The Last Japanese Fleet Carriers - Unryu/Ikoma Class
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- čas přidán 8. 03. 2022
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Today we look at the development and brief service history of the Unryu class, the last Japanese fleet carriers to be built.
Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/Sry-Hiry-Unr...
www.amazon.co.uk/Imperial-Jap...
"Survey on the current status of the aircraft carrier general plan guidelines" - Imperial Japanese Navy
"Perfect Guide to Japanese Aircraft Carriers" - Pacific War History Series
JMSDF Archive Documents
National Archives of Japan
www.combinedfleet.com/Unryu.htm
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
Where the Regina Elena and Regina Margherita more similar to an Armored Cruiser than a pre-Dreadnought?
Well it's my fault because you might have already talk about this in a dockyard episode and there's still a few I haven't seen yet. But a video on the battle between German and British MTB and MGB in the channel in WW2,and in the med. And a video on the battles in the channel between brit and germ destroyers in WW1. Like I said you might have already? Have a good day.
Was not the Shinano theast IJN fleet carrier???
I recently heard a song called "the devils reach" by a group called the jolly rogers. The song is about a pirate ship captained by a man named Tom Cutter during the golden age of piracy. Apparently the song was based on a true story, yet I couldn't find anything when I looked him up.
Is it a made up tale or was there really a pirate by that name? And if so can you tell anything about him?
How were local transfers (between islands) handled by the US in WWII? My Grandfather served as a Pharmacist Mate during the Solomon and Admiralty Islands campaigns. At various points he was transferred via aircraft, PT boat, and (once) submarine. Did moving personnel and equipment (locally) change as the war progressed, or was it more a case of "just get them there with whatever craft is available?"
IJN: Makes a carrier with a WHICKED advanced fire-fighting system, with all flamable components stripped from the ship at a design level.
Also IJN: You know what we can use these carriers for? Transporting dozens of those explosive human rockets that each carry a warhead big enough to cripple a carrier.
Oh Japan... never change.
"wicked."
@elroyscout Also USN (and RN) sailors found it sobering when their ships came from refit from US yards: Even paint on inside corridors was scraped off. Paint is flammable material. Pure steel surface with horrible looks. Prewar old time officers propably puked at the sight.😂
So you're telling me that Redfish:
1. Has hit the sea bed
2. Has been depth charged to near death
3. Has had her pressure hull cracked
4. Has had her steering gear jammed
5. Has been flooding
5. Has had her sonar destroyed
6. Has had a torpedo activate/blow up inside her tube
Managed to survive
because of that damage she had to go back to states fix all that damage and by time she was read for her 3 patrol it was july 30 and war was manly done.
@@christopherhanton6611 manly done?
should be suggested for a video if it isn't already
@@insovietrussiavodka Sadly, you already heard half the story of the Redfish. Most US submarines only got one run-in with an actual warship just because of the raw discrepancy in numbers and the fact that Redfish was only commissioned in mid-1944. Oddly enough, though, Redfish did have another run-in with a non-transport (Redfish sank three transports, all off Taiwan), and it was another carrier, Jun'you during The Battle of the Philippine Sea that (combined with a couple other submarines) Redfish managed to cripple badly enough to put out of the war (thanks to the Japanese not bothering to spend the materiel to repair a carrier at that stage of the war).
@@Correction_Guy After all that, Redfish was indeed manly done with the war.
The IJN should have sent the Destroyer Ushio.
Out of the three Luckiest Ships, she was the ONLY one not to see her entire group destroyed in battle. In fact, when she was last found, she was on guard duty for, wait for it...
(Drum Roll)
...Battleship Nagato.
So, that is how Nagato survived the war. She was paired with Ushio who's combat record from what I understand was that she never lost her charges. She always got through no matter the odds and her charges did too, typically with light combat damage.
Don't forget Hibiki.
Meanwhile Mutsu didn't pair up with Ushio so poor bastard exploded
Shigure would use up her luck in January 1945: she was torpedoed by the USS Blackfin in the Gulf of Siam while escorting a Singapore bound convoy. It was a slow sinking, and 270 of the 307 men she was carrying survived.
Wait, Gulf of Siam is very shallow waters. How does a US Submarine can navigate?
I was very fortunate to be invited to make a short cruise on the Red Fish way back in 1959. It was in Yokosuka Japan, it was going into Tokyo Bay to test out some repairs on the Torpedo Tubes. 2 Water Slugs were fired. We surfaced and I was allowed to come up on the conning Tower and rode their back into Port. I still have the card I was issued for that adventure.
This is really cool!
How old are you lol ?
20th century relic 😂😂
@@KillerofWestoids And you are a 21st century troll...not even up to relic level.
