"Crossing the T' at the Surigao Strait

The last great battle of battleships saw the U.S. Navy get even for Pearl Harbor.

https://ww2thebigone.com/2016/11/01/crossing-the-t-at-the-surigao-strait/

 

question: with radar, or even without, how can you tell which shell splashes are yours when you're firing along a line of four (five?) battleships at only one target?

 

With radar, you do not normally concern yourself with shell splashes, but remain focused on the radar range and azimuth to your "hard" target, ie. enemy warship. In this case, some of the OBBs had the older inferior Mark 3 Fire Control Radar, and the only way they could develop a firing solution was to fire using the range and azimuth generated from other OBB's shell splashes. Basiscally, they shot were everybody else was shooting in hopes of hitting something.

When shooting under visual conditions w/o radar. Larger shells had dye bags to color their shell splashes and each ship would be assigned a different color - with one ship's shells possibly having no dye bags, thus giving it a normal "white" splash.

 

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEAVYdA4zdM

 

Given the range and the rate of fire it's possible to get an idea when your shells will splash down. I think I've read that during the Bismarck episode one of the two pairs of British capital ships had agreed that one would fire on the minute the other on the half minute to facilitate this. From some readings of the Surigao strait engagement the splashes got dense enough that it wasn't always obvious whose was whose.

 

As long as most were centered on the target no. At the river Plat I've read that the British had a spotter plane up that was using splashes from one cruiser to "correct" the aim of one of the others. That sort of thing could happen. At Surigao the shooting was pretty good though from what I've read. For those who haven't seen it here's a write up of the gunnery there although it's fairly old so may need some updating:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-079.htm
Yamashiro does seam to have held up well to the number of hits reported certainly better than Kirishima did.

 

Also, at the Battle of Dogger Bank, the new HMS Tiger mistook the shell splashes of HMS Lion as her own, and consequently her gunfire was landing well beyond SMS Seydlitz.

Well, Yamashiro actually was a battleship, whereas, Kirishima was a battlecruiser - although, the Japanese considered her a "fast battleship."

 

Read that the Japanese used a lot of colour. Had not thought the US also used...At night, the colours could not be seen. ..Wouldn't the advantage go to the US, with radar spotting the splashes?
Would the bridge ask for coloured shell, or was colour incorporated with all shells?...this ship gets this colour, that ship another...

 

The Americans, British, French, and Japanese all used dye in their large caliber shells. IIRC, the French even used dye in their destroyer shells.

Dye was incorporated in all shells. This ship gets one color, that ship another.

 

an actual hit with a shell that contains a dye bag should give funny results. but it's just my sense of humor acting up.

 

The men of the USS Atlanta did not think so.

 

Interesting...Would all the shell's in a salvo have colour, or only 1...Would colour effect the effectiveness of a shell- remove some explosive to accommodate colour?

 

That would be awesome to see. Is there any colourized footage (even written accounts) that show the coloured splashes. ..Imagine terrified sailors being menaced by the colours of the rainbow (see what i did there, Ben).

 

Pardon...was referring to Ben's posts about how the left are in revolt about trump...i'd hoped to make a point about people dying in WW2 in order that snowflakes today can make a 'statement' about how unfair life is now.
i failed

 

According to:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php
Only 1.5 lbs (nominal, it could be as much as 3lbs) for the US 16" "super heavy" AP rounds. More info can be round here:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data_p2.php