Samar indeed is probably the closest example of the question posed by the OP.
Kurita had the golden opportunity to smash the escort carrier arm of the 7th fleet and stop the Leyte landings, if only he’d kept going. He essentially made two mistakes in coming to the decision to turn around–he thought the Taffies under Kinkaid were either Halsey’s 3rd fleet with the capital carriers, and/or he thought they were escorted by Oldendorf’s battleship squadron of the 7th fleet.
Even if both were true, he still made a mistake–the IJN had already determined that loss of the phillipines made the Navy useless, with a choice of no fuel if they go to the home islands or no ammunition if they go south. Given that decision, he should have continued on to smash the Taffies and perhaps go on to victory over Oldendorfer as well. Of course there would be no hope of defeating Halsey–but Halsey was too far away to stop Kurita from annihilating the invasion.
The war could have gone differently for a while, assuredly the conventional war would have been set back for the Americans–but still wind up the same with the nuking of Japan.
I keep hoping someday there will be a movie accurately portraying Leyte Gulf–the most fascinating and complex naval battle I’ve ever studied.
Glorious carried torpedo bombers, effective aircraft against other ships, contrary to the O.P.
I realize my assertion that Samar is a closer instance is also belied by the presence of escort ships, also contrary to the O.P., but I beleive that eliminating aircraft is the bigger deal. The destroyers at Samar did little more than bluff, which Kurita fell for. What would have happened if Kurita had not misidentified the Taffies is practically indisputable–the Taffies did not carry effective anti-ship aircraft ordinance.
But the Glorious was literally just carrying those planes. It had no planes in the air on patrol and no planes on deck ready to be launched if needed.
The commander of the Glorious at the time of its sinking had not been its regular commander. Nor was he an experienced carrier officer. The Glorious had been sent to Norwegian waters to evacuate British aircraft. The commander apparently saw his role more as transportation than combat aviation.
Yes, but Glorious was so fucked up in her command that not only did she not have a CAP nor recon planes out, she didn’t have a proper mainmast watch, which contributed to Scharnhorst and Gneisenau getting within range of Glorious before they could launch anything. At which point a lucky hit took the whole flight deck out of action - making the Glorious effectively identical to birdfarm in the scenario described in the OP. Esp. since the first salvos were at about 15 miles - well outside of the initial range that the OP specified.
As others have noted, it’s an unfair and more importantly unrealistic scenario. It’s highly unlikely an Iowa could get within 10 miles of a Nimitz undetected. Even 100miles seems unlikely. If it did though it would be well within range of guns and missiles and would take out the Nimitz in a few minutes. The only question would be if the Nimitz could launch it’s ready alert fighters configured for surface attack befor missiles and shell blasted it to scrap. If so it would just mean two ships on the bottom instead of one.
The Nimitz carries all sorts of anti-ship nastiness for her planes from Harpoon anti-ship missiles to laser guided bombs, but the OP is an absurd situation to begin with.
I’d have to strenuously disagree with this. The destroyers, destroyer escorts and aircraft from the escort carriers did a hell of a lot more than bluff; they inflicted surprisingly heavy losses to Kurita considering the situation. Kurita lost three heavy cruisers in the fight, the Suzuya, Chokai and Chikuma. Had Kurita pushed on Oldendorf’s battle line substantially outgunned him, and even if Kurita had somehow made it to the transports it was already too late, the Americans were already firmly established ashore on Leyte.
I’m glad you all agree with me about Samar and HMS Glorious (Lol)… I agree with David42 that Kurita missed his opportunity to go big or go home. At that point, he should’ve wanted an engagement with whatever he could find. What’s his alternative? Let the USN kill him with air power w/o the ability to strike back? (Which is pretty much what happened to Yamato. Musashi too, now that I think about it.)
At least Kurita would have been engaging under better circumstances than Nishimura. “Let’s continue to drive forward in column, at night, taking multiple torpedoes, while the enemy knows exactly where we are and we think they’re somewhere out there. What’s the worse that could happen?”