“Nature abhors a show off.” I love Drachs way with words lol
"crew running around making airplane noises to maintain appearances " lol my God that one got me snort laughing! drach got jokes for days!
Funny though also sad and tragic.
Maintain appearances for whom? Anyone close enough to see or hear this would know that there was no air group.
@@j3lny425
It was a joke.
The assault landing, suicide rocket and anti-submarine carrier, a multiple personality ship born out of desperation.
It sounds like some of the equipment and vehicles that go through Pentagon approval. "We want a troop carrier, with heavy armor, a tank cannon, short range anti personnel defensive weapons, that can operate as a forward command post, emergency medical center, supply transport, and after hours disco. Also it should be able to do 50MPH over mixed group with a range of 300 miles "
@@christopherconard2831 sounds good, can we put missiles on it too?
"We don't have any aircraft to put on our aircraft carrier"
"What else ya got?"
Don’t take all your military advice from memes. Pentagon wars is funny but laughably inaccurate. Tim Burton is an idiot who belongs to a group called “The Reformers”. Look up the Blitz Fighter and Pierr Spray’s comments before Desert Storm about how US equipment would get massacred by “battle tested” Soviet equipment. If the M113 had been with the US armored units and not the Bradly casualties would have been higher. The M113 is unsuitable for anything other than support operations (which it excelles at) but this means it’s value is the same as a tracked truck. The Bradly is great. The F-35 is great. The Reformers are morons and US military acquisition, though far from perfect, works.
@@christopherconard2831 Pentagon Wars heavily exaggerates the Bradley's problems for the sake of comedy. Its a good film, and the Bradley had a development hell with some issues, but it isn't as bad as the movie made out.
Helicopter Carrying Destroyer: Very much true, I am just a destroyer, not a fleet carrier!
Other Countries: Huh?
Other Countries: (Sees F35 take off from "Destroyer") WTF?
Helicopter Carrying Destroyer: It takes off vertically. It's like a helicopter!
There were a times when Soviet Minsk class was called a "helicopter cruiser"... despite carring vertical taking of planes... in order to pass Dardanels (because according to Bosfor Treaty nothing heavier than cruiser can pass it in the way to Black Sea).
So Japanese calling their (rather obvious) carriers a "destroyers" to avoid legal skirmishes (especially with their own hard line constitutotalist which might be against ignoring the Constitution article forbiding Japan of owning carriers) isn't in fact nothing new in that particular field.
@@treyhelms5282 Meh the F-35B is pretty shit it's got no range and a very limited payload with the internal bay only and thanks to the lift fan not even as stealthy as the F-35A or C variants.
They want a carrier so bad, but their constitution doesn’t allow them to build power projection weapons
@@Ushio01 What the hell. The VTOL version is still stealthy, and a fifth generation multirole fighter. It can still beat The vast majority of fighters in the world. But yeah sure “helicopter carrier “lol.
"... the single highest casualty sinking of an aircraft carrier [b]thus far[/b] in history."
That is a horrifying emphasis.
To those curious of the two Matsu class destroyers escorting Unryu along with Shigure, they were the Momi and Hinoki. First lost was Momi on January 5th of 1945 while trying to escape the Philippines. Both destroyers briefly engaged with US destroyers off Luzon before carrier attack aircraft hit and detonated Momi's magazine causing her to sink with all hands. January 7th was Hinoki's turn and she stood alone against four US destroyers (including the Pearl Harbor veteran USS Shaw) while trying to escape Manila Bay. No survivors were picked up, thus she also sank with all hands. I quite like the Matsu class of destroyers, if nothing but for their history as several managed a valiant last stand before succumbing to their attackers. Those that come to mind are Matsu, Hinoki, Kuwa, and Tachibana. While the first three were sunk in surface engagements, Tachibana's was a lengthy defense of Hakodate Bay on July 14th.
Edit: I meant to say defense of Hakodate Bay during an air raid, July 14th 1945*
Sounds like Draq has another subject!
If you like the Matsu types then you will no doubt love the story of the Take and Kuwa at Ormoc Bay in the Philippines, if you haven't read about it already. It is quite a testament that the Japanese Navy still had some vicious teeth during the latter stages of the war when that 'dumpy' little destroyer escort, Take, surprised and completely eviscerated the USS Cooper, a brand new Allen M. Sumner class destroyer that could have wiped the floor by herself with both the Kuwa and Take at the same time. BUT, alas, the IJN showed why they had ruled the night, as usual, and she nailed the Cooper with those stupendous Type 93 torps and that was the end of Cooper. Allen M. Sumner and Moale were there too and they high tailed it out of there after completing their sweep of the bay not realizing the Cooper had ceased to exist.
