Great ships, but due to the course of the war they appeared in their designed role scarcely at Marianas. First ships, Akizuki, Teruzuki and later Niizuki were expended at Solomons in the role of des leaders. Only Akizuki survived this campaign.
WWIITales channel has the memoirs of a Destroyer Captain from Japan audiobook. It is interesting to hear and supplement with CentralCrossing's technical detail. It's interesting how the Torpedo was considered to be the preferred weapon on Destroyers. Thanks Crosser!! Well done! Love, David
Yeah, but with less firepower. The number of 5"38s on the Atlantas and the rate of fire was amazing. Throw in the VT fuses fir extra fun and tge Atlantas were just plain nasty AA platforms.
10:50 a straight stem is terrible for seakeeping , and yes swapping a fire director for 3x25mm barrels is a reduction in AA firepower despite the extra barrels
Nice development history, again this seems to be a recurring theme that IJN managed to put together a perfect ship for the role 2 years late, the Akizukis are too late for the most important battle even the higher ups had realized the problem before the war actually kick off. This adding with the lack of industrial capabilities results in the Akizuki class always being thrown into battles that she was not designed for (the IJN ran out of Kageros and Akatsukis during the Tokyo Express and had to throw Akizukis to the problem), and towards the end the main purpose for the class even didn't exist anymore, there's no capable carriers to defend, might as well pump a few more Kagero class for ASW duties than building the Akizuki in the first place.
My book from Kagero's Super Drawing's In 3D, is a great wealth of detail, with a brief background, it has really been a great resource of reference for creating a very detailed model of either sister. In 2010, the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force had named their latest class of destroyer, I assume, after the WWII class. Take care, and all the best.
Sounds like an excellent ship. Interesting that its main armament was the 100mm. I have seen statistics that show that the 75mm American gun was the most effective anti-air gun. From the looks of the statistics, at least late in the war, the 40mm, really did work well. I expect it was because of range. Seems to me that maybe the 127mm American gun was a bit too large considering that most anti-air guns were 120mm or 90 mm. So 100mm seems like a really good choice. I suspect that the 100mm was adequate for most applications. Only against probably heavy cruisers and above would the prove pretty worthless, but that definitely outclasses a destroyer.
While the 10 Cm DP cannons are considered to be quite effective in the AA role, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that they actually were. That small bore and high velocity suggests excess barrel wear and degradation of accuracy.
The evidence really sits around by comparing it to other DP guns from the era. The clear comparisons are other Japanese dp guns like the type 89, but the USN 5/38 and RN 5.25 are also compared to it quite often. The type 98 had the best characteristics overall when compared to the other weapons (training, elevation, rare of fire, velocity, range, ECT...). It did have 2 drawbacks, the lack of a vt shell and a short service life due to barrel wear. To counter the barrel wear, the Japanese had 2 different barrel designs in service. The type I had a movable liner and the type I2 was monobloc, both were radially expanded. The barrel had a life of about 400 shots, which is decent but comparatively low. The removable liner in the type I barrel compensated for this short life expectancy as it could be changed relatively easily without using as many materials.
@@centralcrossing4732 all sources I find online call the guns ‘superb’, ‘excellent’, etc, etc. While this opinion seems rather universal, I’m not seeing any real evidence of its performance against aircraft. Are there any sources that give direct evidence of defense against air attack? As a DP weapon there was no bother to make or provide AP projectiles? Seems odd. Navweaps has an entry that suggests only 169 of these guns were produced and 101 of them were provided for ships(primarily Akizuki- but also Taino and Shinano)with the rest going for shore defense. A little bit of math shows that these numbers don’t really add up. Akizuki class alone accounts for 96 of these guns. I’m struggling to understand why there were only 169 of these weapons produced when they were so universally considered to be the cat’s pajamas. I have this feeling that something is missing from the narrative.
@@williamashbless7904 Yeah, 100mm guns of the IJN were very rare. Despite reportedly being a good dual purpose gun, the IJN never had many of them. When the pride and joy of the Japanese Navy, Battleship Yamato, got her final refit very late in WWII... *An Anti-Aircraft focused refit* that removed her wing 155mm guns in favor of more AA guns, none of the added guns were 100mm. They were more of the crap 25mm and crap 127mm guns the IJN had already been using a lot of since the start of the war. When World of Warships added fake Japanese warships or fake refits that included Cruisers, Battleships with a bunch of dual purpose 100mm guns, I LOL'd
The Japanese may not have been able to produce the number of directors needed, and so reduced the number from two to one on these ships out of necessity.
