@@ss-2203 She would have been useless, both due to her stupid support carrier niche and due to lack of pilots (in fact, this might actually be a rare case where a WWII-era carrier is somehow more useless than a WWII-era battleship)
Worst carrier competition: Bearn, Graf Zeppelin, Shinano, and Aquila. Who “wins” in terms of being the least bad design and who is the worst design? Assume the latter three ships had somehow been completed and with pilots.
I thought the same thing, you can read it 2 ways; either that's one big ship - or that's one really low survival rate for a submarine in WW2. I was reading up on this about a fortnight ago and wondered if Drach had covered it now I know the answer!
Shinano: too much water Taiho: too much gas Kaga: too much fire Kaiyo: too much air When the US Navy activated its Airbender mode in the Pacific during WW2, it was almost invincible.
@@ph89787 Maybe some of the Unryus that got used as breakwaters? Edit: Amagi actually works better, given that she never even got the chance to be a carrier because earthquake…
@Patrick Donnolley IJN Amagi was selected to be a carrier conversion along with her sister ship Akagi. She was damaged beyond repair during an earthquake during her construction.
The Archerfish's OOD during the attack on the Shinano, Lt. John Anderson, lived down the street from me in the '70's and told me the story of the attack. He features prominently in the book, Shinano, and his rah-rah personality in the book was dead-on accurate. Great guy.
the only decision of Captain Toshio Abe I can defend is not having his escorts chase the Archerfish initially. It's standing off and constantly running an active pulse radar. It's NOT hiding. The only thing that might make me question it NOT being baiting is that it is really obvious shitty bait (in reality the captain of the sub is just extremely cautious, but Abe has no way of knowing this). Sending his meager three destroyer escort chasing after a sub that seemingly wants to be found just feels too much like a trap.
I disagree. If the escorting destroyer closing in on Archerfish had forced her to dive, she would have been unable to get in front of Shinano, into a firing position. Shinano was slightly faster than Archerfish(on the surface), but her zig-zagging enabled Archerfish to catch up, and pass her.
@@ronaldfinkelstein6335 You do know what a decoy is, right? They were concerned that as soon as the escorts left to chase AF - another sub that's in a better, closer, position, would launch its strike at an unprotected carrier. AF giving all the signs of being a decoy, justified their concerns. OP isn't talking about what was the correct action given hindsight, the captain took the best action based on the evidence he had at the time.
@@ronaldfinkelstein6335 but you're speaking from hindsight. From Shinano's POV, it could have just as easily been a trap. There could have been other subs around or even aircraft. If there were other subs, zigzagging was probably the best hope. Not to mention, that the IJN really didn't invest enough effort into ASW warfare and that's not the captain's fault
Historgraphic made a video on it that puts Abe’s actions into more perspective. Honestly, with the fog of war, I can’t really fault him too much, as his decisions make sense in context of the information he had.
If Abe was convinced that the radar signal was a decoy to draw off his escorts then it makes sense to turn the Shinano straight towards it; presumably the real danger is somewhere else. Kind of inexcusable that 60% of the crew went down with it though; they had plenty of time to get off and destroyers standing by to help.
Theres a book written by the Archerfish's captain i highly recommend about the subs attack on shinano, it goes well into depth about both the carrier and the sub's careers. It's called "Shinano! The sinking of japans secret supership"
I've read it several times. One thing about the story of Commander Enright's story. Earlier on in his career he had the opportunity to attack the Shokaku, but he played it safe in terms of where she'd be and missed the chance. I feel that considering when this happened most likely had he had the chance to attack, his Mk 14 torpedoes would probably have failed anyway.
It's strange nobody discovered the wreck, since Shinano wasn't sunk in the middle of nowhere like a lot of other warships, but off the coast of Japan. Perhaps nobody was really interested to search for it, but it would be interesting to have new photos of Shinano and the state it's in now. Plus we could pay our respects to all the sailors that went down with her.
Wild guess, but the low-background steel alone might make it worth another look. A somewhat less wild guess, a Japanese tycoon already found it, hatched a convoluted salvage plan with multiple layers of deception, added it to his collection, and didn't tell anyone about it. I find it curious as well.
Agree. Its a somewhat unfortunate coincidence to get two Shinano vids in one day, but I think that they are complementary......Drach focusing on the ship itself and Historigraph majoring on the attack that sank her.
@@drthox3512 Don’t forget the pinned post for Drydock questions!😂 The Historigraph vid will have been a good month or more in production, and I cant imagine that Drach would, or could, rush his out on the same day with malice aforethought. 🤔
The 2 vids complement each other. This seems to happen too often to be a coincidence, is there coordination between content creators? I see this also in the aviation videos I watch.
IJN Shinano should be the most intact Yamato class wreck, as there was no recorded magazine explosion when she sank. It's believed that she capsized so she might be lying upside down or on her side. her wreck hasn't been officially found but it's rumored that japanese fishermen discovered her wreck many years ago but haven't come forward for fear of wreck being destroyed by illegal metal salvagers. like what happened to many japanese, british and dutch WW2 wrecks over the decades.
@@samstewart4807 He didn't say that, but I don't see why not. It's not like the Japanese government isn't deeply tied to organized crime, and scrapping has been a useful business front for other such organizations around the world.
Would be amazing to see her wreck - Like other carriers, she has probably righted herself whilst going to the sea bed and is sitting on the bottom right side up.
The new sidebars highlight just how short her "active" career was - but leave out how long it took to build her. She spent more time on the ways than in the water!