This would be the third time shigure left port as part of task force and become the lone survivor. If not for the fact he had engine trouble, she would have followed Momi and hinoki to Philippine and be lost
That photo of the sinking Unryu is incredible and almost costed the USS Redfish itself for staying shallow for the shot. It also makes for an interesting comparison against the plane diagram of the ship featured in 11:10.
"costed"??
@@sigbauer9782 Thank god you caught that , I bet you’re so proud.
@@guaporeturns9472 let them be proud of their ignorance.
@@sigbauer9782 What do you accomplish by pointing out a mistake when everyone knows exactly what he meant? You point out other’s mistakes because it make you feel superior because in reality you have low self esteem and want others to think you are clever.. psychology 101..except it rarely works like that. Instead it just makes everyone think you are an asshole. 😂 good jobs
That's something I feel rarely gets mentioned is just when certain photos are taken, and considering the cameras and gear at the time it wasn't just a quick snap
Senior Damage Control officer looks around the Unryu's hangar deck as the second torpedo attack comes in: "Some things in this room don't react well to bullets."
In only his best Sean Connery voice impression no less.
@@T3hderk87 Only Connery could play a Japanese officer with a Scottish accent and the movie goers wouldn't think about it until later.
@@RCAvhstape "Ah'm not Shpanish, Ah'm Egyptian."
@@RCAvhstape You Only Live Twice"?
Yes, like me, I don't react well to bullets lol
In late 1944 the number of carriers Japan had was less relevant than the number of qualified air crew hey had to fly off those carriers. Without planes and qualified pilots and aircraft carries is just a large expensive target.
Accurate and interesting fact. Japan’s industrial capacity was always going to be a limiting factor on its ability to wage war, but its limited pilot training system was a complete “own goal” that they could have avoided.
@@roho10011 It was not just production. Japan did not rotates experienced pilots back home to train new pilots. So all experience went away when the senior pilots were killed. The end result they were hurting for trained pilots and people to train pilots.
You are correct, but I also wonder if Japan could have fielded a competent group of airplane mechanics, ordinance handlers, plane handlers and other assorted hanger and deck personnel. One of the more interesting but also more disgraceful things the Imperial Navy did following the Battle of Midway was take the aircraft carrier's survivors; other than pilots and other flight crew, and scattered them to far flung island bases so they couldn't talk to anyone in Japan about the defeat.
These people should have been used as cadres to train the next generation of aircraft carrier crews into a high state of proficiency; and also to replace any losses taken on Shokaku and Zuikaku. Instead their talents and skills; along with their lives, were thrown away so the high command could save face by hiding their poor decisions and the defeat they helped to cause. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Taiho's crew were so poor at damage control when she was torpedoed during the Battle of the Philippine Sea. If only someone more experienced could have trained them.
@@Kwolfx be glad they were incompetent.....
@@johnmcmickle5685 Makes sense in a way. Their plan was to deal a blow that was so hard and fast that the U.S. would sue for peace. This was their fatal miscalculation and given that it was just a matter of time. Hell, even if we'd lost Midway we still would have started roasting island bases and fleets with a-bombs in 1945.
I watch your full episodes. I have severe tinnitus from Afghanistan(amongst others) and your show gives me a “getaway” for a slotted amount of time. Thank you 🇨🇦
Love the camouflage scheme that looks like a coastline.
Ever see DKM TIRPITZ's camo scheme while she/he (German Navy, correct ? No ?...) was under construction ? It's hull & some superstructure works were disguised as a dock with wharves on it !!
And effectively so, based on the images I've seen....
Amazing originality in place there. Much like when TIRPITZ was in Norway later on....draped with canvases & actual cut pine trees on the deck & against bulkheads.
Imagine being in A NAVY & sawing down trees in a forrest located in Scandanavia as your day's assignment.... Must've seemed surreal to some at the time !!
🚬😎
@@craigfazekas3923 Until a lot of large explosions around the ship showed just how good an idea it was. 😉 Of course, the larger the boom the less you need precision. No amount of pine is going to block a Tallboy.
It actually confused me for a moment because I didn't realize I was looking at an optical illusion designed to make it look like the coastline was higher than her actual waterline point.
[HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen has entered the chat.]
Not bad - I see you took some notes :)
-Heavier, more powerful Japanese carriers
-Even weaker armor plating
Yeah, that could only would go well.
@Admiral Kipper They could also mostly keep enemy planes and ships away from them.
@@yaldabaoth2 and mostly keep them afloat when they did get visited.
American hangars are mostly more well ventilated and easier to fight fires in than Japanese carrier hangars
to be fair, most of the armor sacrificed would not help anyway as they were intended to protect against surface engagement...
and the americans are sinking their carriers left and right with aircraft mostly (or submarines) rather than surface engagement which means those armor sacrificed were pointless to begin with.
