Hawaii, We lost all plumbing
Japanese, overheard: Target lost plumbing, all steam ahead!
And the carriers went to investigate
I think anytime you're assigning carrier duties to a cruiser it's always a big risk.
Fun fact "tone" means "(she is) sinking" in Serbian, yet ironically, unlike almost the entire IJN, she survived almost the entire war and was only sunk in the shallow harbor of Kure at the end of the war (she was potentially salvageable).
"Tone" is pronounced TOE-NEH. In other words, an "e" in Japanese is like the "e" in "egg." Drach is saying something like "TONEI" which is something entirely different.
Imperial Japanese Navy cruisers were usually / always named after rivers. The Tone River is north of Tokyo, and runs close to present day Narita International Airport.
I dont know why you dont have more subs, you have a sound knowledge and you do a good channel. Keep it up bro
I don't think TH-cam likes me :)
Drachinifel TH-cam hates every one.
Made me look and realise I had failed to subscribe. Now corrected.
I don't care what you haters say, I think the Tone class was one of the best looking naval vessels ever.
Makes me wonder what those Sailors thought and what the High Command told them of the progress of the war.
As engagements progressed and things got closer to Japan, what was their view? Inevitable defeat? One decisive victory away from turning things around?
Awesome photos.
Thank you for your efforts. May you and yours stay well and prosper.
heavy scout cruisers.......Still MIA from world of warships.
LEX Maximaguy87 it was in development for awhile and then disappeared. Probably may have to wait for after the CV rework
I feel like the tone class would easily be citadeled by bbs.
@@generalming7407 If a BB of comparable rank CAN'T easily citadel a cruiser, then something is seriously wrong with either the player's aim or rng dispersion.
@tamenga88 Well considering that Izumo is a "paper ship" and was one of the many Yamato layout options before Japan finalized the more conventional "2 fore and 1 aft" turret layout of final Yamato, I blame Wargaming for hamstringing the Izumo with with the number 3 turret's backward layout since another Yamato layout from the same design study they pulled Izumo from had the turrets configured like a Nelson (all facing forward with the rear turret able to move in sequence with the other 2). Instead of choosing the logical path for a Yamato variant, WG chose to go stupid.
@tamenga88 I know. I've seen the different Yamato class variants in a book about the ship. I was pointing out that comparing the Tone to the Izumo was a straw man argument.
As one of Japan’s (several) ersatz carriers, the Tones seem to have been somewhat decent. Their planes even had an impact!
I remember the first time I encountered this ship playing Battlestations: Midway. At first I thought she was weird, but the more I played the more she grew on me.
Kinda the same for me but in Battlestations Pacific xd
Badass ships. Hope you cover this again.
To add to the bit about Tone's search planes during the battle of Midway. Tone Plane No.4 is often blamed for the failure in reconnaissance, but its actually Chikuma's No.5 plane that should have found the Americans before 7am based on its flight path.
Tone No.4 improvised his flight path, and started the return part of his search earlier than he should have, as result he actually found the Americans sooner than if he had flown his search path correctly.
But even then, his reported position was wrong and he was also late in confirming that these were indeed carriers, not just a surface fleet.
This sheds light on the positive benefits of carrying reconnaissance floatplanes, as more has been written about their fragility and the fire hazard associated gasoline storage for the planes. The reconnaissance of Oahu before the Pearl Harbor raid is usually downplayed in importance. But a case can be made that, if the U.S. battle fleet had received a timely warning from Washington and was seen getting underway from the harbor, the Japanese might have aborted the main attack.
Riveting is stronger than welding?
I think they're doing something wrong there...
Can you explain please?
@@slimdiddyd Because you have to drill lots of little holes in your nice uniform metal plates, introducing stress concentrating elements.
They aren't very good at distributing the load equally between rows of rivets (because of the way the metal stretches), so the rivets at the extremities are stressed much more than the average so will fail sooner.
You get lots of shear forces that metals aren't usually as strong against.
Unless the joint is symmetrical (ie you sandwich one plate you want to join with 2 others on either side) you'll also get torsion because of the offset between the 2 plates.
For armour plate, the rivets go in hot, so it will anneal the plate (that you've just gone through a lot of trouble to harden) around each rivet. The same thing happens with welding, but in a relatively smaller area.
Ser Garlan Tyrell that makes sense, thanks for taking the time to reply!
