Okay, Yamato, Musashi, Nagato and Mutsu were at Japan while the war in the Solomons was reaging. What if these BB's were there at the Battle's near Guadalcanal? What would the result be in the night battles? would they also be sunk or would the Americans suffer some serious losses. (like loss of the BB's south Dakota and Washington and what would this do to the moral?)
(guess, that the SoDak, after being out of order and the Washington, with their more or less small armour wouldn´t be real opponents for Yamato or Musashi =) I think they didn´t need the Yamato etc, they had no luck, imagine what would have happened, if the Long Lances from the japs cruisers had hit their targets Regards, Che.
Indeed, no luck but in order to get a good chance on hitting a ship you need to get close. Off course, the radar of the Americans pics you up and they shoot you to pieces. A couple of battleships could keep the Americans occupied and thus giving the cruisers and destroyers a chance to get close enough without beeing blown out of the water. Anyway, i would deploy them. They we're only sailing arround in Japanese waters, doing nothing.
They were as a reserve in Truk to engage, if the USN starts an offensive nothern of gudalcanal, somewhere else. Regards, Che.
Lacking the speed of the Kongos, these ships would have incurred heavy air atatcks on the way in and on the way out. What was the fuel situation for the Japanese? Would they have to reduce the actions of smaller vessels to deploy these big boys?
Speed wasn't really a problem for the Yamato and Musashi because they can run 27 knots and Nagato and Mutsu reach 25 knots. The ships retreating to the north of te Solomons mainly did it against 22 knots.
The Kongos went at 30 knots. In fact, if memory serves, this was how the USN first learned that the Kongos could do better than 27 knots. How much fuel would the big boys burn running at top speed?
Somewhere ebetween a lot and enormous. After all, the Yamato's were 70.000 tons. However, the american Subs still didn't completly crippeled the Japanse naval trafic
But at the time of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, quite a few American admirals still either did not trust or did not understand how to use radar (or both). Admiral Callaghan was one such, and his task force suffered dearly for it, and he himself was killed.
The Americans were making every effort to deploy a battleship division in support of Guadalcanal, but the logistical situation (that is, OIL!) prevented it until after the November battles.