Most of the Japanese battleship armor plates -- Vickers Hardened (non-cemented) face-hardened and Molybdenum Non-Cemented (primary heavy deck) armor only used in YAMATO Class BBs -- tested at the NPG, Dahlgren, Virginia, after WWII were from selected SHINANO plates. A few earlier Vickers Cemented face-hardened, New Vickers Non-Cemented, and Copper Non-Cemented plates (used by many armored Japanese warships after 1931, including YAMATO (VC was based on the improved 1912 Vickers version of KC armor) were also tested. The 66cm (26") SHINANO main turret right-side gun port plate (half of the gun hole cut out of one side) was the heaviest armor plate ever tested by the US Navy at the NPG, using the 16" Mark 8 MOD 6 (latest version) AP projectile at right angles -- one shell almost penetrating and the next, at a higher velocity, completely penetrat8ing -- where neither projectile suffered any damage (other than the loss of the AP cap as is normal for such impacts) and the plate snapped in two through the impact points in both cases. VH armor was the best non-cemented form of KC armor ever made, though the brittle center due to its extreme thickness took some time to fix, though by then no more large armored warships were being made in Japan.
@Vanya Secundus Vasa: literally the worst warship the world has ever seen. Even Kamchatka, Captain or the French floating abominations did a significantly better job, since they at least managed to get out of port.
In the mid-1960s Archerfish went on a two-year cruise collecting oceanographic data in the Pacific. Wardroom was all bachelor volunteers. She made a visit to Yokosuka (pronounced yo KOS ka) and flew her small Presidential Unit Citation ribbon she won for sinking Shinano twenty years before. Archerfish moored a half mile from Dry Dock Six - where Shinano was converted. (Drydock Six, which is still in commission - drydocked Coral Sea and Midway for propeller replacements.
I read a first person story about the Shinano that said there were many civilian dock workers on board, and when the ship was attacked they panicked and in trying to get on deck they left many watertight doors and hatches open. Compounding this action was the fact that the crew had not yet been fully trained in damage control, with many pumps having been installed but not electrically connected. The ship should have survived but so many things went wrong that she was doomed to sink. It was also said that because Japan lacked qualified pilots it was doubtful she would have been much use beyond acting as a decoy.
This ship has always fascinated me. I wish they'd completed her as a Battleship, a Yamato-class with 100mm Type 98 guns would've been quite a sight to see! I think completing her as a battleship probably wouldn't have made her anymore useless than she was historically, might even have been better since Japan didn't exactly have anything to fill carriers with.
Lol what? It's cheaper to have an airwing, Japan could easily scrounge up enough resources for that compared to uselessly wasting steel and money refitting it to be a battleship again, and you can actually use a carrier if you get lucky, as opposed to being useless floating paper-weights like Yamato and Musashi. Shinano was sunk by a submarine, if she had been used she would have been a hell of a lot more effective in actual combat than Musashi or Yamato lol. Musashi and Yamato shouldn't have been built imo or at least the steel should have been used for carriers, and air crews.
@@MrElis420 A reminder that being a massive strategic failure was a WWII-era battleship thing in general and not a Yamato issue. Those that got to go out merely got to be wastes of money and resources at sea (unless you’re talking about Washington and DoY) instead of being wastes of money and resources in port, either functioning as pointlessly large CLAAs, as shore bombardment platforms (that old pre-existing battleships could do), or even just being present at battles without contributing in some cases. Also, the Japanese physically didn’t have enough infrastructure (especially slipways) to build enough carriers to match Yamato’s and Musashi’s displacement. You’re only getting another two carriers at most by not building the Yamatos. And that doesn’t even discuss the lack of pilots, since Japan actually ended the war with several complete or near-complete carriers but no pilots to fly off of them. Yes, Yamato and Musashi were stupid and strategically obsolete upon launch, but you can make the same argument about the Iowas/KGVs/Bismarcks/Littorios/Richelieus/especially Vanguard. And in the case of the German, French and arguably Italian units, those battleships hurt their own nations even more than the Yamatos hurt Japan, in Germany’s case by a large margin.
When I was stationed in Japan, and being I.J.N. buff, I came across a book on the Shinano. In it were over a half dozen photos that are not found in the history books. One photo clearly shows the black out line of a freighter painted on her hull to mislead U.S. submarines
I have the book. It took until 1946 when US was rifling through the Japanese records before a carrier kill was confirmed. Japanese secrecy was such that there were few surviving records, and the construction dock was surrounded by camo so the locals didn't know what was going on. The Navy knew Archerfish sunk _something,_ but didn't believe the Japanese had such a large carrier. Archerfish's captain/crew had to endure 'no it wasn't a carrier, you were wrong, they didn't have any carriers that big' until the investigations uncovered construction records and Shinano crew court martials.
Apparently Shinano's launch was marred by what some considered an ill-omened accident. During the floating-out procedure, one of the caissons at the end of the dock that had not been properly ballasted with seawater unexpectedly lifted as the water rose to the level of the harbor. The sudden inrush of water into the graving dock pushed the carrier into the forward end, damaging the bow structure below the waterline and requiring repairs in drydock. She was cursed with bad luck from the very moment she hit the water it seems.
The repair to that dock is still visible, slightly different shade than the rest of the dock. Saw it when the ship I was stationed on at the time spent 9 months or so it that drydock. USS Midway CV-41 during the late 80s.
I own a copy of a book written by Joe Enright, commanding officer of Archerfish at the time of Shinano's sinking. Really neat written book, even if it is only the American side of the story.
@@wolfgang757 "Japanese Destroyer Captain" is an excellent book written by a Japanese navel officer offering insight into a Japanese navy captains view point.
A *very* cunning plan ! Archerfish's captain got Shinano's captain to imagine submarines that weren't there, then put his ship right in harm's way in order to avoid them ! 😁
A kill’s a kill. But part of me wishes she was completed if for the only reason to see how much effort TF38/58 would put in to sinking her compared to her older sisters.
