The Best Battleship Anti-Aircraft

There is a recent published Japanese movie about the super battleship Yamato and its destruction.

I am quite curious about the opinion of naval experts about this movie.

You can clearly see that the AA batteries of the Yamato were in great trouble against the “big” US aircraft attacking the ship.

The huge 18 inch guns fired in anger their Shan Shiki shells, but all in vain.

The unshielded AA (about 50% of all AA) was defeated in hours of bloody combat. Bloody for the Japanese AA-crews!!!! The heavy bombs thrown on the big battleship were devastating, quite like the less heavy bombs against the Tirpitz by the “bloody” Barracuda attack on the Tirpitz in the Alta Fjord in 1944.

The movie clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of even the Yamato against the onslaught from the air. Even the enormous pagoda tower of the Yamato was quite vulnerable against those bombs (and heavy machineguns!!!).

Yes. This proves again that the large AA batteries of the Yamato and Tirpitz, supported by special shells for the main battery were less effective than the AA batteries of the US battleships. The 20 and 25 mm guns were too light to do the job and the larger calibres had a too low rate of fire.

The 37 and 40 mm AA guns were the best and when properly directed and when present in substantial numbers the AA defence was effective enough to stop not too large attack forces.

The Japanese attackers had less robust aircraft than the US and were more easily downed when hit.

The Tirpitz had too few (only 16) of those medium calibre AA and their 6 inch guns could NOT be used against aircraft too.

So on articles of the best battleships I agree that the US battleships possessed the most effective AA.



Robert Veenenberg, Vinkeveen, The Netherlands

rolivire@casema.nl

Articles by Robert Veenenberg

1. The Best Battleship Anti-Aircraft
2. Battleship Bismarck, p. 1
3. Battleship Bismarck, p. 2
4. Causes of Sinking of the Bismarck