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What You Can Find On YouTube These Days


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Sometimes you look around on YouTube and you are unable to find what you are looking for regardless of how hard you look. And at other times, you end up finding something you never expected to find. In this case, a 1950s video using archive footage and declassified documents about the Battle of Midway (ahead of time, be warned because bad stereotypical Japanese accents)

 

 

And I thought it might be a good idea to have this topic for people to post videos from YouTube of this kind, ones that are of the time period. I know I come across videos of the same kind when I look around YouTube every now and then, be it actual footage of battles or a documentary of the times.

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LOVELY! Now if only could date a personification of a turret/battery. ;)

I know that feeling. The Japanese have a knack for making ridiculously sexy turrets. Look at Mikasa's! They had a pike nose long before the IS-3 made it cool. Yamato was all perfect sleek lines and angles and curves in all the right places. Kirov's not too bad herself, and I love her turrets in particular, favorite part of her design.

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18" produced 1942 raise to ... 15" mod '34? :blink:

 

You lost me. That makes no sense.

 

Well, these 15-inchers were not bad for their size; in fact, they were arguably the most powerful of their size ever produced.

 

Theoretically they had a performance against vertical armor that came pretty close to that of the later and bigger 16.inch Mark 7 that armed the Iowa-class.

 

Other than beauty, these babies pack a pretty nice punch. B)

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I see beauty not only as physical traits but as the effectiveness in its duties. That is in fact a beautiful 15" gun, perhaps one of the best of them. However, nothing of that time will match the raw damage and range that can be provided by a 46cm/45. The elevation angles are nice as well, but there is nothing in those guns as physically appealing as the Yamato's 18.1" rifles. Their taper is bland and straight, their breech unique but geometrically bland, and the loading system is unnecessarily complicated with two separate lifts for the same package (more effeciency with Yamato's specialized loading and safer separation of powder and shells in magazine), and the halving of powder loading saves space but wastes time. The ability to load all 6 bags at once could shave a full second off your loading time.

 

In all, I cannot in good conscience find your 15" Italian guns more beautiful. Besides, do I have to repost the Canada song to reiterate that sometimes bigger is, in fact, better?

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I see beauty not only as physical traits but as the effectiveness in its duties. That is in fact a beautiful 15" gun, perhaps one of the best of them. However, nothing of that time will match the raw damage and range that can be provided by a 46cm/45. The elevation angles are nice as well, but there is nothing in those guns as physically appealing as the Yamato's 18.1" rifles. Their taper is bland and straight, their breech unique but geometrically bland, and the loading system is unnecessarily complicated with two separate lifts for the same package (more effeciency with Yamato's specialized loading and safer separation of powder and shells in magazine), and the halving of powder loading saves space but wastes time. The ability to load all 6 bags at once could shave a full second off your loading time.

 

In all, I cannot in good conscience find your 15" Italian guns more beautiful. Besides, do I have to repost the Canada song to reiterate that sometimes bigger is, in fact, better?

 

I must acknowledge that damage cannot be matched, but the range can absolutely be matched by the gun I've pointed to; at an elevation of 45°, the 40 cm/45 Type 94 could throw its AP shell at a distance of 42'030 m, while at an elevation of 36° the Model 1934 could hurl hers at the distance of 42'800 m.

 

As you said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so you are entitled to find the geometries bland.

 

I cannot comment on the technical details, since it seems that you are more knowledgeable about them than I am. However, a resource I use fairly often, the website NavWeaps.com, and in the page of the gun it is mentioned the report of the USN Technical Mission to Japan, that talks about "an unduly large factor of safety had been allowed in the design of the turret machinery as a whole, resulting in a very heavy mount, the total revolving weight of one turret being 2,510 metric tons".

 

Also, it says that this gun's construction meant that it was possible to reline it only by boring out the inner A tube, a process so costly and complicated that it was more convenient to outright replace the worn out gun, although the Yamato-class' brief service meant that there was no occasion to do so.