@@sergarlantyrell7847 Your points about riveting are valid (stress concentration etc.), but I do believe you misunderstand the effect of temperature during welding. Welding results in what engineers cal a 'heat affected zone'. This zone is usually very hard and very brittle. The metal does not really anneal, but rather is quenched in air.
It would also be fair to say that welding in the first part of the 20th century was still in its infancy. Welding is a very difficult job to do right. I do not think that the Japanese metallurgical industry was able to reliably construct large welded structures that could stand up to the rigour of heavy seas (typhoons and the like).
I guess that the failures during the 4th fleet incident were due to fatigue in extremely rough weather the ships were not entirely designed for. The metal in the heat affected zone was to brittle and not elastic/tough enough to dissipate the stress put on the hull.
I have found a source that goes more into detail of the exact failures and fixes concerning the 4th fleet incident. If you are interested in that sort of thing: www.sozogaku.com/fkd/en/hfen/HB1011022.pdf
@@maartencroonen7880 Well yes and no. You're mostly right when talking about un-heat treated structural steel, the predominant effect is the creation of martensite, essentially quenching, however the heat flux from steel to static air wouldn't be high enough for quenching (which is why air quenching usually uses high pressure helium, or other inert gasses), most of the heat is simply conducted away by the adjacent cold metal. This creates a second phase of the heat effect zone, further away from the weld, that doesn't get as hot and also cools much slower so the steel is normalised.
I should say I was mostly thinking of welding armour plate while writing that (granted, not usually structurally integral, it was just the first thing that came to mind for warships), which would already have been already heat treated, that second phase of the heat effect zone would ruin the plate's heat treatment (as would the first, but by a different mechanic).
That also reminds me, I was thinking about this again the other day and if the chemical composition of the armour steel was sufficiently different to the structural steel they were trying to join to, they might have had problems there with their limited welding technology.
WOWS should implement this iconic ship. Just give the ship both fighters and spotter at the same time, and the spotter would give range and reload buff or something to balance it out.
They could give them the float plane Zero.
Hey good news
Aged like a milk
I love these ships from an aesthetic standpoint, they are so unique it's like something that came out of a Dieselpunk setting.
If they ever decide to put the floatplane configuration in World of Warships as a Cruiser/ light carrier hybrid I'd also be interested to play them.
In terms of practicality though....Phew, let's just say that I am glad they were built and the resources were not used on something else because, that sped up the end of the war.
Tones aircraft at Midway had a faulty catapult and was launched late.Later his transmitter didnt work and this was the delay in announcing my dads carrier,the Yorktown.
Unlike the Ise class hybrids (which seemed almost a complete waste of battleships), I rather liked these ships. They seemed to be able to do a lot of things relatively well...on a cruiser scale.
Thank you for this video.
@McRocket. The Ise class were not complete waste of battleships. Every ship had it’s worth so long as they were used properly.
Couldn’t the Ise class been used at Midway? I know they were slow but any battleship shelling an island could prove quite effective. These battleships has the ability to travel great distances too. Nearly 10k miles.
@@f430ferrari5 Sure, but at Midway, they were still full battleships. Maybe I was unclear...I have nothing against the Ise's. My problem was when they turned them into hybrid battleship/aircraft carriers. Carrying 22 aircraft is not much for the loss of a battleship that could have come in handy during the Guadalcanal battles or at Leyte Gulf.
I mean, once they were converted, the 8 remaining, main guns were almost useless. So why not either leave them alone or remove all the guns and build a proper carrier?
That was my point.
McRocket oh I see. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah. IJN was stupid on that account too. 😂
It’s interesting trying to understand their mindset. It can drive a logical minded person insane. It’s truly amazing how dumb they were.
I look at things this way. If one fighter trained in MMA and the other in some other martial arts that included weapons training each side has to get the other to fight his fight. MMA in the ring with a ref and the other guy outside in maybe a not so fair fight.
Or even from a car race perspective. I wouldn’t race a Dodge Challenger Hemi in a straight line. I would take him into turns.
The IJN could never figure out how to get the US to fight to the IJN strengths. The IJN tried to convert their stuff by copying what the US was doing.
The IJN should have push for more vessel vs vessel engagements and their best opportunity was at Midway. It was really their only opportunity. After losing 4 main carriers they hand no chance.