To be entirely fair armor on a carrier is mostly only useful as ballast.
Drach: @28:29 “Luckily, Nature abhors a show-off…”
Peacocks: _Exist in Nature_
Parrots, Birds of Paradise, Cardinals, Teal, Widgeons etc, etc etc.
@@mpetersen6 …virtually all male animals interested in the reproduction component of natural behavior.
Birds of Paradise was my first thought, but I chose PeaCOCKS because, well, you know why.
Captain of the Shigure was the only IJN destroyer commander to have fought through the entire duration of the Pacific war and survived. As I grow older I am able to appreciate just how terrible war truly is. Truly incalculable losses all around.
The japanese also had a number of 19th century Armored cruisers of the Asama, Yakumo and Izumo classes sill in service throughout WW2. The ships were severely outdated but came in handy. They also had pre-dreadnought battleships like IJN Asahi in service too.
There was also Settsu which was used for radio deception during Pearl Harbor.
@@neurofiedyamato8763 IJN Settsu wasn't a pre-dreadnought i always wondered why japanese didn't rearm her as a dreadnought. It would have givin them another battleship.
@@jmantime As far as i know, there were actual projects to rearm the Settsu.
@@jmantime It wouldn't been worth the cost. The Alaskas had among the most expensive gun in the fleet, due to only them using new 12" guns. The Settsu, with her 12" guns, would also need a custom production as the rest of the IJN fleet had moved on to 14", 16" and 18", making it enormously expensive for what what is a 1st gen Dreadnought of dubious value. That's only 12 12" guns against the 80 14" guns that were used interchangeably between the 4 Kongos, 2 Fusos and 2 Ises.
@@Edax_Royeaux Settsu could been upgraded to 14 inch guns , her original turrets were removed meaning she could’ve received newer 14 inch turrets. But yeah she would’ve been sunk eventually like the others.
Amazing output of ships despite their materiel handicaps.
This video couldn't come in a better moment for me. Last week I've bought the "Soryu, Hiryu and Unryu-class Aircraft Carriers" book and I became quite interested in those slimmer and less known IJN Aircraft Carriers.
And the video was very informative, really glad you decided to cover these "more obscure" IJN vessels!
*Looks at pfp
I can see why you're interested in Japanese carriers.
This is why they choose Hiryu hull rather than Shokaku hull. The Japanese built 6 Unryuu-class in 2 years
@@EroPantherH I feel that. It’s surprising the Unryu class hasn’t even been mentioned for Azur lane. Ships like this that eluded the encyclopedia that is my mind are evidence that there will always be content to come.
27:50 I want to point out that it is logical that 流星 "Ryuusei" is translated as both "Shooting Star" and "Meteor", seeing as those two words are synonyms for each other
Late-War Japanese designs are something I've always been fascinated with. Thank you for something to listen to while I'm out here in the field Papa Drach.
Are you out standing in your field?
@@Salty_Balls WTF is that name 💀
This really goes to show that Japan ran out of pilots long before they ran out of aircraft carriers. They planned to build a lot of carriers and got partway through it without actually having the pilots to fly off of them.
Someone looked at the training schedule for pilots and decided they could crank out X per month. Completely overlooking what was required for the hundreds of hours of flight time required to make them good pilots.
@@christopherconard2831 And the fuel needed for all that training time wasn’t really there either.
@@dogcarman It may be anecdotal, but I've read German POWs were amazed that allied drivers let their truck idle. Such a waste of fuel was considered almost treason in the German army. They also didn't understand how allied prisoners had new boots and uniforms that were still made to pre war specs.
The fact that we could keep producing more of almost everything was a huge advantage during the war.
@@dogcarman
I suspect this was the reason Japan resorted to a small number of elite pilots in the first place. They couldn’t come up with a better pilot training regimen that would actually be feasible.
They ran out of carriers. Only the Unryu came out on time to be active.
Poor Shigure had so much survivor's guilt by the end when she herself was put out of her misery by Blackfin.
Hey Drach! I'm sure you've already heard, but if you haven't, you need to see the photos they just released of the wreck of the Endurance-- I can't believe how well preserved the ship is! I guess resting so deep underwater and/or the cold of the Antarctic waters have helped to keep her in such good condition.
Had a look at this, that ship looks to be in amazing condition.
I saw the video of her stern. It's near pristine. Amazing. And it was where Shackleton said he thought it would be.
No Toredo worms or other organisms that eat wood (because no native wood there). Similarly a few years ago, the Franklin Expedition ships Erebus and Terror were discovered in the Canadian Arctic, also in amazingly good shape.