Everyone thinks the 25mm was useless. In fact, once the higher command realized the source of the limitations and issued new standing orders for how it was to be used, it became an effective weapon. But they needed to do that in 1942, not 1944.
It's not about thinking it was a largely useless weapon, but proving it was. Saying it's largely useless doesn't mean that it couldn't shoot down aircraft, but that other weapons could do it better. Certainly, the Japanese recognized that early on, AA crews targeted aircraft flying away from a ship rather than approaching, but by 1941, this weapon had serious drawbacks. It's training was slow, the 15 round magazine was small and caused interrupted fire, the punching power was progressively ineffective against more modern US aircraft, and its muzzle blast could interfere with fire control equipment and disorient the operators. Obviously, there were other weapons with the same issues like the USN 1.1 inch gun, but the difference is the USN acknowledged the drawbacks and found better units like the 40mm and 20mm guns. Japan believed the type 96 was effective through and through and didn't seek a replacement until it was too late. Altering how the gun was used didn't correct the design flaws and didn't really increase its overall performance, it just slightly improved kill numbers which isn't enough to consider it effective by any means.
Altering how the gun was used did indeed increase its performance. The 2 main problems were vibration in the mounts causing deflection inaccuracy and the inability to reload while firing. So opening fire at greater range would result in missing and then having to reload just as the aircraft was coming into it's own attack range. At close range, the barrel deflection caused by mount vibration was not enough to cause significant inaccuracy. When the standing order was issued that gunners should hold fire until the target was within 1,500 meters, the type 96 began to achieve an average of 14% accuracy, which doesn't sound great, but actually is pretty good for a light AA gun. That meant hitting with about 1 out of 7 rounds, and 2 hits from a clip would mean serious concerns for an attacking aircrew. Contrary to popular belief, the primary purpose of light AA is not to destroy aircraft, but to interfere with the attack, and a couple of 25mm hits is quite enough to rattle a pilot into missing or even jettisoning his load. The Americans didn't have a kamikaze corps; flyers were more concerned about getting back to their own carrier than hitting a target. The main problem then was that holding fire until 1,500 meters meant the gunners only had 6-8 seconds to lay on the target, correct, and achieve hits, before the plane was within range to release it's own load.
@@mikearmstrong8483 I said that the performance was increased, that was the final sentence in my first comment, but that doesn't mean the weapon was effective by any means. You are going down a path I actually did a few years ago as well, the statistics game. Personally, I never came across the numbers you give, but I do think they sound suspicious. Let me explain: 1 in 7 would mean 2 hits per barrel per magazine, and by 1944 they were usually triple mounts, so 6 all together in theory. Logic would dictate that multiple guns would target the same aircraft, so you theoretically increase the number based on how many units are targeting a plane. Issue 1) We can't verify these numbers. Basically, eyewitnesses would have to claim a hit or kill and that is extremely unreliable, especially when we consider the number of guns shooting and the variety shooting (13mm, 25mm, 10cm, and 12.7cm plus the occasional rockets). Issue 2) US numbers don't align with that percentage. For example, at the battle of the Sibuyan Sea (24 October, 1944), 260 US aircraft were used. 18 were shot down (by any of the listed weapons, not just the 25mm), 10 lost during reconnaissance flights and CAP ops, and 2 were damaged beyond use, so 30 all together. The Japanese had hundreds of 25mm in operation yet couldn't make a noticeable use of them. Ten go (7 April, 1945) is another lackluster example. 386 aircraft were used while only 10-16 were lost (sources generally rest around 12) with a few dozen damaged, though most were lightly and moderately damaged. The Japanese even acknowledged that the performance was lack luster overall. Rear Admiral Inoguchi wrote following Musashi's loss "Another thing for which I could not be excused in this battle was that the power of the AA firing was not fully displayed. Every ship seemed to be poor....it seemed they fired excessively, thus inviting a disadvantage of losing targets. Also, cases of firing at long range and firing at targets running away were many." As for following ten go, the naval ministry recognized "The extraordinary meagre result of the AA defense was even below the very low expectations presented during a conference about this item after the air raid of the US task force on 19 March. Outdated fire control systems and ammunition and insufficient power of