@@f430ferrari5 👍
Though I am a crankey old White guy, I was born and raised on the west Pacific islands. My Dad was in the USAF, and it was more affordable to keep the families overseas. I was born in the R.P.I. and raised there, Japan, and on Okinawa until the third grade. Also, my Mom worked off the bases teaching English in Japanese public schools. I wrote that to support what I write in that the majority of the languages of the Pacific were transferred to the modern alphabet by diplomats and missionaries that spoke the Germanic family of languages. Keep in mind that English is unique in that we accent the first syllable of the word. It isn't Tokyo, it's to-Kyo.
I remember these ships from the Avalon Hill Game "Midway"
Oh ...and OMT ... once again it is The Battle *_OFF_* Samar ... .
It IS as big an error to say "The Battle Of Samar" as it would be to say "The Battle OFF Trafalgar" ...
.
Great game.
Me too. And I pronounced it tone, not tone-neigh.
That and battlestation pacific, another amazing game
@@mandogaming1313 Thanks, not familiar with that one.
.
@@sampetrie340 but it IS To Ne not Tone
The reason why IJN came out with all these radical designs was that there were 3 major doctrine in the navy, which defer each others: Big guns giant ships, torpedo warfare and finally the carrier warfare. This caused huge troubles to the central as they are the one who decide which one to adopt but ended up mixing them all together. That's why you get hybrid carriers,carrier force with little to no escorts, lone wolf battleship fighting in the late stage of war and stuff. Also ships that was to do all work by themselves(like destroyers taking roles as the flagships, even with carriers in the strike group).
Never thought of this before but ... if cruisers were the traditional eyes of the fleet, it makes sense that this role would also extend to these ships and their air complement. This allows the "big guns" of the fleet, including flattops, to concentrate on offensive roles. Maybe warped thinking in hindsight, but still logical.
Those 4 turrets forward....really the most badass cruiser ever built.
Another issue the IJN cruisers suffered from was hull flex due to their lighter construction. This cause an unacceptable amount of shot deviation between the Mogami's forward and aft batteries. To account for this, on Tone they grouped the entire battery on the forward end as a workable solution. By luck this left the entire aft end of the ship free for additional scout planes.
These are great videos, please keep them coming.
Based on the combat record of these ships, they were probably the most successful design of any ship in the IJN.
Depends on one's point of view. Considering her propensity for misidentifying friendly ships as hostile, and her outstanding torpedo marksmanship, the Mogami was either the most effective ship in the IJN, or the most effective in the USN!
They were the last heavy cruisers built for Japan, and-along with the Mogamis; were meant to be the best. That also means, at the outbreak of war; they were comfortably the best cruisers in the world.
Would like to see a review of the Chokai class of Japanese cruisers
Randomly poppped up in my recommended and it made think to see if the WoWS dev server was active (I like to take the chance to play with the ships I'll never get to on my normal account, like many others do lol) and if Tone is one of Japan's playable crusier. Turns out, both are true. Without this video, I never would've thought to check. Thanks Drach.
Mogami was refitted late war as an "aviation cruiser" which made her similar in capability to the Tone class.
After Midway, the Japanese tried putting aircraft on anything that would float.
I can has a segment on the Japanese Atago/Takao class?
Sure why not :)
I have a book on the Takaos. The development history from Furutaka to Takao is pretty neat.
@@Drachinifel Still have a copy of "The Devine Wind"....The original hard copy....
Why is it referred to as the Atago class instead of the Takao class?
@@metaknight115 Atago was the first ship to be commissioned thus why some people call it Atago class instead of Takao (both are laid down together btw in the same day)
IJN cruisers are some of the most fascinating warships ever built. I fell in love with them looking at the box art from Japanese kits. Then I read
Edwin P. Hoyts' "Guadacanal" with its thrilling depictions of the nighttime naval engagements. Anyone have any other good books on this period? Please let me know!
"Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tamiechi Hara, Fascinating look at the war and those battles from the other side.
Hara (as mentioned above) and Neptune's Inferno by Hornfischer both kept me riveted.
Granted this is information from Wikipedia, and I am struggling to find a secondary source, but apparently clustering all her main armaments in for the fore section of the ships lead to the issue of Tone tearing up her welding seams if all guns shot at the same time, and was fixed by staggered fired until the issue was fixed with added support beams and welds internally around the 8" guns.