I think you owe Historigraph a joint Video, he just covered the sinking with more details, and explains why the Shinano made the fatal turn. Also the Old Silent Service TV series has an episode on the Archerfish sinking the Shinano
Shinano blurred the line between Fleet and Super Carriers. They didn't have the seals installed on the watertight (if sealed) doors, and there was a lot of DC equipment equipment not installed. IF (big one) it had been completed the Shinano would not have been and easy ship to sink. Musashi and Yamato took an entire fleets worth of aircraft to sink each and they didn't have any aircover. In the end she would still have been Sub-Bait because they didn't have enough oil to fuel her in Japan by 1944. She would have had to run to South China Sea or East Indies. Enjoyed this one!
As has been stated elsewhere, *"Shinano: The Sinking of Japan's Secret Supership"* is a great book by the captain of the _Archerfish._ If you enjoyed this video, you will _not_ be disappointed in the book!
Interesting case of “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t”. Stay in port and it would have been attacked by Air Power. Leave port to avoid an air strike and it’s going to give a submarine and it’s crew a prominent position in US submarine history books. --- As an aside, am I the only person tired of seeing less reputable YT channels try to make Shinano into some sort of super weapon that could have changed the tide of war. I’m very grateful for Drach’s well researched and solid info.
What a nice Christmas present - a new Drach video. And to make it even better, it’s one of the oddest attempts at building a useful warship. Thanks Drach, for all the great work you do.
I hope that when her wreck is located, it turns out to have landed upright. Exploration of it will be pretty much the only large source of significant information about how she was actually built.
IJN Shinano , playing at piñata of the Pacific theater for fleet submarine USS Archerfish. Season greeting s to you and yours good Sir. May the new year to come be a bright one for you.
The cardinal rule is that a vessel must never leave dockside unless fully capable of service underway...armament may be optional, but not watertight integrity, firefighting systems, navigation gear, etc. (unless of course, the vessel is going to be captured by the enemy anyway so a possibly unsuccessful escape attempt is still preferable to scuttling). As I recall, even though it was November 1944 the IJN still didn't take the threat of USN submarines operating in the home waters of Japan very seriously, and that Shinano's escort was more in the way of an overabundance of caution.
I'm pretty sure Drach briefly discussed the notion that IJN didn't exactly know what the Americans were up to, because the Americans themselves weren't 100% sure what they're up to in the video he did with Animarchy History. If I'm not pulling my own leg, this is essentially a case of Japanese high command outsmarting themselves on behalf of the Americans. Oh you're going to bomb our newest and largest carrier? (They didn't even know she existed...) I'll outsmart you by sending her to a safer anchorage before you start bombing us! (They were just doing recon...) A submarine spotted? There must be a wolf pack, I'll outsmart you by doing the unexpected! (There was only 1 sub, and you just volunteered yourself as a tribute...) Also this is a nice Christmas surprise, a video of Shinano from Drach and Histograph. Was it planned?
If I remember correctly from reading, the battleship hull was pretty far into construction along with many of her compartments. This made it impossible for her to operate as a fleet carrier, so she became a support carrier.
Sad that Drach didn't mention Yukikaze was one of the Shinano's escorts which also had the distinction of escorting the 2 Yamato-class battleships when they were sunk and also a bunch of other important ships, but Yukikaze itself survived the war and later served in the ROC Navy as flagship. So I guess if you're on a IJN carrier or battleship, you should be very afraid if Yukikaze is with you or at least make sure it picks you up out of the water after the USN arrives.
Well…he just made the video on her and it’s even worse (and better) than that. Yukikaze saw over half the entire IJN capital ship and heavy cruiser force as well as a lot of her sister ships go down on her watch, while also causing plenty of damage to the Americans.
I spent a portion of my hobby life around SHINANO- in the form of a 1:700 scale model & the book, SHINANO ! while not working on the model replica. I get so much enjoyment when doing that; currently, it's DKM KÖNIGSBERG in 1:700 (it's devine...) & the series of Norway books from author Geirr Haarr. 🚬😎
Yokosuka (横須賀市) = Yo-Koo-Ska (The “u” is said so quickly it is almost silent and thus is Anglicized as Yo-Koo-Ska.) BTW, the dock where the Shinano was constructed is still in use by the US at Yokosuka.
Do we know the height of Shinano's main mast? That would enable us to estimate the range to the camera of the broadside photo, giving us a really good idea of big this target was.
@@BleedingUranium Sorry, no, apparent width or length across the camera is somewhat subjective and dependent upon the angle of the target relative to the camera and distance. Masthead height is an absolute value measured from the top of the mainmast to the waterline, which is why it is used for calculating range to target instead.
@@michaelbourgeault9409 Her actual length is already known because we know how long her sisters were. That was something that would not have changed in her conversion to a carrier.
If it is not known-could we not determine how high it is by measuring it vs the length of the ship? i.e. The ship's length is X mainmasts, divide Length by X to determine height
The folks that are hunting the wreaks of the larger WWII ships should consider searching for this ship. They should have a fairly good idea where is. From both Japanese and American records on her sinking.
Problem is, they can't get permission to look for her. Robert Ballard himself tried TWICE to get the permission of the Japanese government to look for her, and was denied both times. Reason being, Shinano's wreck apparently lies in what is now a nationally-recognized underwater 'protected area' or something, so the Japanese government doesn't want to 'disturb the wildlife'. Yeah, it seems pretty flimsy to me, too, but there it is. Of course, someone with boo-koo bucks and a nice research vessel could always say, "It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission" and go after her anyway. She would be a HUGE find considering how much mystery surrounds her and the fact there are only three known photos of her. Petrel found IJN DD Niizuki a few years back, and there were NO photos of her in service; the photos of the wreck are the only ones we have of her.
It has the wonderful qualities of not being able to hit the attacker until its dropped its payload, its sights and vibration mean you'll almost certainly miss your first few shots, then you have to reload, by which time the aircraft in question has probably flown away.