the close range AA machine-guns, besides of mechanical defects, hampered the efficiency of the Japanese AA defences through the Pacific War." I will agree that the construction and reliability of the gun was good. There's little room to argue that. But it had more defects than you stated. The vibration of the barrels is not something I hold against it as it's common for small caliber automatic weapons. What did hurt it (as I already stated) was poor training characteristics, poor gun sights [though slightly improved in 1943], interrupted fire, poor damage characteristics, and blast interfering with fire control equipment and disorienting operators. These could not be addressed by altering the use of the gun. A direct comparison can be made with the 20mm Oerlikon. It had better training qualities, a better rate of fire, larger magazines, and better fire control/supporting weapons. While its punching power was slightly less, its overall better performance made it a more effective weapon. We must also recognize that Flak was becoming outdated in ww2. Pilots were trained to fly into AA fire and I'm sure you can name many cases where this happened. Deterring attacks was difficult, the amount of cases where a plane ditched an attack run is small, and we're not just looking at torpedo planes but bombers and fights as well. So different attack courses alter the timing, position, and reaction of the AA which is where the type 96 lost flexibility. The USN and RN were regularly shooting down aircraft with AA fire and that became a primary role for them, no longer did they just need to deter attacks. The Japanese on the other hand were held back by relying on older, outclassed, and outdated weapons. All of these factors combined create a unit that can comfortably be considered ineffective.
Развлечения
Great ships, but due to the course of the war they appeared in their designed role scarcely at Marianas.
First ships, Akizuki, Teruzuki and later Niizuki were expended at Solomons in the role of des leaders. Only Akizuki survived this campaign.
WWIITales channel has the memoirs of a Destroyer Captain from Japan audiobook. It is interesting to hear and supplement with CentralCrossing's technical detail. It's interesting how the Torpedo was considered to be the preferred weapon on Destroyers. Thanks Crosser!! Well done!
Love,
David
Basically the Japanese Atlanta class counterpart.
Yeah, but with less firepower. The number of 5"38s on the Atlantas and the rate of fire was amazing. Throw in the VT fuses fir extra fun and tge Atlantas were just plain nasty AA platforms.
More like an AA Version of the Porter class
@@issacfoster1113 wasent the porter an answer to the fubukis?
The 3.9" was an excellent weapon. Its long barrel with high muzzle velocity meant that it outraged the US 5" & it had a higher rate of fire.
10:50 a straight stem is terrible for seakeeping , and yes swapping a fire director for 3x25mm barrels is a reduction in AA firepower despite the extra barrels
Your videos are pleasantly concise, and you have a good narrator voice that keeps up the interest. Good work!
👍🏻🏴 Very informative. Thank you.
so excited to have found your channel again.
subscribe, you will not lose it again.
Really well- done video on a rare subject. Many thanks for your efforts. +1 like...
Nice development history, again this seems to be a recurring theme that IJN managed to put together a perfect ship for the role 2 years late, the Akizukis are too late for the most important battle even the higher ups had realized the problem before the war actually kick off.
This adding with the lack of industrial capabilities results in the Akizuki class always being thrown into battles that she was not designed for (the IJN ran out of Kageros and Akatsukis during the Tokyo Express and had to throw Akizukis to the problem), and towards the end the main purpose for the class even didn't exist anymore, there's no capable carriers to defend, might as well pump a few more Kagero class for ASW duties than building the Akizuki in the first place.
Excellent chanel.
My book from Kagero's Super Drawing's In 3D, is a great wealth of detail, with a brief background, it has really been a great resource of reference for creating a very detailed model of either sister.
In 2010, the Japan Maritime Self Defence Force had named their latest class of destroyer, I assume, after the WWII class.
Take care, and all the best.
Sounds like an excellent ship. Interesting that its main armament was the 100mm. I have seen statistics that show that the 75mm American gun was the most effective anti-air gun. From the looks of the statistics, at least late in the war, the 40mm, really did work well. I expect it was because of range. Seems to me that maybe the 127mm American gun was a bit too large considering that most anti-air guns were 120mm or 90 mm. So 100mm seems like a really good choice. I suspect that the 100mm was adequate for most applications. Only against probably heavy cruisers and above would the prove pretty worthless, but that definitely outclasses a destroyer.