Same with the Nelson and Rodney.
@@KevinSmith-qi5yn Rodney wasn't meant to fire all its guns at once either.... but faced with a large target flying the German naval ensign, enthusiasm got the better of her fire control director.
@@somethinglikethat2176 And who says only Americans approved of the Second Amendment? (I mean, the best example of Second Amendment usage during WWII was the IJN Yamato in Operation Ten-Go, during the US Navy's first carrier strike wave, where the stirring voice of Drach intoned that the Yamato was almost unscathed, in part because of a ridiculous number of antiaircraft guns firing all the time!)
To be fair, the idea of the Tone-class was actually pretty decent, and they performed relatively well, limited more by the older float planes they sometimes carried than any design limitations of the ship. Freeing up the fleet carriers from scouting duties WAS useful, though they obviously couldn't put enough floatplanes into the air to adequately scout.
I think it should have been oriented to providing scouts to the battle line and independent surface groups to free carriers to other tasks, down size the main guns to a 6-inch, possible DP, and lay on more AA capabilities. It should not be on the gun line with all the flammable aviation at the stern. And it could flex to an AA escort and added scouting unit to a carrier group. That means the carriers need a scout independent of the Tone though.
I think that it was a bad idea, because they didn’t have the aviation focus or technical expertise onboard the cruisers to maintain their catapults or keep the aircraft fully functional. It would be hard to imagine a fleet carrier being that sloppy. Scouting is too important to be delegated in that way.
Why should you build scout planes for carriers when you could built a complete new ship instead
Good japanese economics
what?
After the losses at Midway the Japanese tried to put planes on anything that would float.
The reasoning was: since the carriers need surface escorts anyway (to augment AAA and protect from submarine or surface attacks during the night or bad weather when planes could not fly), so why waste some of your carrier strike force on scouting when you have floatplanes on the escorting cruisers and fast battleships? Of course the critical question was just how many scout planes is sufficient. Also using strike planes for scouting paid nice dividends for the USN when a scouting pair of SBDs discovered and taking initiative immediately proceeded to attack and damage the Japanese light carrier Zuiho at the opening stages of the Battle of Santa Cruz forcing her to retire from the battle.
the whole point of the attack on Midway was designed to draw out the US fleet into battle. The thorn in the side of the Japanese was the US carriers which escaped the Pearl Harbor attack and then were able to check the Japanese expansion at the Coral Sea battle. But the Japanese were ambushed and with a lot of good luck the rest is history.
@ken kennedy It's hard enough to get a strike force to Hawaii without being noticed, let alone an invasion force to complement it. While simultaneously invading the whole of the south pacific at the same time. The objective of the Pearl Harbour strike was to incapacitate the USN Pacific Fleet so they could take the southern pacific islands. While the attack itself hoped to dissuade any counterattack, and bring the US into a peace agreement.
Tone is very important, for it was tone who helped US won the Midway.
The airplane of Tone was in some technichal problem which delayed its deployment for half an hour, and unluckily, the 3 US carriers were on its reconnesense area.
Awesome video
It would seem that the heavy guns all concentrated at the bow, and all the armor for the turrets and magazines, would tend to make the ship bow-heavy. The same might be true of HMS Rodney and Nelson, but to my eye their guns were spaced out more to mid-ships. Any knowledge of design hurdles from the armament being forward?
Yes, my suggestion. Now I can play it better in Naval Creed: Warships
The Unfinished German Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin?
Ship builder: how many gun turrets do you want?
IJN: yes
Ship builder: well hear we have it a ship with too many guns for what its worth.
IJN: yes
Q&A, how did "alpha,charlie,delta" turrets not get damaged in heavy seas not to mention operate? Also, what kept her keel from snapping in same heavy seas?
Having all the turrets forward is a really good idea. It puts most of your armor in one section and eases handling and transfer of ammunition. Personally I believe having torpedo tubes and large numbers of float planes was a major problem for the IJN. Both systems are huge fire hazards and could be lethal if the enemy gets a shot in the wrong place. They could have used the weight savings to fit more armor or more secondary/light AAA guns.
their torpedo arsenal is how they sunk most USN ships in Guadalcanal battles. they also as you point out, made their cruisers vulnerable because they used oxygen to give them extended range. at least their fleet had an effective torpedo. American navy brass refused to change the fiasco of their detonation trigger until submarine captains proved the DC brass were either clueless or liars about flaws with their system.