What are the fighters going to throw at Iowa? Unless they’re dropping nuclear gravity bombs, I don’t think a few F/A-18s have the armament to sink an Iowa. Harpoons may mission-kill the Iowa, but I don’t think they’d sink it. The Hornets’d have all day to pick the right spots though, considering Iowa’s anti-aircraft capability were 5 inch and some Phalanx. And whatever sailor they can get to stand out there with a Stinger.
No one’s brought up the immortal Sid Meier ‘battleship vs. phalanx’ battle, that I kept getting owned by seemingly everytime it came up in Civilization?
The destroyers did some damage but not nearly enough. Kurita didn’t turn around because the destroyers had whipped his ass–he thought they were the advance guard for Halsey or Oldendorf or both.
The planes from the Taffies were for ground support. They were fighters (ineffective against heavily armored battleships) and bombers with no armor piercing bombs. THe planes did zero damage, like setting off a firecracker on deck. Big boom and–nothing much, a bit of shrapnel.
Not enough to turn Kurita around had he known how little he was facing.It’s anyone’s guess how Kurita v Oldendorf would turn out–BUT–Oldendorf had the classic most desired scenario of crossing the enemy “T” at surigao strait–which would not have been the case v Kurita, and Kurita had the superior force.
Losing my battleship to that phalanx is a memory that burns my soul to this day.
Okay, another scenario - Clark Gable from Run Silent, Run Deep versus Errol Flynn from Dive Bomber, with them starting out facing each other across a well-stocked tavern.
Is the aircraft carrier in question much bigger/smaller than the battleship? What if the carrier were to ram the battleship (as fast as it could)? Would that take down both of them? Would one survive it while the other doesn’t?
If the carrier has its scouts, ASW planes, or eveh the planes that deliver the mail up and running I am certain they will see the battleship long before the carrier is in the range of the BB’s guns. I am sure the carrier can come up with a solution to the problem. And as stated above, that solution might include tactical nukes.
Yeah but the O.P. stipulates that they are 10 miles away from each other.
Really, I think the only plausible way that could happen–because the Nimitz could also outrun the Iowa, I think, if she had a chance–Nimitz can go a good bit faster than she is rated at–they had concerns she’d tear herself apart with EIGHT reactors (subsequent Nimitz class ships only need two) and the explanation is begging of how Iowa could get so close.
Either Iowa or Nimitz goes rogue. Not too smart if it’s the Nimitz that goes rogue, so I prefer Iowa goes rogue, if I want to believe in the scenario.
Starting from ten miles away, an Iowa would smash a Nimitz to wreckage before she could get there. I think at best an attempt could be made to ram Iowa; but dying valiantly while trying to defeat the enemy is better than just wringing your hands, saying, “whatever shall I do, I have no planes.”
Sinking 1/4 of the IJNs entire heavy cruiser force in the war in an afternoon is hardly ‘some damage’. Kurita turned because he was taking heavy losses and his fleet had become badly disordered in the fight. You’re seriously downplaying how severe his losses were on his thinking, whether he thought he was about to run into something much worse or not.
Nonsense, you’re ignoring the fact that they did inflict serious damage on the Japanese. You can try to hand wave it away all you want, but the fact remains that the taffies you keep saying weren’t capable of anti-ship engagements did serious damage to Kurita nonetheless.
It’s not anyone’s guess, and your flatly wrong in claiming Kurita had a superior force. Again, Kurita’s force had become badly disorganized in the fight, and Oldendorf’s battle line substantially outgunned him. S. E. Morison goes into some depth on the issue in Leyte: June 1944-January 1945 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II). It sounds much more dramatic to think Kurita could have won some sort of decisive victory, but the facts of the matter entirely contradict it. It wasn’t August 1942 where Mikawa could have crushed the campaign at Guadalcanal if he had pushed on to the transports after Savo Island. Even if Kurita had somehow made it to the transports, it was already too late. The losses would be painful, but the Americans were already firmly established on Leyte and there was no possibility of them being driven off by the Japanese regardless of Kurita’s actions.
