The night’s full moon was obscured by heavy weather. "The sun set while we sped through Bougainville Strait. Hamakaze, hero of the July 13 battle at Kula Gulf, was one of the rare Japanese warships to be equipped at this time with radar." My Shigure was the only one which was not of the very latest type. "This reference to the four ships as the best at Rabaul was no mere flattery. The enemy success was the result of his radar-controlled gunfire." On March 5, destroyers Mineguma and Murasame were sunk in Kula Gulf before they had even fired a shot. "Admiral Takama left the cabin, droop shouldered, with his document, and I returned to reading the record of further shocking events. The RAF wrote the book on interceptor doctrine.Īnd later after the war, the USAF created a unit specific to interception of aircraft and attack called Strategic Air Command.įrom "Japanese Destroyer Captain" and hooray for PDFs!: The US learned the lessons of radar both at Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Britain. The US fleet can see them coming and diverted the cover air patrol fighters (CAP) to intercept. Midway was cloudy, and the IJN had no early warning. While Iowa can hit anything on a clear day and bad weather. It has been argued that on a clear day, Yamato can hit anything from range. So they hated fighting in the dark of night. Yeah, the IJN relied on optical range finders as well. In 1944 when the IJN tried to do long range strikes against the American Fleet off of Saipan, trying to catch the USN by surprise, it didn't work because Radar gave plenty of warning and they were ready to "receive" the guests. ![]() One of the big reasons of the IJN's failure at Midway was no Radar to spot the incoming American Carrier Strikes. By the time they realized Radar was a pretty d*mn big deal, it was well into 1943 and their naval losses in the Solomon Islands / Guadalcanal / New Guinea Campaigns were stacked high already. The IJN was strange because out of the major navies, they were one of the few that eschewed Radar. It didn't work because Hipper's Radar and Radar gunfire control system didn't care about the smoke. The Germans would find find that out also when Scharnhorst ran into Duke of York.ĭestroyer Glowworm tried to use smoke to break contact from Heavy Cruiser Admiral Hipper. The radar clinic just showed the definitive answer to US Navy gunnery technology as being devastatingly accurate.
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