You are absolutely correct Admiral Tiberius! The British battleships Rodney and Nelson used the same idea, all weapons forward (3 turrets), most of the armour forward.
cruiser Oyodo please
Please do your excellent work on the ff-1052 knox class frigates of the usn...these were sacrificial picket ships that would not survive the use of either of their two equipped nuclear asroc launched or air slug launched nuclear mk 48 torps
Wierd looking thing, half carrier half 8" cruiser. Quite effective (for a while) though by the sound of it.
great work, keep it up!
Can you do a special on WWII naval AA guns?
Bofors
Yeah, we need a video about the Japanese 25mm guns, since there is so little information about why they were so ineffective.
@@lourencoalmada1305 Due to slow training speeds, poor sights, manual aiming, small magazine clips (necessitating constant reloading), excessive vibration, lack of proximity fuses, and a general lack of punch to them (
It really feels like to me that the Japanese navy was a serious thorn in the side of the US Navy as far as being able to go tit-for-tat against the Pacific fleets of the US
it looks like this ship was designed to commit seppuku on itself
Shut up , sily bro ;)))))
This class would make nice premiums in WoWs with rapidly shortened scout plane cooldown.
Im still hoping for Ise or Hyūga. It would be nice to have my own private fighter squadron for air defense.
Aaaand a New Russian premium cruiser got exactly what you suggested :)
These were not as heavily armed as the Myoko and Takyo class ships and both of these had a more massive superstructure
Fun fact, the Tone was named in honour of James Gandofini's masterfull performance as Tony Soprano.
What time of day did the Japanese recon aircraft overfly Oahu prior to the Pearl Harbor attack?
Thank you.
Wouldn't using a few Zeros make good reconnaissance craft? Not to mention their 1900mile range, but the ability to effectively defend themselves.
So the Japanese were playing the HoI IV Navy meta by covering a cruiser in floatplane launchers.
thanks, every time i see the tone river in chiba ken, when flying in/out of narita airport, i wonder about the tone class of cruisers.
The book Shattered Sword on the battle of Midway didn't mention the scout plane's messages not coming through, just that they were vague and that it came late because there weren't enough scout planes.
Which makes me wonder why Tone never carried its full capacity of float planes. I can't imagine the extra weight being a problem, and building a couple of float planes really shouldn't have been that big of an issue. Anyone know why it was always short on planes?
IIRC - the full complement included the aircraft mounted on the catapults - which would be destroyed in heavy weather - so they didn't do that.
.
I do feel that the Tone's involvement in the MV Behar war crime needs to be included here. Plus the Indian Ocean raid of 1944 isinteresting in itself.
That ship have always made me laugh, as in Polish "tonę" literally means "I am sinking/drowning"
xOnce launched by catapult how were the float planes recovered? Did the ship stop in mid ocean and use the crane? That would make them very vunerable not to mention the sheer hastle of stopping and then resuming speed
The ship performed a sharp turn to produce a flat patch of water in her wake that the seaplane could alight upon. The seaplane then 'taxied' under its own power until it was close enough for the ship's crane to pick it up, at which point the seaplane crew would grab and attach the crane's hook and be hoisted aboard. In USN practice the ship towed a net that the seaplane would taxi onto, causing a hook on the underside of the float to snag it. This pulled the plane along while its engine was shut down, allowing the crew to attach the crane hook more easily. British seaplanes seem not to have used this strategy, instead the engine was kept running until the hook was attached and the plane hoisted from the water.
The ship didn't have to stop, but it couldn't be done while steaming full ahead.
Tone with the older aoba was despatched on a notorious raid into the Indian Ocean in early 1944 to capture allied merchant ships leading to the behar massacre on the deck of the Tone.
Yes, very sad. I didn't realise that took place on the Tone itself.
What I know about the Tone: Her catapult was for sh*t at Midway and cost Japan the Battle.