 

Instead, the Model 1934 has been long criticized for its low barrel life, but for a battleship designed to operate close to home ports this was hardly a disadvantage; in fact, whenever the barrel was worn out it could be replaced in a day's work, easily enough.

 

Anyway, you asked about "effectiveness in its duties"; while it's clear that the Model 1934's duties were different from those of the Type 94 (which was in another league), for the duties it was supposed to perform (get out of port, pound the heck out of enemy ships, then get back home) it would have been by all means adequate. What really bugged this gun was the wide tolerance admitted for the weight of shells and especially the propellant bags, which often resulted in a far too high dispersion. In the few instances in which more even batches were available, these guns shot well.

 

So, in absolute terms you are right, bigger is in fact better; but in relative terms, considering how much effort went into the Type 94, and the respective needs of the two navies, it would've been (other than impossible) impractical and a waste for the Regia Marina to build such monstruous weapons for itself, while a more modest (but very respectable) design proved adequate.

It's all relative.

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Well said. It is in fact all relative. I didn't know that the mod. 1934 could lob a shell that far, and that is impressive in itself (even if the accuracy was lacking). And yes, there were more issues with maintenance on a gun the size of Yamato's.

 

However, by "effectiveness in its duties" I meant the extent to which an object can perform its primary function. That is, the extent to which a gun can lob a shell accurately, over a great distance, and cause massive damage. Or similarly, the extent to which a plate of armor can block a shell of a certain caliber at a certain range. In this, I think your gun may have performed admirably, but the aforementioned accuracy problems would still be limiting this to an extent that I personally would like to classify as lower than the 46cm/45.

 

I will agree that the 15" mod. '34 did serve its purpose far better than any potential Italian 18" gun could have at the time, and in that the Regia Marina has earned a little more of my respect.

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Well said. It is in fact all relative. I didn't know that the mod. 1934 could lob a shell that far, and that is impressive in itself (even if the accuracy was lacking). And yes, there were more issues with maintenance on a gun the size of Yamato's.

 

However, by "effectiveness in its duties" I meant the extent to which an object can perform its primary function. That is, the extent to which a gun can lob a shell accurately, over a great distance, and cause massive damage. Or similarly, the extent to which a plate of armor can block a shell of a certain caliber at a certain range. In this, I think your gun may have performed admirably, but the aforementioned accuracy problems would still be limiting this to an extent that I personally would like to classify as lower than the 46cm/45.

 

I will agree that the 15" mod. '34 did serve its purpose far better than any potential Italian 18" gun could have at the time, and in that the Regia Marina has earned a little more of my respect.

 

Allow me to say that "accuracy" is not the same as "dispersion". The Model 1934 was not an inaccurate weapon, nor were the fire-control systems the cause of inaccuracy (they had issues, true, but they usually worked out good results); however, partly because of its high muzzle velocity (which, however, also caused the flatness of the shells' trajectory, therefore its excellent performance against vertical armor, and contributed to the fact that it retained speed rather well), and especially because of the excessive tolerances allowed in the acceptance of shells and propellant bags, in practice often the fire of the Littorio-class resulted very dispersed. To explain with the most basic terms, while the aim was good, and the enemy ships were straddled often, the shells tended to land in a wide area, which resulted in the number of shells on target being rather low.

 

To put this in context, when the guns were tried in the firing range, the manufacturing companies were allowed to make the best shells they could, very even; the result was an acceptable degree of dispersion (since, let's not forget, patterns that are too tight can be as hurtful as the ones that are too wide, as it makes difficult to "find the range"). This, however, changed during wartime, and as a result the dispersion patterns became distinctly wider; however, such phenomenon tended to vary, as sometimes a better batch of shells and propellant made the patterns tighter.

 

However, in any case you are right. In terms of sheer performance, the 40 cm Type 94 was pretty much in a league of its own, with only the 16-inch Mark 7 approaching it. To achieve similar results, the Italians should have moved on towards higher-caliber weapons.