For a second I though he said tampon boilers ( Kampon )
Very good large destroyers/small cruisers ....... Had post war development potential if Imperial Japan hadn't of built them which kills that potential
While the 10 Cm DP cannons are considered to be quite effective in the AA role, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that they actually were. That small bore and high velocity suggests excess barrel wear and degradation of accuracy.
The evidence really sits around by comparing it to other DP guns from the era. The clear comparisons are other Japanese dp guns like the type 89, but the USN 5/38 and RN 5.25 are also compared to it quite often. The type 98 had the best characteristics overall when compared to the other weapons (training, elevation, rare of fire, velocity, range, ECT...).
It did have 2 drawbacks, the lack of a vt shell and a short service life due to barrel wear. To counter the barrel wear, the Japanese had 2 different barrel designs in service.
The type I had a movable liner and the type I2 was monobloc, both were radially expanded. The barrel had a life of about 400 shots, which is decent but comparatively low. The removable liner in the type I barrel compensated for this short life expectancy as it could be changed relatively easily without using as many materials.
@@centralcrossing4732 all sources I find online call the guns ‘superb’, ‘excellent’, etc, etc. While this opinion seems rather universal, I’m not seeing any real evidence of its performance against aircraft. Are there any sources that give direct evidence of defense against air attack?
As a DP weapon there was no bother to make or provide AP projectiles? Seems odd.
Navweaps has an entry that suggests only 169 of these guns were produced and 101 of them were provided for ships(primarily Akizuki- but also Taino and Shinano)with the rest going for shore defense. A little bit of math shows that these numbers don’t really add up. Akizuki class alone accounts for 96 of these guns.
I’m struggling to understand why there were only 169 of these weapons produced when they were so universally considered to be the cat’s pajamas.
I have this feeling that something is missing from the narrative.
@@williamashbless7904 Yeah, 100mm guns of the IJN were very rare. Despite reportedly being a good dual purpose gun, the IJN never had many of them. When the pride and joy of the Japanese Navy, Battleship Yamato, got her final refit very late in WWII... *An Anti-Aircraft focused refit* that removed her wing 155mm guns in favor of more AA guns, none of the added guns were 100mm. They were more of the crap 25mm and crap 127mm guns the IJN had already been using a lot of since the start of the war.
When World of Warships added fake Japanese warships or fake refits that included Cruisers, Battleships with a bunch of dual purpose 100mm guns, I LOL'd
The Japanese may not have been able to produce the number of directors needed, and so reduced the number from two to one on these ships out of necessity.
Everyone thinks the 25mm was useless. In fact, once the higher command realized the source of the limitations and issued new standing orders for how it was to be used, it became an effective weapon. But they needed to do that in 1942, not 1944.
It's not about thinking it was a largely useless weapon, but proving it was. Saying it's largely useless doesn't mean that it couldn't shoot down aircraft, but that other weapons could do it better.
Certainly, the Japanese recognized that early on, AA crews targeted aircraft flying away from a ship rather than approaching, but by 1941, this weapon had serious drawbacks. It's training was slow, the 15 round magazine was small and caused interrupted fire, the punching power was progressively ineffective against more modern US aircraft, and its muzzle blast could interfere with fire control equipment and disorient the operators. Obviously, there were other weapons with the same issues like the USN 1.1 inch gun, but the difference is the USN acknowledged the drawbacks and found better units like the 40mm and 20mm guns. Japan believed the type 96 was effective through and through and didn't seek a replacement until it was too late.
Altering how the gun was used didn't correct the design flaws and didn't really increase its overall performance, it just slightly improved kill numbers which isn't enough to consider it effective by any means.
Altering how the gun was used did indeed increase its performance.
The 2 main problems were vibration in the mounts causing deflection inaccuracy and the inability to reload while firing. So opening fire at greater range would result in missing and then having to reload just as the aircraft was coming into it's own attack range.