IJN ships looks like designs other navies thought of but was like nah this isn't feasible, whereas japan was like anything is possible if you believe in it enough
Bathurst-class corvette please
I think they should have kept them as light cruisers with much lighter main guns. If designed right they could have been useful to surface groups with all those float planes. Used in place of some of the small carriers. But designing them with heavy main guns the Japanese navy used them as heavy cruisers putting them in the main fighting line which was not a good ideal
due to problems with the catapults tone's planes launched 30 minutes later than what they were suppose to changing the outcome of the battle,midway, those planes would of spotted the us fleet but now 30 mins later than what they should have
重巡洋艦利根の名物艦長と言えば黛薫艦長ですね。
利根級航空重巡洋艦の艦載機は最後まで定数を満たすことが出来ませんでした。
(諸説あり)
What did reconnaissance pilots do while they’re on warships?
Could all four turrets fire a broadside simultaneously? That would be a heck of a recoil up forward
Good video. Thanks
This again is a class of ships that made better sense when they were conceived then in the world they found themselves in. Since the Japanese had withdrawn from the Treaty structure 31 December 1936, there were no limitations on these ships, though, initially, they were conceived with three gun 155mm Type 3 mounts (I call them mounts as no Japanese cruiser turret had more than 25mm of "D" steel as their gunhouse). What was really wrong with these ships was that they were designed to fill a role in the "Decisive Battle" even after strategic and operational decisions by the USN made that doctrine probably infeasible. The "Decisive Battle" doctrine was built around an immediate USN counter-offensive against the Japanese after the start of a war in the Pacific. By the late '30s, the USN modified the plan in a number of ways. At the strategic level, it was admitted that the Treaty Navy didn't have the combat readiness or the logistics support for such an operation. At the operational level, the USN decided that any counter-offensive would require one year of prep and a year of attrition warfare on the edges of the Japanese defensive boundary before the start of the decisive cross Pacific campaign. It also decided that air superiority was required for an such offensive movement. Until air superiority could be assured, the counter-offensive of "island hopping" would be delayed. So the USN wasn't going to sail into the massive operational ambush the IJN had planned. Which is where the Pearl Harbor attack comes in, if the Japanese couldn't ambush the Pacific Fleet at sea, it would go and ambush it in its harbor. But the bottom line is that the floatplanes of this class would have been almost useless under such conditions. Even more the steady erosion of floatplane performance versus carrier aircraft made the floatplanes more and more vulnerable and unable to execute their scouting mission. Soon, carrier aircraft and radar would take over this role for the USN and RN. But the IJN never developed really effective radar and never had enough carriers except for that one moment in time between December 1941 and May 1942 to carry dedicated scout aircraft, which would have allowed them to replace the catapults and handling equipment with AA guns or, perhaps, mines. Instead, the IJN even repaired the IJNS Mogami as a scout cruiser, though that was probably all they could do with the lack of industrial infrastructure to build new turrets.
Let's recover that old iron ships! For peace in the whole world.
Gotta admit.
Those 4 guns up front are kinda scary while facing her up front
They sure were the Bomb in the battle of Guadalcanal.
very nice video!
i do miss CG guy...at least it's not completely gone.
good looking ships
Possibly the most beautiful and iconic of all Japanese cruisers.
I didn't know Japanese scout plans were over Pearl harbor before the attack. Or were they part of the first wave and actually spotters aircraft for post strike assessment.
They were launched before the attack to confirm US fleet presence, at fairly high risk of alerting the US
@@Drachinifel wow anywhere I could read more about that. I have read a lot about the attack. But never the float planes. I always assumed that information came out of the Japanese Embassy.
@@robertsullivan4773 I would recommend: Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions
Interessante
1:53 I never understood why Japanese carriers didn’t carry recon aircraft. Why did the IJN rely on cruisers to carry recon planes?
I mean, I understand that the idea was the cruisers would often be stationed on the periphery of the main force, so had some reconnaissance functions, and putting reconnaissance planes on them therefore made sense. But aircraft carriers can carry more planes and faster, more powerful planes that could function as better recon assets.
I believe the reason is because the IJN believed in CAP more so than anti aircraft and thus the fighter planes need to take off and land quite frequently.
The cruisers used seaplanes as scout planes and thus when returning could simply land in the water and be picked up. Battleships had scout planes too.
The IJN had seaplane tenders too but they could be utilized differently. One believe for the Midway operations the seaplane tenders launched mini subs instead.
Not having Shokaku and Zuikaku at Midway really hurt and the battle plan was terrible.
Had surface ships been used for shelling Midway then the plane mixture could have changed on the carriers. 2/3 fighters and 1/3 bombers. This would have doubled the CAP.