In fact, some do indeed speculate that guns with the caliber of 406 mm (such as the one proposed in some Ansaldo or OTO designs for the Soviet Union), built around the same philosophy as the Model 1934, but with the advantage of the previous experience, might have achieved something like that.

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As an interesting aside, dispersion is the one factor (well, and charge!) that isn't really accounted for in the combat model. It's really hard to get good data for all the guns in '39 in regards to their patterns. :)

 

It matters both in terms of landing a shell, and of course *how many*, but it's standardized across all Nations for our purposes.

 

Very interesting part of naval gunnery, though!

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As an interesting aside, dispersion is the one factor (well, and charge!) that isn't really accounted for in the combat model. It's really hard to get good data for all the guns in '39 in regards to their patterns. :)

 

It matters both in terms of landing a shell, and of course *how many*, but it's standardized across all Nations for our purposes.

 

Very interesting part of naval gunnery, though!

 

That's interesting to know.

But is some kind of accuracy value inserted in the combat model? So, are some units more precise than others?

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Allow me to say that "accuracy" is not the same as "dispersion". The Model 1934 was not an inaccurate weapon, nor were the fire-control systems the cause of inaccuracy (they had issues, true, but they usually worked out good results); however, partly because of its high muzzle velocity (which, however, also caused the flatness of the shells' trajectory, therefore its excellent performance against vertical armor, and contributed to the fact that it retained speed rather well), and especially because of the excessive tolerances allowed in the acceptance of shells and propellant bags, in practice often the fire of the Littorio-class resulted very dispersed. To explain with the most basic terms, while the aim was good, and the enemy ships were straddled often, the shells tended to land in a wide area, which resulted in the number of shells on target being rather low.

 

To put this in context, when the guns were tried in the firing range, the manufacturing companies were allowed to make the best shells they could, very even; the result was an acceptable degree of dispersion (since, let's not forget, patterns that are too tight can be as hurtful as the ones that are too wide, as it makes difficult to "find the range"). This, however, changed during wartime, and as a result the dispersion patterns became distinctly wider; however, such phenomenon tended to vary, as sometimes a better batch of shells and propellant made the patterns tighter.

 

However, in any case you are right. In terms of sheer performance, the 40 cm Type 94 was pretty much in a league of its own, with only the 16-inch Mark 7 approaching it. To achieve similar results, the Italians should have moved on towards higher-caliber weapons.

In fact, some do indeed speculate that guns with the caliber of 406 mm (such as the one proposed in some Ansaldo or OTO designs for the Soviet Union), built around the same philosophy as the Model 1934, but with the advantage of the previous experience, might have achieved something like that.

a ) "high dispersion" happens when you insert "first salvo must hit" into the project without considering sustained firing

b ) 406/50 Б-37 has 830/870 m/s(muzzle) and 45+km at 45deg :)

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a ) "high dispersion" happens when you insert "first salvo must hit" into the project without considering sustained firing

b ) 406/50 Б-37 has 830/870 m/s(muzzle) and 45+km at 45deg :)

a) Are you saying that the dispersion issue was because the low barrel life gradually degraded the performance?

It may have been a factor, but I don't think it was the major cause for the phenomenon.

 

B) The Mark 7 fired an AP shell Mark 8 at a muzzle velocity that at average was around 740 mps, roughly 760 at most.

Firing the HC Mark 17, the muzzle velocity went up to 800 mps, 820 at most.

 

And the Italian gun had that range with a maximum elevation of 36°. During trials, a gun at 45° fired an AP shell at 46'280 m, and an HE one at 48'270.

 

 

 

c) barrels very close together, no delay coil. :)

 

Delay coils were not present, true. But I don't see how the barrels were "very close".

 

Model 1934: 264 cm apart

Mark 7: 310 cm apart

British 14 Inch Mark 7: 244 cm apart

Planned British 16 Inch Mark 2: 259 cm apart

German 38 cm: 375 cm

French 380 mm: 195 mm (between pairs)

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