Its fed from 15 round magazines,elevation and transversal is manually operated and slow on top of that. And then its cartridge is fairly low powered even if it does manage to hit by some miracle.
Do you know what happened to the 18 in gun barrels? Where they used in some sort of fortification on the Japanese main islands or where they never completed? It would be interesting to know what happened to them.
I saw some after war tech Strategic Bommbing Survey. Some guns were at some obscure IJN shore (testing)installation. There were some poor quality photos in pdf report. As Someone related one ended up in the US
Hello Drac once again thank you for the video on the Aircraft carrier Shinano. Could I ask one more request, can you do a video on the liner Wilhelm Gustloff. It was the biggest maritime disaster in history, a German cruise liner sunk by a soviet submarine at the end of ww2. It was carrying up to 10,000 german civilians fleeing the soviets. It is rarely talked about and known to anyone compared to titanic in maritime history. Thanks Paul
Because they never learnt, in serious sense too. Because they didn't want anyone in public know, IJN usually assigned those who survived far from home. As a result, no serious investigation into why they lost and no improvement come too
"The largest warship sunk, so far, by a submarine". If you delete "so far", you would be correct. Shinano holds the record for the largest warship sunk by a submarine, ever!
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
Merry Christmas Drach! Speaking of which, were there any naval examples of instances like the Christmas Truce of 1914 that you are aware of?
If she was completed in time, what role would the Shinano have served? Would she have even made an impact?
@@ss-2203
She would have been useless, both due to her stupid support carrier niche and due to lack of pilots (in fact, this might actually be a rare case where a WWII-era carrier is somehow more useless than a WWII-era battleship)
Worst carrier competition: Bearn, Graf Zeppelin, Shinano, and Aquila. Who “wins” in terms of being the least bad design and who is the worst design? Assume the latter three ships had somehow been completed and with pilots.
Merry Christmas Dragonman and video on Yukikaze, Isokaze, Akisuki and Kitakaze when?????
Hard to believe that the Archerfish leads all tonnage claimed by U.S. subs from only one ship sunk. Just goes to show how massive the Shinano was.
Prien, Kretschmer and Schepke says those are rookie numbers.
Still damn well done though.
Just watched the Historiograph video on it. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it.
@@PalleRasmussen That's just because Japan had such a shortage of ships, hard to get pro numbers against them.😁
I thought the same thing, you can read it 2 ways; either that's one big ship - or that's one really low survival rate for a submarine in WW2.
I was reading up on this about a fortnight ago and wondered if Drach had covered it now I know the answer!
Doesn't help for half the war US subs were effectively going out on sightseeing trips.
Shinano: too much water
Taiho: too much gas
Kaga: too much fire
Kaiyo: too much air
When the US Navy activated its Airbender mode in the Pacific during WW2, it was almost invincible.
Which one was sunk by too much earth?
Isn't it supposed to be Avatar mode?
@@ph89787
Maybe some of the Unryus that got used as breakwaters?
Edit: Amagi actually works better, given that she never even got the chance to be a carrier because earthquake…
@@ph89787 That would the Amagi lmao
@Patrick Donnolley IJN Amagi was selected to be a carrier conversion along with her sister ship Akagi. She was damaged beyond repair during an earthquake during her construction.
The Archerfish's OOD during the attack on the Shinano, Lt. John Anderson, lived down the street from me in the '70's and told me the story of the attack. He features prominently in the book, Shinano, and his rah-rah personality in the book was dead-on accurate. Great guy.
the only decision of Captain Toshio Abe I can defend is not having his escorts chase the Archerfish initially. It's standing off and constantly running an active pulse radar. It's NOT hiding. The only thing that might make me question it NOT being baiting is that it is really obvious shitty bait (in reality the captain of the sub is just extremely cautious, but Abe has no way of knowing this). Sending his meager three destroyer escort chasing after a sub that seemingly wants to be found just feels too much like a trap.
I disagree. If the escorting destroyer closing in on Archerfish had forced her to dive, she would have been unable to get in front of Shinano, into a firing position. Shinano was slightly faster than Archerfish(on the surface), but her zig-zagging enabled Archerfish to catch up, and pass her.
@@ronaldfinkelstein6335 You do know what a decoy is, right? They were concerned that as soon as the escorts left to chase AF - another sub that's in a better, closer, position, would launch its strike at an unprotected carrier. AF giving all the signs of being a decoy, justified their concerns. OP isn't talking about what was the correct action given hindsight, the captain took the best action based on the evidence he had at the time.
@@ronaldfinkelstein6335 but you're speaking from hindsight. From Shinano's POV, it could have just as easily been a trap. There could have been other subs around or even aircraft. If there were other subs, zigzagging was probably the best hope.
Not to mention, that the IJN really didn't invest enough effort into ASW warfare and that's not the captain's fault
Historgraphic made a video on it that puts Abe’s actions into more perspective. Honestly, with the fog of war, I can’t really fault him too much, as his decisions make sense in context of the information he had.
If Abe was convinced that the radar signal was a decoy to draw off his escorts then it makes sense to turn the Shinano straight towards it; presumably the real danger is somewhere else.
Kind of inexcusable that 60% of the crew went down with it though; they had plenty of time to get off and destroyers standing by to help.
Theres a book written by the Archerfish's captain i highly recommend about the subs attack on shinano, it goes well into depth about both the carrier and the sub's careers. It's called "Shinano! The sinking of japans secret supership"
I've read it several times. One thing about the story of Commander Enright's story. Earlier on in his career he had the opportunity to attack the Shokaku, but he played it safe in terms of where she'd be and missed the chance. I feel that considering when this happened most likely had he had the chance to attack, his Mk 14 torpedoes would probably have failed anyway.
@@stuartaaron613 im glad i still have my copy, i might just read it again sometime
Picked up a copy at the gift shop next to Haida when I visited her.