@@f430ferrari5That makes sense. It seems the Japanese were simply over-confident for Midway and we’re not sufficiently defensive-minded. Things had generally worked out for them up to that point, so that was somewhat justified. But they simply didn’t think “OK, what if the Americans show up with more forces and better planning than we expect?”
@@adamesd3699 never saw the IJN as over confident. They seemed more over cautious.
They had victory right in front of them. They had an arsenal which was like 5 times the size of the US Force and yet didn’t bother utilizing most of it and instead settled for yet again carriers vs carriers type battle.
How the IJN could have drawn the US carriers in was with their surface ships. This is basically what the US Naval War College stated which obviously makes sense.
It’s like what you wrote at the end and IJN junior officers did war game the scenario that actually happened. What if the US had 3 carriers positioned northwest.
There were two valuable lessons that the IJN could have learned also but didn’t adhere to it:
1. Battle of Coral Sea - the IJN should have said. Wow, we actually got two US carriers (or so they thought) but it cost us Shokaku which is now damaged and we also lost Shoho and now we lost many bomber planes and pilots. This carrier vs carrier tactic isn’t going to work. It costs too many bomber planes and pilots.
2. Battle of Wake Island. First battle. Limited aerial bombing didn’t work. We the IJN even tried getting in close with destroyers and we got nailed by the US. How can we fire upon a stationary target and hit them while being out of distance for them to hit us. Hmmm. Battleships? Hey - we finally might have a purpose for them.
The battleships and supporting surface ships is what the IJN had plenty of and the US didn’t and the IJN knew it.
So why didn’t the IJN risk their surface ships by putting them ahead and up front. It’s a mystery. One fear of course is aerial bombing. The IJN never realized that the US had junk torpedos and lacked armor piercing bombs.
So the irony is that the IJN put up front their carriers which were the only vessels the US could do any real damage to. Wooden decks.
Surface ships had reinforced armor and the IJN surface ships were designed for vessel vs vessel combat.
Had the IJN sent surface ships out front and attacked at night on Midway then what would the US carrier planes do. Most don’t want to even contemplate this scenario because they realize it seems it would most likely end as a devastating US loss.
I look at it this way. Can we count on simply being the larger equipped military. Can the US be ambushed. Or what if China’s military becomes larger than the US.
What if it’s China and Russia vs the US. If we can’t be honest about WW2 and Midway and even Hawaii then what about the future.
Great video , HOWEVER , too short X. I would have liked mention the collision ten minima & Mogami a very short but intense incident X. I have tried to get the name and rank of the senior officer who shoved the jr officer ( who had the watch ) out of the way insisting " the manoeuvre ordered was too tricky " ( he gave the wrong order resulting in Mogami raming.the stern port qtr of mikuma )
According to Walter Lord's "Incredible Victory", the senior officer was navigator Lt Cmdr Masaki Yamauchi.
we need more ijn cruisers
Mogami class
Myoko class
Takao class
and for a special do the Ibuki class
You definitely should have included the Behar Massacre of March 1944. Tone, Chikuma, and old but survivor Aoba sortied into the Indian Ocean and caught a zinc-laden freighter, Behar. After sinking the ship, Tone's captain - a Christian - followed his admiral's orders and massacred 70 Indian crew members. The 2 women were spared as were some British and were put in the Japanese prison/concentration camps. After the war, the Japanese admiral and Tone's captain were tried as war criminals - the admiral executed and the captain imprisoned for 7 years.
There's a bit more to the situation. The captain procrastinated on the execution while his XO outspokenly opposed killing the prisoners(the captain agreed that he did not want to follow the order,) the captain and XO on separate occasions went to the admiral in person to plead for the order to be rescinded but were refused and rebuked for not following the order promptly. However, the admiral did agree to let some officers be landed for interrogation. The XO then arranged for double the amount of prisoners to be let off of the ship and kept the numbers secret; in total he was able to save 30 people from execution. In the end, it was junior officers on the Tone who led the execution while the XO refused to be associated with the crime.
Nice vid
They should make this in wows with the old double scout planes and new scout planes and a special fighters group.
Tony, Toni, Tone !
So they got up to 62 x 25mm AA guns ! in other words not much more than a USN PT Boat 🤣
How about a video on the Adm Scheer??
Did the recon planes really shoot down the PBY or did the PBY just randomly explode?
Fucking love the Tone!