What OP are you reading? It’s the OP in a nutshell.
Well it wasn’t “No damage” and it wasn’t “severe damage” (in light of the numbers of ships involved) so I guess “some damage” is appropriate.
The Taffy’s planes are not credited with the sinking of any ship nor causing them serious damage nor causing any to not be battle worthy. Various sources describe their impact as “slight” to “moderate.” Some of them had to carry depth charges (ineffective for armor) and some had no more than machine guns. The Avengers only had bombs for ground targets; they didn’t carry torpedoes or armor-piercing bombs. The Taffies did not have an offensive anti-ship mission and did not carry that sort of ordnance. Rather than me hand-waving, you are giving credit where none is due.
Pretty much the major effect of the Taffy’s planes, because there were a lot of them, was to convince Kurita he was about to engage the entire 3rd fleet.
“…Wildcats and TBM Avengers from Taffy 3’s escort carriers[39] attacked so ferociously that Kurita believed his ships were engaging a full American task force of fleet carriers.[33] A mistaken report that he was facing six fleet carriers, three cruisers, and two destroyers led Kurita to order his task force to turn and disengage.”
Damage from the Taffy’s planes to Yamato herself here are clearly stated to be limited to shrapnel.
Perhaps what is confusing you is that toward the end, some planes from Halsey’s Task Force 38.1 hit Kurita after he’d headed back north. Those aircraft had appropriate ordnance and made Kurita’s three old battleships unbattle-worthy. But Kurita had already disengaged by then. If Kurita hadn’t turned around, he’d at least have sunk the Taffies before he had to deal with these planes.
I would concede, there were more guns being carried on Oldendorf’s ships. Oldendorf had six battleships; Kurita had four. But none of them were a match for Yamato. First of all, Oldendorf had the old battleships; the newer ones were in Haolsey’s 3rd fleet. Yamato was only three years old. Further, at Surigao striat, three of Oldendorf’s battleships never effectively engaged to due to fire control problems; unable to find firing solutions by any means other than visual and finding them too late. There are no accounts that the Japanese had any such problems. Kurita also had more heavy cruisers, but fewer destroyers. This effectively means that Oldendorf had three old battleships against Kurita’s new Yamato and three battleships comparable to Oldendorf’s. Tell the truth, I think it is more than charitable to say it’s anyone’s guess. Most Likely, Kurita would prevail.
it took a lot more ordinance to sink a Yamato class battleship than any ship Oldendorf had. At pearl, California went down after two torpedo hits and two bomb hits. Compare that with the 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs Musashi took before sinking. Yamato later sank in operation Ten-Go after 11 torpedoes and 6 bombs (a claim of two more torpedoes and one more bomb were made, but unverified).
Further, Oldendorf was not on scene at the time of Kurita’s arrival. Had Kurita known he wasn’t looking at Halsey, there can be no denying that Yamato alone would have devastated the Taffy carriers. They didn’t have any armor at all; a single one of Yamato’s 18.1" shells would have sank any of them. And because Kurita was on scene already, he was in a position to cross Oldendorf’s T; if that happened, Oldendorf would not have had a chance.
And you are completely ignoring Japanese ground-based aircraft… “The heavy air attacks on Task Group 38.3 which had resulted in the loss of the Princeton indicated that the enemy still had powerful air forces…” “Bull” Halsey, The Battle for Leyte Gulf.
And you’re ignoring the fact that Oldendorf was almost out of ammunition.
it was Halsey that Sprague begged for help from, either by air strikes (Halsey out of range) or from Task force 34 (the group of fast new battleships Halsey had, which would have been a match for Kurita) and not Oldendorf.