Such a good book. I’m also glad I’ve still got my copy.
Thank u for the book recommendations
Shinano: "...i sunk on sea-trials before i was fully operational...!"
Wasa: "...hold my crispbread...!"
And Wasa sunk by air and water ✔️
Wasn’t ok sea trials when it was sunk.
It's strange nobody discovered the wreck, since Shinano wasn't sunk in the middle of nowhere like a lot of other warships, but off the coast of Japan.
Perhaps nobody was really interested to search for it, but it would be interesting to have new photos of Shinano and the state it's in now.
Plus we could pay our respects to all the sailors that went down with her.
Wild guess, but the low-background steel alone might make it worth another look. A somewhat less wild guess, a Japanese tycoon already found it, hatched a convoluted salvage plan with multiple layers of deception, added it to his collection, and didn't tell anyone about it.
I find it curious as well.
@@gth042 Maybe they are going to resurrect her as Space Carrier Shinano
The chinese scrappers havr entered the chat
It's our chance to finally get more than 2 pictures of it ^^'
thats exactly what ive been thinking this entire time, how has nobody found the wreck?
Just watched the Historiograph video on Shinano and her sinking. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, that channel is great.
Agree. Its a somewhat unfortunate coincidence to get two Shinano vids in one day, but I think that they are complementary......Drach focusing on the ship itself and Historigraph majoring on the attack that sank her.
@@hisdadjames4876 i believe that was intentional more than coincidence.
I was wondering if that is a coincidence, or that they planned it?
@@drthox3512 Don’t forget the pinned post for Drydock questions!😂 The Historigraph vid will have been a good month or more in production, and I cant imagine that Drach would, or could, rush his out on the same day with malice aforethought. 🤔
The 2 vids complement each other. This seems to happen too often to be a coincidence, is there coordination between content creators? I see this also in the aviation videos I watch.
IJN Shinano should be the most intact Yamato class wreck, as there was no recorded magazine explosion when she sank. It's believed that she capsized so she might be lying upside down or on her side. her wreck hasn't been officially found but it's rumored that japanese fishermen discovered her wreck many years ago but haven't come forward for fear of wreck being destroyed by illegal metal salvagers. like what happened to many japanese, british and dutch WW2 wrecks over the decades.
emm so you think Japanese scrappers would try to steal the wreck? I dont think so
@@samstewart4807 He didn't say that, but I don't see why not. It's not like the Japanese government isn't deeply tied to organized crime, and scrapping has been a useful business front for other such organizations around the world.
@@samstewart4807 most japanese WW2 era wrecks near the home island have already since the end of the war, only deep water / semi-deep wrecks remain.
Would be amazing to see her wreck - Like other carriers, she has probably righted herself whilst going to the sea bed and is sitting on the bottom right side up.
@@salisburydiff1 hopefully
The new sidebars highlight just how short her "active" career was - but leave out how long it took to build her. She spent more time on the ways than in the water!
Most of the Japanese battleship armor plates -- Vickers Hardened (non-cemented) face-hardened and Molybdenum Non-Cemented (primary heavy deck) armor only used in YAMATO Class BBs -- tested at the NPG, Dahlgren, Virginia, after WWII were from selected SHINANO plates. A few earlier Vickers Cemented face-hardened, New Vickers Non-Cemented, and Copper Non-Cemented plates (used by many armored Japanese warships after 1931, including YAMATO (VC was based on the improved 1912 Vickers version of KC armor) were also tested. The 66cm (26") SHINANO main turret right-side gun port plate (half of the gun hole cut out of one side) was the heaviest armor plate ever tested by the US Navy at the NPG, using the 16" Mark 8 MOD 6 (latest version) AP projectile at right angles -- one shell almost penetrating and the next, at a higher velocity, completely penetrat8ing -- where neither projectile suffered any damage (other than the loss of the AP cap as is normal for such impacts) and the plate snapped in two through the impact points in both cases. VH armor was the best non-cemented form of KC armor ever made, though the brittle center due to its extreme thickness took some time to fix, though by then no more large armored warships were being made in Japan.
Shinano’s captain: “You took everything from me!”
USN: “I don’t even know who you are.”
"Do you know who I am?!"
"No, who are yeh?!"
Yes shinanos captain
One of the shortest careers of a large warship ever.
Try a nonexistent career: she wasn’t even complete when she was sunk.
@Vanya Secundus
Vasa: literally the worst warship the world has ever seen. Even Kamchatka, Captain or the French floating abominations did a significantly better job, since they at least managed to get out of port.
That's true which means that trumps even Vasa
Blucher had a short combat career off Oslo.
Was there lots or fire on the water?
In the mid-1960s Archerfish went on a two-year cruise collecting oceanographic data in the Pacific. Wardroom was all bachelor volunteers. She made a visit to Yokosuka (pronounced yo KOS ka) and flew her small Presidential Unit Citation ribbon she won for sinking Shinano twenty years before. Archerfish moored a half mile from Dry Dock Six - where Shinano was converted. (Drydock Six, which is still in commission - drydocked Coral Sea and Midway for propeller replacements.
Merry Christmas Eve, Drach! Thanks for all the work you do putting these videos together!
Merry Christmas to you, Drach.
And Happy New Year to you and all of your listeners.
I read a first person story about the Shinano that said there were many civilian dock workers on board, and when the ship was attacked they panicked and in trying to get on deck they left many watertight doors and hatches open. Compounding this action was the fact that the crew had not yet been fully trained in damage control, with many pumps having been installed but not electrically connected. The ship should have survived but so many things went wrong that she was doomed to sink. It was also said that because Japan lacked qualified pilots it was doubtful she would have been much use beyond acting as a decoy.