Those photos are incredible. I was amazed at how remarkably clean the ship looked after having been sunk for a century.
That expedition is the most epic story of human grit and determination ever. Incredible
Thanks KanColle to got me interested in Warships History, and Unryuu is my favorite, and she is the fluffiest (Cloud) Dragon.
This is replacement of Kido Butai,
they even built *6 carrier in 2 years* (3 finished and 3 unfinished) which is very impressive
Laughs in Essex’s
What would be more impressive is having well trained pilots and planes to put on them!
@@d.olivergutierrez8690 Well the Japanese have a lot of obsolete battleships and (Amored) cruisers built in 1890-1910, they were left until end of the WW2 and used as training warships, but for the necessary more material to scrap all those old ships,
the result is 170,000 t, although there could be 10 more Unryuu-classes
Impressive considering the civil war between the army and navy along with dwindling materials.
@@kyleabrezzi I don't think the Japanese navy gets to look impressive building ships despite dwindling resources, when it directly caused those dwindling resources by making the choice to not properly protecting cargo shipping.
Could we get some videos on the Republic of Texas navy, maybe the battle of Campeche Bay? I have a feeling you could do it amazing justice.
I've asked a few times before...Now we shall pressure Drach into conceding to our demands...Austin and Wharton rule the gulf!!!
I think the issue has been how niche it is...but Campeche had such an impact that few know, on Naval history(and American) history
AYE
THE TEXANS REQUEST IT!
@@jonathanfrank1189 request it we do in a dispatch directly form 4 St. James St.
PLEASE
Considering I didn’t know any of this excited, I agree
This class is so unknown. I first know their existence from Kancolle. Thanks for the vid as always, Lord Drach
Kancolle and azur lane are actually decent sources to identify the names of the most relevant ships both in design and combat service. Iowa, kongo, akagi, essex, etc I knew of their existence thanks to the damn waifu game
KC Unryuu a cute.
Same here. Though I have loved history and military history since I was a kid, games and anime like Kancolle, Azur Lane, Fate Grand Order, Strike witches, Girls Und Panzer have led my book collection to increase into well over 4000 now as I collect and read more historical works and biographies.
Not gonna lie, Azur Lane really led me to this channel. Ain't regretting a single thing.
Katsuragi came into the game during Shimakaze's banner.
It's really neat how these different mediums can come together like this. I grew up around a lot of military history, mostly aircraft-related, but over the past little while I've gotten into the KanColle characters, the same ships in War Thunder, and then also the real world history (like this channel). Quite literally personifying the ships (especially as Cute Anime Girls™), having a tangible 3D model to look at and play with, and then the actual history and such, all of those together make everything so much more memorable and interesting.
Strike Witches, Girls und Panzer, and The Magnificent Kotobuki are amazing examples as well. I actually built all the IMFDB pages for Strike Witches, and over the past few months I've been able to improve the ship sections from basically "is a ship and has guns" to proper detailed info on the ships' armament, and whatever other interesting trivia I could justifiably cram onto the pages. :)
Can we get a video for Shigure? The tales of the last IJN destroyer
Yukikaze might want in on that as well.
Shigure doesn't qualify as that, as she was sunk in January 1945. The winner would most likely be Yukikaze, as renamed to Dan Yang she served Taiwan for a long time postwar. Honorable mention to the nameship of the Kamikaze class of destroyers, named and serving long before WW II, and surviving the war.
Shigure would be a very interesting extended guide
I must say, Squarespace is getting they money's worth with your ad reads. Most people are *far less* in depth about any sponsor than you're giving them. Glad to see you've got enough enthusiasm for their product that you go the extra mile - it's sponsorships like that that actually give me some possible interest in the product being sold.
I only take sponsorship deals from products I actually use and was using before I got offered the deal. :)
@@Drachinifel Awesome! Sounds like a good way of not getting roped into promoting something that's not actually worthwhile.
Great video on a exercise in futility by the Japanese. But it's cool learning about a class of carriers some might have not known about.
They found Ernest Shackelton's Endurance and its in fantastic condition!
Thank you for all of these videos Drach! Especially, for this episode in particular! I have been fascinated by WW2 naval history since I was just 7 years old. My Uncle bought me a small, maybe 1/1200 scale, Snap-Tite model of the USS Pennsylvania (BB38.) And a few years later I started collecting 1/700 scale resin/plastic waterline models of World War Two naval ships and merchantmen.
One of the more elusive models, that I just had to have in my collection or it just wouldn't be complete, was this class of CV. I finally found a Katsuragi kit a couple of years back. My collection is nearly complete; the final count will be somewhere around 80 individual ships and boats. This episode has given me loads of info and photos that I no longer need to look up when the time comes for me to assemble her. In fact there are several of your episodes that I have saved in a playlist for future reference so, thank you!
