The construction of a vessel that would come to represent the might of Japan's navy was so secretive, according to historical accounts, that workers hid it underneath a camouflage of rope. There was good reason to try and keep construction secret. It would become a fearsome creature of war: Said to be at that time "the largest battleship in naval history," it extended nearly 900 feet in length, weighed 73,000 tons and was equipped with a massive arsenal of guns.

"I couldn't believe how enormous they were!" American Helldiver gunner Joe Anderlik recalled of the vessel during a massive naval battle that sank the beast. Musashi "was huge!" another gunner said, according to World War II Database. "I had never seen anything as big in my entire life. It was a magnificent sight."

[The USS Arizona's last surviving officer has died. How the Pearl Harbor hero recalled the day of infamy.]

But despite such magnificence, the end of the Musashi would be as cloaked in opacity as its origins. Allied forces pummeled its mighty frame with 20 torpedoes and 17 bombs and on that day in October of 1944, it sank somewhere in the Sibuyan Sea near the Philippines. It took with it 1,023 lives. And was never seen again.

That was until this week, when it reemerged in the most unexpected of places: Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen's Twitter page. "WW2 Battleship Musashi sank 1944 is FOUND 1,000 meters deep. ... Huge anchor," wrote Allen, who has been looking for the ship for more than eight years. "RIP crew of Musashi."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/04/huge-wwii-japanese-battleship-musashi-has-been-found-billionaire-paul-allen-says/

Leave the tomb there.  That baby rolled-over like a corroded drum of ammonia-hydroxide.  Sayonara, guys.   

Quote from: kit saginaw on March 04, 2015, 08:56:39 AM
Leave the tomb there.  That baby rolled-over like a corroded drum of ammonia-hydroxide.  Sayonara, guys.   

I found it strange that Japan's arrogance in sending out something ass big as a small island, was so inadequately defended.
Where was support?

Quote from: Solar on March 04, 2015, 09:48:55 AM
I found it strange that Japan's arrogance in sending out something ass big as a small island, was so inadequately defended.
Where was support?

It was surrounded by support.  It was simply too big of a target.  It was the centerpiece of a task-force which split in two, if I remember correctly.  The 'North' force was a ruse to divert Halsey/the Enterprise away from Leyte.  It worked.  Musashi led 'Center Force' into the Leyte Gulf to shell American ground-troops on the beach. 

Halsey only left a few small destroyer-escorts and a mini-carrier (maybe two) to guard the beach.

All of a sudden Center Force (about 30 vessels total) entered the Gulf. 

It was probably the Navy's finest hour...  A handful of destroyer-escorts charging a fleet of cruisers, battleships, destroyers, and the giant flagship.  Most of our boys died, but they managed to spook Imperial Task-Force Command into withdrawing from the Gulf and 'regrouping'... continuously dogged by our torpedo/dive bombers, which had one less carrier to return-to.  I think Enterprise's bombers finally joined the party, sending the Musashi to the sea-floor.

Initially, Kurita's central force was supposed to be a distraction...to distract Halsey's planes from the Japanese carrier force.  However, in the June 19-20 fight in the Philippine Sea (the "Marianas Turkey Shoot"), the Japanese lost 600+ aircraft, two large and one light carriers, and almost all of their trained naval aircrews.  Four months later, the rest of them-along with First Air Fleet planes based on Luzon-attacked Halsey's carrier fleet...and were, again, torn apart.  End result: Ozawa's carriers were a decoy...between the four, they only had about 100 planes.  The central force had no air cover...because the Japanese simply had none to send.

Also: to the end of the war, Japanese AA wasn't very good.  Their main AA weapon, the "Type 96 25mm" was a licence-built copy of the French Hotchkiss AA gun.  Many of the mounts were manually-traversed, and even the later power-operated triples couldn't follow fast-moving aircraft.  The multiple mounts also vibrated badly, throwing accuracy out the window.  But the most glaring fault was that the ammo was fed from 15-shot magazines.  The magazines had to be hand-loaded, and they (unlike the American 20mm and 40mm) had to stop shooting to reload.  Also, American strike aircraft were incredibly tough...and quite simply, even if the gunner was on target, 15 shots often simply wasn't enough!

Quote from: kit saginaw on March 04, 2015, 03:37:35 PM
It was surrounded by support.  It was simply too big of a target.  It was the centerpiece of a task-force which split in two, if I remember correctly.  The 'North' force was a ruse to divert Halsey/the Enterprise away from Leyte.  It worked.  Musashi led 'Center Force' into the Leyte Gulf to shell American ground-troops on the beach. 

Halsey only left a few small destroyer-escorts and a mini-carrier (maybe two) to guard the beach.

All of a sudden Center Force (about 30 vessels total) entered the Gulf. 

It was probably the Navy's finest hour...  A handful of destroyer-escorts charging a fleet of cruisers, battleships, destroyers, and the giant flagship.  Most of our boys died, but they managed to spook Imperial Task-Force Command into withdrawing from the Gulf and 'regrouping'... continuously dogged by our torpedo/dive bombers, which had one less carrier to return-to.  I think Enterprise's bombers finally joined the party, sending the Musashi to the sea-floor.