At close range, the barrel deflection caused by mount vibration was not enough to cause significant inaccuracy. When the standing order was issued that gunners should hold fire until the target was within 1,500 meters, the type 96 began to achieve an average of 14% accuracy, which doesn't sound great, but actually is pretty good for a light AA gun. That meant hitting with about 1 out of 7 rounds, and 2 hits from a clip would mean serious concerns for an attacking aircrew. Contrary to popular belief, the primary purpose of light AA is not to destroy aircraft, but to interfere with the attack, and a couple of 25mm hits is quite enough to rattle a pilot into missing or even jettisoning his load. The Americans didn't have a kamikaze corps; flyers were more concerned about getting back to their own carrier than hitting a target.
The main problem then was that holding fire until 1,500 meters meant the gunners only had 6-8 seconds to lay on the target, correct, and achieve hits, before the plane was within range to release it's own load.
@@mikearmstrong8483 I said that the performance was increased, that was the final sentence in my first comment, but that doesn't mean the weapon was effective by any means.
You are going down a path I actually did a few years ago as well, the statistics game. Personally, I never came across the numbers you give, but I do think they sound suspicious.
Let me explain: 1 in 7 would mean 2 hits per barrel per magazine, and by 1944 they were usually triple mounts, so 6 all together in theory. Logic would dictate that multiple guns would target the same aircraft, so you theoretically increase the number based on how many units are targeting a plane.
Issue 1) We can't verify these numbers. Basically, eyewitnesses would have to claim a hit or kill and that is extremely unreliable, especially when we consider the number of guns shooting and the variety shooting (13mm, 25mm, 10cm, and 12.7cm plus the occasional rockets).
Issue 2) US numbers don't align with that percentage. For example, at the battle of the Sibuyan Sea (24 October, 1944), 260 US aircraft were used. 18 were shot down (by any of the listed weapons, not just the 25mm), 10 lost during reconnaissance flights and CAP ops, and 2 were damaged beyond use, so 30 all together. The Japanese had hundreds of 25mm in operation yet couldn't make a noticeable use of them. Ten go (7 April, 1945) is another lackluster example. 386 aircraft were used while only 10-16 were lost (sources generally rest around 12) with a few dozen damaged, though most were lightly and moderately damaged. The Japanese even acknowledged that the performance was lack luster overall.
Rear Admiral Inoguchi wrote following Musashi's loss "Another thing for which I could not be excused in this battle was that the power of the AA firing was not fully displayed. Every ship seemed to be poor....it seemed they fired excessively, thus inviting a disadvantage of losing targets. Also, cases of firing at long range and firing at targets running away were many."
As for following ten go, the naval ministry recognized "The extraordinary meagre result of the AA defense was even below the very low expectations presented during a conference about this item after the air raid of the US task force on 19 March. Outdated fire control systems and ammunition and insufficient power of the close range AA machine-guns, besides of mechanical defects, hampered the efficiency of the Japanese AA defences through the Pacific War."
I will agree that the construction and reliability of the gun was good. There's little room to argue that. But it had more defects than you stated. The vibration of the barrels is not something I hold against it as it's common for small caliber automatic weapons. What did hurt it (as I already stated) was poor training characteristics, poor gun sights [though slightly improved in 1943], interrupted fire, poor damage characteristics, and blast interfering with fire control equipment and disorienting operators. These could not be addressed by altering the use of the gun.
A direct comparison can be made with the 20mm Oerlikon. It had better training qualities, a better rate of fire, larger magazines, and better fire control/supporting weapons. While its punching power was slightly less, its overall better performance made it a more effective weapon.
We must also recognize that Flak was becoming outdated in ww2. Pilots were trained to fly into AA fire and I'm sure you can name many cases where this happened. Deterring attacks was difficult, the amount of cases where a plane ditched an attack run is small, and we're not just looking at torpedo planes but bombers and fights as well. So different attack courses alter the timing, position, and reaction of the AA which is where the type 96 lost flexibility. The USN and RN were regularly shooting down aircraft with AA fire and that became a primary role for them, no longer did they just need to deter attacks. The Japanese on the other hand were held back by relying on older, outclassed, and outdated weapons.
All of these factors combined create a unit that can comfortably be considered ineffective.
armed with guns that can fire 100 shells than you can throw them in the dumpster...thats like what 1 aa mission in Pacific?