This ship has always fascinated me. I wish they'd completed her as a Battleship, a Yamato-class with 100mm Type 98 guns would've been quite a sight to see! I think completing her as a battleship probably wouldn't have made her anymore useless than she was historically, might even have been better since Japan didn't exactly have anything to fill carriers with.
Its the other way around. Mushashi and Yamato should have been made into carriers.
They didn't really have anything to arm a battleship with, either, though.
Lol what? It's cheaper to have an airwing, Japan could easily scrounge up enough resources for that compared to uselessly wasting steel and money refitting it to be a battleship again, and you can actually use a carrier if you get lucky, as opposed to being useless floating paper-weights like Yamato and Musashi. Shinano was sunk by a submarine, if she had been used she would have been a hell of a lot more effective in actual combat than Musashi or Yamato lol. Musashi and Yamato shouldn't have been built imo or at least the steel should have been used for carriers, and air crews.
@@MrElis420
A reminder that being a massive strategic failure was a WWII-era battleship thing in general and not a Yamato issue. Those that got to go out merely got to be wastes of money and resources at sea (unless you’re talking about Washington and DoY) instead of being wastes of money and resources in port, either functioning as pointlessly large CLAAs, as shore bombardment platforms (that old pre-existing battleships could do), or even just being present at battles without contributing in some cases.
Also, the Japanese physically didn’t have enough infrastructure (especially slipways) to build enough carriers to match Yamato’s and Musashi’s displacement. You’re only getting another two carriers at most by not building the Yamatos. And that doesn’t even discuss the lack of pilots, since Japan actually ended the war with several complete or near-complete carriers but no pilots to fly off of them.
Yes, Yamato and Musashi were stupid and strategically obsolete upon launch, but you can make the same argument about the Iowas/KGVs/Bismarcks/Littorios/Richelieus/especially Vanguard. And in the case of the German, French and arguably Italian units, those battleships hurt their own nations even more than the Yamatos hurt Japan, in Germany’s case by a large margin.
100mm is only 4" or so
When I was stationed in Japan, and being I.J.N. buff, I came across a book on the Shinano. In it were over a half dozen photos that are not found in the history books. One photo clearly shows the black out line of a freighter painted on her hull to mislead U.S. submarines
Other submarine captains: That still only counts as 1.
I have the book. It took until 1946 when US was rifling through the Japanese records before a carrier kill was confirmed. Japanese secrecy was such that there were few surviving records, and the construction dock was surrounded by camo so the locals didn't know what was going on. The Navy knew Archerfish sunk _something,_ but didn't believe the Japanese had such a large carrier.
Archerfish's captain/crew had to endure 'no it wasn't a carrier, you were wrong, they didn't have any carriers that big' until the investigations uncovered construction records and Shinano crew court martials.
Apparently Shinano's launch was marred by what some considered an ill-omened accident.
During the floating-out procedure, one of the caissons at the end of the dock that had not been properly ballasted with seawater unexpectedly lifted as the water rose to the level of the harbor. The sudden inrush of water into the graving dock pushed the carrier into the forward end, damaging the bow structure below the waterline and requiring repairs in drydock.
She was cursed with bad luck from the very moment she hit the water it seems.
The repair to that dock is still visible, slightly different shade than the rest of the dock. Saw it when the ship I was stationed on at the time spent 9 months or so it that drydock. USS Midway CV-41 during the late 80s.
Merry Christmas Mr. Drach, Mrs. Drach, and anybody else at the Drach Shack over the holidays!
Thanks and happy holidays, Drach. Enjoyed your videos including wonderful drachisms for many years. :)
I own a copy of a book written by Joe Enright, commanding officer of Archerfish at the time of Shinano's sinking. Really neat written book, even if it is only the American side of the story.
What more do you expect to hear from the Japanese side? I have the book too though.
@@wolfgang757 "Japanese Destroyer Captain" is an excellent book written by a Japanese navel officer offering insight into a Japanese navy captains view point.
Well it's not like Shinano's Captain had much to say about his side of the story when Enright was writing his book considering he was dead.
Thanks
A *very* cunning plan !
Archerfish's captain got Shinano's captain to imagine submarines that weren't there, then put his ship right in harm's way in order to avoid them ! 😁
Kamchatka would be proud.
@@MrSleepy677 Kamchatka would not have any idea what was going on...
so how could she be proud?
If one of Shinano”s propeller shaft bearings wasn’t over heating, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Tsun Szu would have been proud
@@MrSleepy677
Do you see American submarines?
A kill’s a kill. But part of me wishes she was completed if for the only reason to see how much effort TF38/58 would put in to sinking her compared to her older sisters.
I think you owe Historigraph a joint Video, he just covered the sinking with more details, and explains why the Shinano made the fatal turn.
Also the Old Silent Service TV series has an episode on the Archerfish sinking the Shinano
This is good timing. Historgraph uploaded this week a breakdown of the sinking
Oh Drach and Historiograph simultaneous uploads on the same ship.
Coincidence? I think not.
Same thing with the merchant cruiser.
Must be Christmas. Oh wait.
Very good expose. I luv Drac's droll sence of humor.
Happy Hogswatch, Drach!
Happy Christmas, Drach! Thanks for the video!
Japanese actor Shouki Fukae was crew in the Shinano. He was lucky to survived the attack.
Thanks Drach, Merry Christmas!
Watching this after the Historigraph video is great
Shinano blurred the line between Fleet and Super Carriers. They didn't have the seals installed on the watertight (if sealed) doors, and there was a lot of DC equipment equipment not installed. IF (big one) it had been completed the Shinano would not have been and easy ship to sink. Musashi and Yamato took an entire fleets worth of aircraft to sink each and they didn't have any aircover. In the end she would still have been Sub-Bait because they didn't have enough oil to fuel her in Japan by 1944. She would have had to run to South China Sea or East Indies. Enjoyed this one!
