Imperial Japan's Musashi: The Greatest Battleship Ever Built

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 72,882

Imperial Japan's Musashi: The Greatest Battleship Ever Built Mar 6, 2015 13:15:21 GMT

Quote

Post by Admin on Mar 6, 2015 13:15:21 GMT

Paul Allen, founder of Microsoft, appears now to have found the wreck of HIJMS Musashi. To claim that Musashi was the most powerful battleship ever built would court needless controversy, but she was by most accounts the largest (very marginally larger than her sister, HIJMS Yamato). The sinking of HIJMS Musashi in October 1944 made depressingly clear what many observers had suspected since 1941, and even as early as the 1920s: sufficient numbers of committed carrier aircraft could sink a battleship, even when that battleship carried a heavy anti-aircraft armament and could maneuver at speed. But a more careful look at the story offers some insights into how we understand the relationship between military innovation and “obsolescence.”

In one telling, the sinking of Musashi was the final answer to the challenge that Billy Mitchell made to the utility of warships in the early 1920s. American level bombers sank the hulk German battleship Ostfriesland in July 1921, leading airpower advocates to claim that the battleship, and really all naval vessels, had become “obsolete.” Taranto and Pearl Harbor, where carrier aircraft sank battleships at anchor, were part of this story, but an even more important milestone was the sinking of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, under steam, by Japanese aircraft on December 10, 1941.

Another telling offers more complexity. Musashi reportedly took 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs (in comparison, the eight battleships under attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 took 15 torpedoes and 19 bombs collectively) before sinking into the Sibuyan Sea. No air force in the world was capable of inflicting such damage on a moving, well-defended target before mid-1944, when the U.S. Navy accumulated a fleet of pilots, attack aircraft, and carriers of a size and lethality that no one had envisioned in 1942, much less 1921.

Musashi entered service in August 1942, and remained in service for just over two years. Was she obsolete before completion (and perhaps even before being laid down)? In one sense, yes; simply in terms of maximizing lethality, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) would have done better to concentrate its efforts on submarines and naval aviation. In hindsight, the construction of Musashi and her counterparts seems wasteful and stupid. But then aircraft carriers were considerably more vulnerable than battleships, even toward the end of the war. Damage that would have left a battleship still operational could cripple or destroy an aircraft carrier.

This narrative of obsolescence, commonly told of the battleship, serves to obscure more than it illuminates. It’s impossible to argue that Musashi represented a wise allocation of Japanese national resources. At the same time, tagging Musashi as “obsolete” leads to a misunderstanding of military utility. The navies of World War II found many uses for “obsolete” battleships, some intended by their designers, others not. The rapid eclipse of the battleship in the post-war era owed as much to the structure of international politics (and the destruction of the great navies of World War II) as it did to the obsolescence of the platform.

The strategic bomber offers a useful contrast/comparison. The B-52 Stratofortress is as obsolete for its intended mission as HIJMS Musashi would be for its, and new purpose-built aircraft will have virtually no resemblance to the old BUFF. But nobody gets to start from scratch, and the ability of a military to find uses for its legacy platforms is often as important as its ability to harness new technological innovations. The final legacy of Musashi and the other great battleships that led navies is perhaps the belief that the only defense lays in not getting hit; no degree of armor or structural resilience could prevent the destruction of a surface ship by aircraft or submarine. This lesson was perhaps overlearned; the experience of British destroyers in the Falklands indicated that naval architects needed to pay some attention to resilience. Indeed, the next war may demonstrate that “stealth” fighters are every bit as “obsolete” as armored battleships.

Last Edit: Mar 13, 2015 13:12:20 GMT by Admin

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 72,882

Imperial Japan's Musashi: The Greatest Battleship Ever Built Mar 13, 2015 13:11:38 GMT

Quote

Post by Admin on Mar 13, 2015 13:11:38 GMT

The live stream from what is believed to be the wreck of the World War II battleship Musashi in the waters around the Philippines began at 9:03 a.m. local time (9:03 p.m. ET) Friday. An underwater camera showed various sections of the ship, which displaced 69,000 tons when it was built, putting it in the largest class of battleships at that time.

It took them four hours and more than 25 direct hits to put one of the two largest war ships in World War II to the bottom of the Philippines' Sibuyan Sea. This month, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and a team of researchers found a sprawling undersea wreck after an eight-year search for the Musashi. Japanese maritime expert Kazushige Todaka is 90% sure they found the right ship after the first images were published earlier in March. "I have heard countless stories in the past that the ship was discovered, but they all turned out not to be true," Todaka said.

On Thursday, Paul Allen's team treated the world to a live tour from the wreck at nearly 4,000 feet under the waves. An unmanned vehicle's spotlights lit up the pitch darkness, revealing crisp high definition images of massive rusted iron in crystal clear turquoise water. The live tour began with one of the Musashi's many death blows -- a warped bow. "What we see here is torpedo damage," said Robert Kraft, the expedition's leader.

Torpedoes usually punctured the hull and exploded inside the ship, belling the metal outward. The remote operated vehicle puttered past more fatal damage, as Kraft and his team described it. A big dent pushing inward, he explained, was likely from a torpedo that barely missed the ship, exploding outside the hull, pushing it in. "It's the concussive force next to the ship," he said.

The submersible showed multiple hits right under the Musashi's main gun, perhaps the most powerful naval cannon at that time. It weighed 270 tons, and gunners had to duck into a blast shelter before firing it to keep from getting killed. While in the Musashi's death throes, the gun discharged one time before everyone took cover and blew sailors off the ship's deck, Allen's researchers said. It was one of three such guns followed by rows of other guns. The Musashi was the most heavily armed ship of its time, the researchers said.

Last Edit: Dec 6, 2015 7:43:52 GMT by Admin

Admin
Administrator

Posts: 72,882

Imperial Japan's Musashi: The Greatest Battleship Ever Built Dec 6, 2015 7:42:46 GMT

Quote

Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2015 7:42:46 GMT

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and University of Hawaii archaeologists released Thursday rare images of a U.S. Navy airplane sunk during the opening minutes of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Oahu on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

The attack led to the United States’ entry into World War II. Minutes before attacking Pearl Harbor, Japanese Imperial Navy aircraft bombed a nearby U.S. Naval Air Station. Twenty-seven Catalina PBY “flying boats” on the ground or moored on Kāne‛ohe Bay were destroyed, and six others were damaged. The strike on the seaplane base was a significant loss for the U.S. military, as these long-range patrol bombers could have followed the Japanese planes back to their carriers.

In 1994, murky waters thwarted a University of Hawaii dive team’s attempt to photograph the wreck of a Catalina PBY-5. A second effort in 2008 by a local sport diving group, Hawaii Underwater Explorers, also had limited success.

Van Tilburg said while the precise identity of the aircraft remains unknown, it is possible the crew died while attempting to take off in the face of the attack. The plane, which rests in three large pieces at a depth of 30 feet, is protected by the Sunken Military Craft Act of 2004, which prohibits unauthorized disturbance of military vessels or planes owned by the U.S. government, as well as foreign sunken military craft that lie within U.S. waters.