Musashi never made it into the battle of Leyte. The Central Force, including Musashi, and it's sister ship, Yamato, was discovered on their initial attempt to move through San Bernadino Strait. The Force was attacked with most of the fire being concentrated on the lead super battleship, Musashi. Musashi was sank and the Central Force retreated. With the Central Force defeated, Halsey went after the Japanese decoy carriers. But the Central Force did an about face, and slipped into Leyte gulf after Halsey had left. But the Tin Can sailors and the Jeep carriers fought them off, in possibly the US Navy's finest hour. The Japanese, lost their nerve and retreated. Later the Yamato was sunk on a suicide mission to Okinawa.

Given things in the M.E. right now, with this President, I doubt things would have gone that way.

Quote from: daidalos on April 30, 2015, 04:30:55 PM
Given things in the M.E. right now, with this President, I doubt things would have gone that way.

In those days they didn't try to run wars out of the White House. They let the admirals and generals on the spot do it. Oh and if there were any ROE, I've never heard of them.

Quote from: mdgiles on May 05, 2015, 09:43:20 AM
In those days they didn't try to run wars out of the White House. They let the admirals and generals on the spot do it. Oh and if there were any ROE, I've never heard of them.

Didn't this begin with MacArthur and Truman at the end of WWII? Then LBJ mastered the art of screwing up how to fight a war.

Quote from: supsalemgr on May 05, 2015, 12:45:02 PM
Didn't this begin with MacArthur and Truman at the end of WWII? Then LBJ mastered the art of screwing up how to fight a war.

And how. When I try to rank the worst presidents in my lifetime (going back to Ike), Johnson ranks #3, right behind that damn peanut farmer and, of course, the Kenyan. FWIW, Nixon didn't improve things one damn bit.

Quote from: Jarlaxle on March 15, 2015, 03:10:22 PM
Initially, Kurita's central force was supposed to be a distraction...to distract Halsey's planes from the Japanese carrier force.  However, in the June 19-20 fight in the Philippine Sea (the "Marianas Turkey Shoot"), the Japanese lost 600+ aircraft, two large and one light carriers, and almost all of their trained naval aircrews.  Four months later, the rest of them-along with First Air Fleet planes based on Luzon-attacked Halsey's carrier fleet...and were, again, torn apart.  End result: Ozawa's carriers were a decoy...between the four, they only had about 100 planes.  The central force had no air cover...because the Japanese simply had none to send.

Also: to the end of the war, Japanese AA wasn't very good.  Their main AA weapon, the "Type 96 25mm" was a licence-built copy of the French Hotchkiss AA gun.  Many of the mounts were manually-traversed, and even the later power-operated triples couldn't follow fast-moving aircraft.  The multiple mounts also vibrated badly, throwing accuracy out the window.  But the most glaring fault was that the ammo was fed from 15-shot magazines.  The magazines had to be hand-loaded, and they (unlike the American 20mm and 40mm) had to stop shooting to reload.  Also, American strike aircraft were incredibly tough...and quite simply, even if the gunner was on target, 15 shots often simply wasn't enough!

Good point. A counterpoint often overlooked, in my opinion, is the incredible delicacy, or fragility, of most of the planes the IJN used. The Zero especially was a death-trap, completely unarmored and without self-sealing fuel tanks. Up against the demands of speed and especially long range, and fighting the crushing scarcity of raw materials (the reason Japan went to war in the first place), Japanese designers came up with the Zero. It was well-armed, light as a feather, and maneuverable as hell. But just one or two well-placed tracers from an enemy plane turned a Zero into a flying torch. Despite these shortcomings, the Zero remained the staple Japanese fighter to the end of the war, though there weren't many left by that time -- and there were almost no pilots to fly them. (Reminds me of the Bf-109.)

By comparison, the US Navy quickly recognized the limitations of its F4F Wildcats, and Grumman was delivering F6F Hellcats, specifically designed to kill Zeroes, by the fall of 1943. In aerial combat, the Hellcats rolled up a 13:1 kill ratio against Zeroes. This was a result of combining tough, rugged, fast, powerfully armed Hellcats with smart tactics.

Quote from: TboneAgain on May 05, 2015, 01:51:06 PM
Good point. A counterpoint often overlooked, in my opinion, is the incredible delicacy, or fragility, of most of the planes the IJN used. The Zero especially was a death-trap, completely unarmored and without self-sealing fuel tanks. Up against the demands of speed and especially long range, and fighting the crushing scarcity of raw materials (the reason Japan went to war in the first place), Japanese designers came up with the Zero. It was well-armed, light as a feather, and maneuverable as hell. But just one or two well-placed tracers from an enemy plane turned a Zero into a flying torch. Despite these shortcomings, the Zero remained the staple Japanese fighter to the end of the war, though there weren't many left by that time -- and there were almost no pilots to fly them. (Reminds me of the Bf-109.)

By comparison, the US Navy quickly recognized the limitations of its F4F Wildcats, and Grumman was delivering F6F Hellcats, specifically designed to kill Zeroes, by the fall of 1943. In aerial combat, the Hellcats rolled up a 13:1 kill ratio against Zeroes. This was a result of combining tough, rugged, fast, powerfully armed Hellcats with smart tactics.

The Americans and the British had much better systems for producing trained pilots than the Germans or Japanese had. With the Germans/Japanese you fire until you died. OTOH the British/Americans rotated their pilots back to the rear to train more pilots and pass on their knowledge. Most American/British pilots were competent; with the Germans/Japanese you either got a super ace - or a complete novice. Also the restricted fuel supply available to the Germans/Japanese cut down on training time.