Thanks Drach
And Merry Christmas to you and Mrs Drach
Merry Christmas Mr. & Mrs. Drach and all who follow!! May everyone have a wonderful holiday and a great New Year!!
As has been stated elsewhere, *"Shinano: The Sinking of Japan's Secret Supership"* is a great book by the captain of the _Archerfish._ If you enjoyed this video, you will _not_ be disappointed in the book!
"and no one so far has discovered the wreck"
Rv petrel:"And I took that personally."
I'd watched the Histograph video that came out yesterday on her sinking, perfect companion videos.
Thank Dra for doing a video on the Aircraft carrier Shinano 👍
Wow, 2 youtube videos on Shinano uploaded on the same day
I know crazy!
Merry Christmas to Drach and all !!!
Excellent and Outstanding!!!
Happy Christmas Mr. and Mrs. Drach. 🎄 🎅 🤶
Interesting case of “Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t”. Stay in port and it would have been attacked by Air Power. Leave port to avoid an air strike and it’s going to give a submarine and it’s crew a prominent position in US submarine history books.
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As an aside, am I the only person tired of seeing less reputable YT channels try to make Shinano into some sort of super weapon that could have changed the tide of war. I’m very grateful for Drach’s well researched and solid info.
What good timing, I was just looking for the drydock on shinano since learning of her existence from Historiograph's video the other day
Historiagraph channel just did a good job on this, filling in more details.
great presentation thanks
What a nice Christmas present - a new Drach video. And to make it even better, it’s one of the oddest attempts at building a useful warship. Thanks Drach, for all the great work you do.
Just 1.30 minute over the 5 minute mark. Great job Drach. 😁
Thanks for the video and merry Xmas and a happy new year Drach and Mrs Drach. 🙂
Thank you.
I hope that when her wreck is located, it turns out to have landed upright. Exploration of it will be pretty much the only large source of significant information about how she was actually built.
if she hasn't rusted to oblivion first
She is in about 13,000 feet of water in a trench off the coast in an area designated as a sealife refuge. Plus she is a war grave.
IJN Shinano , playing at piñata of the Pacific theater for fleet submarine USS Archerfish. Season greeting s to you and yours good Sir. May the new year to come be a bright one for you.
I love the amount of disdain that Drach has for the Type 96 25mm AA gun. 😂
Merry Christmas Drach!
The cardinal rule is that a vessel must never leave dockside unless fully capable of service underway...armament may be optional, but not watertight integrity, firefighting systems, navigation gear, etc. (unless of course, the vessel is going to be captured by the enemy anyway so a possibly unsuccessful escape attempt is still preferable to scuttling). As I recall, even though it was November 1944 the IJN still didn't take the threat of USN submarines operating in the home waters of Japan very seriously, and that Shinano's escort was more in the way of an overabundance of caution.
I'm pretty sure Drach briefly discussed the notion that IJN didn't exactly know what the Americans were up to, because the Americans themselves weren't 100% sure what they're up to in the video he did with Animarchy History.
If I'm not pulling my own leg, this is essentially a case of Japanese high command outsmarting themselves on behalf of the Americans.
Oh you're going to bomb our newest and largest carrier? (They didn't even know she existed...)
I'll outsmart you by sending her to a safer anchorage before you start bombing us! (They were just doing recon...)
A submarine spotted? There must be a wolf pack, I'll outsmart you by doing the unexpected! (There was only 1 sub, and you just volunteered yourself as a tribute...)
Also this is a nice Christmas surprise, a video of Shinano from Drach and Histograph. Was it planned?
🎄 Merry Christmas Drach
Merry Christmas Drach
I must be a wizard because i swore i looked to see if you did a short on the shinano not even 24 hours before you posted this video
IJN converted her to carrier
USN converted her to a submarine
Azur Lane converted her into big sleepy fox waifu.
@@orzorzelski1142 Shinano l2d skin tho... The racing one... HEH
Apparently it holds the record for longest submergence!
the Moskva took notes on Shinano
@@orzorzelski1142 third best fox in yhe game m
Solid content
Cool peace of history - Thanks ! ! !
🙂😎👍
RIP to all the SKKs that didnt pull her few months back
Merry Christmas Drachinifel - 🛸👽🎄✨
Merry Christmas.
If I remember correctly from reading, the battleship hull was pretty far into construction along with many of her compartments. This made it impossible for her to operate as a fleet carrier, so she became a support carrier.
Sad that Drach didn't mention Yukikaze was one of the Shinano's escorts which also had the distinction of escorting the 2 Yamato-class battleships when they were sunk and also a bunch of other important ships, but Yukikaze itself survived the war and later served in the ROC Navy as flagship. So I guess if you're on a IJN carrier or battleship, you should be very afraid if Yukikaze is with you or at least make sure it picks you up out of the water after the USN arrives.
Well…he just made the video on her and it’s even worse (and better) than that. Yukikaze saw over half the entire IJN capital ship and heavy cruiser force as well as a lot of her sister ships go down on her watch, while also causing plenty of damage to the Americans.
She came online too late, but her British counterpart did prove the usefulness of maintenance/support carriers.
I spent a portion of my hobby life around SHINANO- in the form of a 1:700 scale model & the book, SHINANO ! while not working on the model replica. I get so much enjoyment when doing that; currently, it's DKM KÖNIGSBERG in 1:700 (it's devine...) & the series of Norway books from author Geirr Haarr.
🚬😎
In Axis & Allies War at Sea. We have her as commissioned. Large armor but small aircraft capacity but special abilities give you plenty of reserves
My father served as junior officer on the Archerfish during first four war patrols.
Nice
Merry Christmas everyone
Yokosuka (横須賀市) = Yo-Koo-Ska (The “u” is said so quickly it is almost silent and thus is Anglicized as Yo-Koo-Ska.) BTW, the dock where the Shinano was constructed is still in use by the US at Yokosuka.