If anyone here, by chance, knows where I may be able to procure any of the following ships or their sisters, in said 1/700 scale waterline, I'd very much appreciate the direction. These are all I need to satisfactorily complete my collection:
-HMS Belfast and Fiji
-UK T- & U-class subs.
-Italian or French CLs
-Italian DDs
-KM Milch Cow
-KM Atlantis
-KM Danmark
-USS Alaska
-USS Honolulu/St. Louis
Thanks!
21:15 Well done Drach. You have uncovered the mystery behind Japanese anime's fascination with absurd numbers of rockets and missiles
The captain of Redfish knew his stuff. Sonar is crap when you are near the surface in disturbed waters. Getting that last shot off was brilliant stuff. I hope he was suitably rewarded ! I also found the photo at 20:34 very interesting, showing the huge size of the Japanese fleet submarines in the background.
Thanks Drach!!!!!! very few people had covered this on youtube
This is the first I've seen and, given the level of detail, doesn't seem to leave much unsaid. Except for weather -- Hemingway told Fitzgerald to always include a lot of weather.
It was your channel and my crippling marmite habit that kept me going all throughout lockdown. So thank you for that.
And if and when you get time I would like to see a follow up to the cats at sea video to include all animals known to have been taken to sea.
I support this
This. Special mention for the Russian 2nd squadron required.
@@dogcarman Oh yes!
Then one about sea animals...
to have been taken on land :)
Are you come from a land down under, where ships blow themselves asunder? Can you hear, can you hear the thunder? You better dive, better dive for cover!
The speed and extent to which the Japanese naval air arm collapsed always fascinated me. It almost seems like they had very little plans in the way as to how to deal with losses.
That was the core of their plan, because they knew they could not outlast the US or the UK. Hitting first, hardest, and fastest at the longest range was their only chance.
Well, no one plans to lose. Not much way to deal with losing 4 carriers in a single battle early on so their strategy revolved around that not happening.
@@holden3808 There's "We lost most of our best pilots" and then there's "Better keep the qualified pilots we have on the front lines so they can all die of combat fatigue and bad luck with no thought towards teaching their hard-won skills to the rookies."
The first was caused by the enemy and could have been recovered from; the second was entirely an own goal and would have destroyed the fleet air arm all on its own.
@@boobah5643 True, they could have preserved the skilled pilots they had left to help train more.
@@gregorywright4918 Ya, in hindsight I’m thinking the only way Imperial Japan would have had a very real shot against the US is if they had subdued all of China in addition to what they had already taken (Korea, archipelagos, southeast Asia), AND had the resourcing and supply chains all worked out before attacking Pearl Harbor. Without those resources they had no realistic shot at matching quality build capacity. But even with equal capacity they’d be conscripting conquered peoples they were already committing massive inhumanities toward into service to fill out the roles of pilot, submariner, deck hands, etc., which also is a recipe for kneecapping their shot at winning.
But, Imperial Japan’s leadership didn’t listen when Yamamoto told them what a mistake they’d be making.
Your works really great. I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed it all. Thanks for knowing your stuff and putting it out here for us.
Highly appreciate you for posting this vid! It's always hard to come by about the later designs for the IJN. I'll always be looking forward into any videos you have about the IJN. Best of wishes!
Shinano was never completed as a carrier and more like a support carrier, mainly because the amount of time to convert Shinano which the Japanese had no luxury by 1944, unlike the Kaga and the Akagi.
I think Shinano's top speed of merely 28 knots was a no less important factor. First rate Japanese carriers, with the exception of Kaga, were all 30+ knots.
Yep.
I have the model here with me, and she really looks like a yamato-class with a Hangar and flight deck welded on top. (I stil like the design, though)
They could also only fit 2 elevators, one aft near the "pool" on the stern of the yamato-class, and one above turret A, which was also smaller: you had to fit all the mechanics into a main battery barbette. No third elevator midships... so not reallly a possibility to spot a large number of planes in short order. And also only one Hangar Deck, not two as usual on this size of carrier.
She would have been equiped with ~ 60 Planes of various types, but also "okas".
But, thanks to USS Archerfish, she never reached the fitting-out-stage.
IJN Shinano was completed as an offshore reef with modifications by the USS Archerfish…
She was also the heaviest ship in existence at the time. At the time of her sinking she was unique in having only rocket powered aircraft aboard (the only carrier to ever carry rocket powered aircraft).
@@christophpoll784 Carriers with armored flight decks only have 2 elevators, at either end of the hangar, so there is no middle break in the armor. The elevator is unarmored, but the well will have steel curtains to cut off the well from the hangar deck. Shinano did not need 30+ knots since she was designed to be a "support" carrier, backing up the fleet carriers and doing maintenance and repair of planes outside the active battle zone.
