Found: The Musashi

[reisen55]

I built the 52 inch model of YAMATO when I was younger, have 175 page paper on the history of these ships. Paul found it, I know the bow design. Now, one more big one to go ... anybody care to name it??

[kham]

What, Shinano?
They probably have a better plot on her since she took a while to sink, and wasn't far from shore. Might be in fairly deep water but in good condition, since took hours to flood and sink.

The ones that I'd like them to go back to searching for are the Midway carriers; Kaga, they found some distinct bits of wreckage, but nothing else. Considering she spent 8 hours exploding before finally being scuttled, thats not surprising. Other than the carnage inflicted, might be more or less intact, went under slowly and did not suffer any underwater detonations. Akagi , also scuttled, might be harder to find since she was under power for a bit, and also wandered in circles a while with uncontrolled main engines. Might be somewhere NE to N of the Kaga site. Soryu, should be roughly more to the N, since she stopped dead when struck. Both of them should be roughly in a 10-15 mile radius of the Kaga position. Hiryu, thats more complicated. Besides not being hit until late in the day, she spent roughly 6 hours on a NE'ly heading either closing the US TF or launching/recovering which meant occasional deviations into the wind , E to SE. After recovering remains of last strike, around 1700, finally came about to NW heading and bent on speed. Hit around 1730, but did not stop, afire they kept driving at flank speed. Needless to say this didn't help DCO. Finally engines died around 2200 or so. Wasn't scuttled until 0600 or so, which was botched. Morning search planes from retreating Main Body found her still afloat, complete with score of men on deck. Foundered shortly after, the remaining men using a cutter to get off, eventually picked up by USN after a month or so. So her position could be anywhere in an arc from N to NW in about a 100 mile slice from the Kaga position. Thats a lot of ocean

[jagfiles]

The bow design is known as a blubbous bow. It was designed to help reduce drag as the ship cut through the water. The Iowa class battleship has this design as well.

[kham]

Kinda -sorta, but not exactly; the Yamato-bow type was the basis for all postwar supertanker designs, for the reasons you mention

*Psst, Bulbous

[YerK]

WOW! Type about OFF TOPIC!

WWII was the only period of history I was ever tempted to study. I'm still a bit amazed that the USA came in on the side of the Allies, since (as near as I can tell) Hitler got much of his anti-jew and fascist rhetoric from folks in the USA to begin with. I think the Allies were outmatched until the USA came in, and that it took the addition of the US navy to defeat the Japs, and US industry combined with Russian manpower to defeat the Germans. I don't think the French or Italian people had their hearts in the war. (Well, the regular French may have hated the Germans, but their "upper class" favored Hitler over communism, a political force that had been gaining strength in France at the time.)

My favorite story from WWII was about Taffy 3. A small taskforce supporting a landing in the Philippines later in the war, with a surprise waiting for them. It's funny how many people want to say that our troops during the war were such bumbling misfits, yet look at what happened...

[kham]

Reviewing the Shinano positions, it might be harder than initial look; there's an over 60 mile (full degree of latitude) difference in the Archerfish attack plot, and the listed position from the IJN (33-07N, 137-04E). Area is just south of an underwater mountain range/canyon/cliffs, in nearly 4000m of water. Under 75 miles off shore but the depth and geology, plus crappy positions, would make for a hard search or a lot of guesswork

[nachtjaeger]

It doesn't have to be that way. Modern armor on tanks is measured not in thickness, but in a unit of equivalence to Rolled Homogeneous (steel) Armor, or RHA. So with advanced composites, the weight of armor that would stop anything short of a nuke isn't prohibitive (although the cost may be.)

While triple-turrets of 16" or larger guns with hundreds of crewmen tossing around powder bags may be obsolete, what about a scaled-up version of the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore on NATO tanks? I believe there is an autoloader available, stabilization is already working, and on a stable platform like a SWATH hull a 250mm or so gun ought to be able to punch APFSDS rounds clean through anything within LOS.

And an issue that the United States hasn't figured out yet is that all these gollywog high-tech missile systems are freakin' expensive. Expend a million-dollar missile to kill a 4x4 pickup with a .50 cal? Joe Terrorist says "Duude, I can do that all day!" Gun rounds are cheap and effective against soft targets, or even not-so-hard targets like APCs.

Now, for over-the-horizon, what we need is a robust, inexpensive system to launch projectiles with terminal guidance ("smart rounds") into the cone-shaped "basket" that will allow them to hit their target. My pick would be a new weapon based on the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer 61 L/5.4 from the SturmTiger. The weapon itself is basically a double tube. Since the tube isn't strong enough to contain the pressure of the rocket exhaust, it vents into the outer tube and out the same end of the weapon the projectile comes from. Put the critter in a turret, the cheap, dumb rockets would be fired on a ballistic trajectory into the "basket" where the more expensive guided projectile would guide itself to the target. Could even use a second rocket stage to make a kinetic kill weapon- as soon as it is on a direct line to the target, it boosts its velocity.

And yeah, I am designing my own 21st century warship, one that is definitely designed to go in harm's way, kick serious ass, and come back.

It's sad but the era of tons of armor and big guns is passed. Even a 16" gun can't compare to cruise missile systems we've had since the 70's. Pitting an 80,000 ton Montana battleship against a 8,000 ton Arleigh Burke destroyer would be a very unfair fight.....for the battleship.

[YerK]

I don't see it as a mistake that U.S. ammo is as expensive as it is. I see this as cold, premeditated profiteering from our military industrial guys and the web of corporations they have set up to suck money out of our economy. (but that's a political argument, and not allowed in the forum)

It is my bet we could already have something cheap that was fired from a railgun that would then guide itself into enemy ships for fun and profit. I'd also be willing to bet that our million dollar missiles are bringing some company in excess of $500K profit, but in that I am not a hacker, I'd have no way to prove that.

(more political rant deleted)

Ship armor has some interesting differences from tank armor. 1) It's larger in scale, so smaller issues like flexing become more of a problem. This can be solved in parts by having armor applied in tiles, but that has it's own set of problems. 2) the sea. Salt water is very corrosive to metal. Some sea creatures are set up to find something solid to latch onto, and some of these can eat certain plastics or leave deposits on others that ruin smoothness, slowing the ship. Even saltwater spray is corrosive, and finds any crack in the paint to start rusting the metal beneath. 3) Damage. Yes, that is a problem in a tank as well, but a ship is a set of many combat systems combined into one, and a much bigger target, physically. Damage anywhere on a ship can affect other parts, so there's a greater chance of fire. Metal armor can buckle with enough fire behind it, but composite armor attached to a metal hull could have it's supports buckle and heat. (not to mention flames from the fuel of inbound ordinance or internal explosions) One good hit puts a tank out of operation, but a ship is supposed to survive longer. This is why modern warships are not really armored, but damage control is so much more important.

[kham]

More Video

Short clip; 30 years on from finding the Titanic, and its no better than a bunch of snapshots; until a complete overview composite or drawing is completed, theres nothing conclusive to be said. The stern does appear to have imploded though and looks inverted. Looking at the superstructure you'd think she's on her side there. But nothing definitive yet

[nachtjaeger]

The local air museum has one of the actual model carriers used for the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!". At (I think) 25mm scale, the Akagi is 32 feet long.

If you're a warplane geek, it's definitely worth a stop if you're in the Albany/Saratoga area.

http://www.esam.org/