Commenting longer after the debut of this video than the Shinano met the Archerfish after launch.
Would be great to discover this wreck
Ah yes, Shinano the sleepy floof, and the biggest carrier pre-midway class.
Her MASSIVE STERN is a sight to behold.
Alternatively, the girl that KC has promised for years (down to a published character design) but never implemented.
The Midways were still lighter at 45,000 tonnes. Now the Forrestals however came in at 81,000 tonnes at full load.
@@ph89787 And here comes the Kitty Hawk, Entyprise (65), Nimitz and now Ford Class slamming the weights at 100,000 tons
Actually, it took Forestal class to overtake her as biggest carrier
Archerfish: "We just sank an aircraft carrier."
USN: "That's BS, they don't have an aircraft carrier!"
IJN: "Not anymore."
USN having that Thanos moment.
Do we know the height of Shinano's main mast? That would enable us to estimate the range to the camera of the broadside photo, giving us a really good idea of big this target was.
Not sure about mast height, but shouldn't she be the exact same length as her two half-sisters?
@@BleedingUranium Sorry, no, apparent width or length across the camera is somewhat subjective and dependent upon the angle of the target relative to the camera and distance. Masthead height is an absolute value measured from the top of the mainmast to the waterline, which is why it is used for calculating range to target instead.
@@michaelbourgeault9409 Her actual length is already known because we know how long her sisters were. That was something that would not have changed in her conversion to a carrier.
If it is not known-could we not determine how high it is by measuring it vs the length of the ship? i.e. The ship's length is X mainmasts, divide Length by X to determine height
IJN Shinano the 3rd planned Yamato class.
The folks that are hunting the wreaks of the larger WWII ships should consider searching for this ship. They should have a fairly good idea where is. From both Japanese and American records on her sinking.
Problem is, they can't get permission to look for her. Robert Ballard himself tried TWICE to get the permission of the Japanese government to look for her, and was denied both times. Reason being, Shinano's wreck apparently lies in what is now a nationally-recognized underwater 'protected area' or something, so the Japanese government doesn't want to 'disturb the wildlife'.
Yeah, it seems pretty flimsy to me, too, but there it is.
Of course, someone with boo-koo bucks and a nice research vessel could always say, "It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission" and go after her anyway. She would be a HUGE find considering how much mystery surrounds her and the fact there are only three known photos of her. Petrel found IJN DD Niizuki a few years back, and there were NO photos of her in service; the photos of the wreck are the only ones we have of her.
04:01 "-to at least gave the crew something to do in case of air attack". Damn, IJN 25mm AA gun is really *THAT* bad, huh?
Drach’s hatred of the 25 millimetre sustains me
It has the wonderful qualities of not being able to hit the attacker until its dropped its payload, its sights and vibration mean you'll almost certainly miss your first few shots, then you have to reload, by which time the aircraft in question has probably flown away.
Yes it is that bad.
It was bad, but it wasn’t as bad as the German breech-loading single-shot (!!) 37mm abomination that was put on Bismarck.
Its fed from 15 round magazines,elevation and transversal is manually operated and slow on top of that. And then its cartridge is fairly low powered even if it does manage to hit by some miracle.
Shinanope.
Shinanone
Shinanuked (if she had somehow survived the war)
@@bkjeong4302 Shinanah
Many years ago got the book by Archerfish CO. Still the biggest kill by a sub
That would be quite a wreck to find!
Merry chrimbo drach hope you and your family have a great Christmas, thanks for another year of great vids
Fertilizing the ocean with a whole lot of iron in the form of the IJN Shinano. May she last in reef duty for several hundred years.
Is it coincidence that you and Historigraph posted a video about the sane ship in the same day?
Do you know what happened to the 18 in gun barrels? Where they used in some sort of fortification on the Japanese main islands or where they never completed? It would be interesting to know what happened to them.
I believe one ended up in the USA
I saw some after war tech Strategic Bommbing Survey. Some guns were at some obscure IJN shore (testing)installation. There were some poor quality photos in pdf report. As Someone related one ended up in the US
Shinano's conversion was unironically a good idea IMO
If she’d been converted into a full-on fleet carrier (albeit a slow-ish one), yes, but that wasn’t what she was intended to be.
@@bkjeong4302 I was referring to the intended, not-a-fleet-carrier conversion. The idea was sound IMO
Something about the profile of a carrier looks so menacing, the shape is totally alien compared to contemporary gun based surface warships
Finally, can Shinano qualify as part of the “carriers that make Ranger look useful” list?
Easily.
I believe another channel described her as “making Blücher seem like a decorated combat veteran.”
Ranger did okay.
Even if Shinano hadn't been sunk, I think it'd still qualify for "make Ranger look useful".
Hello Drac once again thank you for the video on the Aircraft carrier Shinano.
Could I ask one more request, can you do a video on the liner Wilhelm Gustloff.
It was the biggest maritime disaster in history, a German cruise liner sunk by a soviet submarine at the end of ww2.
It was carrying up to 10,000 german civilians fleeing the soviets.
It is rarely talked about and known to anyone compared to titanic in maritime history.
Thanks Paul
Amazing how the Japanese messed up seemingly every casualty aboard any major fleet vessel from 1942 onwards...
Merry Christmas Drach!
Because they never learnt, in serious sense too. Because they didn't want anyone in public know, IJN usually assigned those who survived far from home. As a result, no serious investigation into why they lost and no improvement come too
@@kidpagronprimsank05 Good point!
I actually knew this but didn't connect teh dots, thank you. ^^
"The largest warship sunk, so far, by a submarine". If you delete "so far", you would be correct. Shinano holds the record for the largest warship sunk by a submarine, ever!
Wait until WW3 certainly one of US super carrier is gonna ended up in Devy Jones locker by submarine