@@allangibson2408 I thought taking most of the 16" armor and all the turrets off her would make her lighter than the Yamato and Musashi...
I actually did not know about this class. Im pleasantly surprised. very interesting as well.
If all had been build every remaining Japanese pilot could have had a carrier to himself.
I spotted a ~ 4 foot hand crafted wooden model of the IJN Unryu at a yard sale in Huntington Beach, California last fall. No doubt based on the level of detail, it had significant meaning to the builder. The guy selling it had no ideas of the model's history and was asking $200.
Where might this model be now?
@@sse_weston4138 Probably on WildWeasel's shelf.
It was at a curio shop located at Unit A 7611 Slater Ave, Huntington Beach, CA during a parking lot sale
A bring back?
Doubtful, it looked to be post-war of American origan.
I love the Unryus. Thanks for bringing them up Drach!
I really appreciate your content and the way you tell untold stories is amazing. hats off!
Another fascinating highly informative commentary by Drach. Thank you so much, from a “stoker.”
7:49
US Navy be like: Nice carriers you planned there, it would be a shame if Midway didn't go in your favor
Enterprise and Yorktown: Eat Dauntlesses.
Navy Department: Hahaha Essex class go brrrr
@@AlteryxGaming the lemon spam.
@@AlteryxGaming Navy Department: For the next magic trick. Who wants to see 175 Fletcher-Class destroyers appear from thin air?
@@ph89787 and if that doesn’t interest you . How does 34 Cleveland Class light cruisers and 14 Baltimore heavy cruisers sound ?
Great vid Drach, thank you very much for your in-depth vids.
Enjoyed this coverage of a hole class of ships! Thankyou so much!
It's been stated that the crew upon returning to the States were emotional when welders, who built the Redfish, bragged that their welds held during the hammering from depth charging.
神風 can be read either "shinpū" or "kamikaze" and officially the former reading was used for those "special attack units". Misreading kanji is a fairly common thing to do and it really didn't help that there were two destroyer classes named Kamikaze (written with the exact same characters) so some of the media in Japan and most sources outside of Japan read the characters as "kamikaze" and thus came the name that we know them by today. Japanese forms often have a field next to the one where you write your name to also write how it's pronounced because it's fairly common for proper nouns to use a less common reading.
Incidentally, what is it with using "special" as a euphemism? The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was officially the Special Operations Executive, the suicide units were the "Shinpū Special Attack Units", and now we have the "Special Military Operation".
Not to mention "Special schools", and the "Special circumstances" in Ian M Banks' Culture series of books.
There's also the Special Type 94 40cm/45 guns (actually 46cm) on the Yamatos...
Well, "Mundane Suicide Force" doesn't get the poor sods doing the job very enthusiastic about it.
Another great topic and great video, thanks Drach!
Always, always, always…a fantastic video! Well done, again.
Between the ever tightening noose around the Japanese Islands interdicting their supplies courtesy of usn submarines and the attrition to industry later as the b-29 offensive began, it's a wonder the Japanese were able to do anything. Pretty sad to be constructing aircraft carriers and not having any cruise to fly off of them.
Just in time for bedtime haha
Thanks mate love the work
Yep. You must be in Australia 🇦🇺
*Me sitting in Austria having lunch completely forgetting about timezones* : WTF?
Yep I'm In Australia was realised about 10pm here was excellent
@@dakotanapier5365 same here. Cheers.
Much love drach thanks for another good Vid
Knew very little about these ships--wonderful history as ever. Thanks!
Totally off subject the Endurance has been found, in amazingly pristine shape, save the damage that sank her.
Some people seemed to lionize Robert Falcon Scott. Shackelton and his expedition team members were far more worthy of praise.
During the last year of the war, every battle and every mission on the Japanese side was one-way. In the Clint Eastwood directed film “Letters From Iwo Jima”, the young wife says “They go off, but no one ever comes home.”
The detail as always incredible
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Hey drach, could we get a series on the Fleet Air Arm?
It's inception
Development
Aircraft
Tactics
Etc.
Please?
Try Armouredcarriers channel. There might be something on there.
I had no idea how rich the history was of the Unryuu class. It's kinda sad that ships like Amagi had to be scrapped immediately post war. Brand new ship and it's going to the breakers.
It's a bit of a surprise since a lot of captured ships were used for testing or sometimes given to allies needing to restock their fleets, I suppose it was considered more trouble that it was worth.
At least in the breakers yard she could be turned into something useful.
The ships were built in a rush at the end of a war in which the builders were suffering from shortages of good shipwrights, steel, engines, and all sorts of parts. There were corners cut, inconsistencies between individual ships, and substitutions of things like engines and machinery. Plus getting spare parts later would probably be a big problem. Many smaller ships were just scuttled offshore or scrapped.
It’s that or you’re towed to get nuked in Bikini Atolls…
Another bit of history I did not know. Well done Sir!
Thank you sincerely for great quality content.
23:51 Is a really trippy camo paint job.
The Insanity of the last century is more entertaining than the Insanity of the present time. Thanks Drach.
Always better when you’re not living through it…
Great video Drach thank you
Excellent video. Please keep them
Coming.
Another great vid...I rue the day you do the Italian carriers.
was there such a thing?
@@thatsme9875 2 incomplete; but people always talk about Zepplin.
Aquila wasnt scrapped til 1954, i hear. She was given the graf zeppelins catapults. A second one was built, but its name escapes me. Interestingly, the Germans in addition to Graf zeppelin had 2 or 3 other carriers under various stages of construction using various hulls, but none were anywhere near completed .
In this video. You can see how the Japanese did not have the industrial capacity nore the materials to keep up with producing ships of all types and the repair and refit of others.
Thank you for all your history stories very interesting, JV
One of your best. Thank you.
The atmosphere among the crew of Unryu as it hauled a hangar bay full of suicide machines must have been surreal.
I know there was lots of alcohol involved, so it was probably very merry.
Thank you for the post. We enjoyed reading Hornfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, and Toll's Pacific Crucible. Have you any other books you might recommend about naval warfare?
Battleship Commander, about Ching Lee is 👍
Were you looking for specifically Pacific War books, or naval warfare in general?
Love the narration. Thank you
Great video. Exactly what i needed
"To avoid a few of the better-known areas where US subs often lay in wait" -- So, they avoided the entire western Pacific?
A long video on a Japanese carrier class? Drach is warship Jesus
Best channel on CZcams. Thanks!
Well I must say that that was the best 5 min vid I have watched in quite awhile, thankyou.
Awesome. Can you identify the ship whose hull was painted in the unusual camouflage that resembles mountains? It appears at 15:20 and again around 24:00? I am an avid scale modeller with making every IJN carrier a bucket list project, and before I viewed this video, I was going to skip the Unryu class, or only do the Katsuragi, but you made it so interesting that my list just got longer!
Ikoma based on the video.
It would be interesting to find out what the US Navy's technical teams thought of these ships and other Japanese ships that were captured at the end of the war. I'm curious if any captured Japanese technologies were incorporated into the Allies' arsenals.
I think Drach talked about this in a Drydock episode, and the answer was something like “not really.” By the end of WWII (and even most ships under construction at the beginning), most Allied naval tech was superior to what Japan had. The only thing Japan really had a leg up on was optical fire control (especially night optics). But in 1945, most of the ships with the best optics were sunk, and the US was mostly using radar for fire control with optics as a backup.
There was a bit of interest in them having hydrophones on carriers. There were a few times when it gave them a warning. I think the USS Kennedy was supposed to try out a bow sonar, but they deleted it to save money.
Very interesting episode (like always). I especially love when you go into details about the sinking of Unryu. I would love if you did that with every ship when possible. Thanks Christian from DK
thanks for a new vid!
Do we get a video on why the IJN only gave the cheat code to Shigure?
o7 so far realy enjoy the content on your channel, especially the "age of sail" episodes. I have a question tho, it always bothered me that some articles on wikipedia about the battle of trafalgar when it comes to paintings seem to be badly described. Some pictures or articles say "in the middle is Rdeoutable" tho it looks more like Le Bucentaure to the untrained eye. Could you make an episode about the depiction of ships in paintings and models and their historical accuracy, especially in comparison with each other. There are some paintings or models of ships like the Santissima Trinidad or the Redoutable that look completely different to each other. I would be very interested in a historical classification and evaluation of these representations. Cheers!
Another super Video,thank you
Amazing!
As an Evangelion fan, I can admit that this class came to my attention through the character KATSURAGI Misato.
Literally just watched EoE yesterday haha
Name also reminds me of the MC from Kami No Mizo Shiru Sekai (The World God Only Knows)
Get in the carrier Shinji!
Someone needs to do a story of the incredible survival of Redfish!!!
Great stuff
Terrific. Thank you
Please do a video about the SS Mactan and the USS Lanikai, both which escaped the fall of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
I did not know that unguided rockets were used in w.w.2 for anti air weapons.
I think the Hood still carried some UPs(Unrotated Projectiles = rockets) when she was sunk. UPs were later repurposed and fired from aircraft at ground targets
Yeah it’s a rare thing, the Brit’s had some too.
Unrotated Projectiles, please!
Very interesting indeed.