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The ship you can see in the bottom left of the Yamato's explosion (link [2]) is a Japanese destroyer. I'm not sure which ship it is specifically, but she is lik

The ship you can see in the bottom left of the Yamato's explosion (link [2]) is a Japanese destroyer. I'm not sure which ship it is specifically, but she is likely 100-130 meters in length (those were the only ones around at the time Yamato sank). And she's closer than the actual cloud.

jcranmer 6y ago
Another fun note about Yamato's explosion is that it appears to have been responsible for more plane losses than all of the AA fire during the battle. For a battleship with well over 100 AA guns, that's a pretty damning indictment of their quality.
- forgot_account 6y ago
  One of my favorite YT naval historians, Drachinifel, constantly derides the Japanese 25mm AA gun, which was based on a French design. One of his longer podcasts (in the Drydock series) has a segment explaining the technical details of why.
justinclift 6y ago
On that note, I wonder how the ships / watercraft in the area handled it. Overturned/sunk/? :(
- jcranmer 6y ago
  Naval ships are generally spaced at about "I can see the nearest ship to me in my binoculars"-distances. To give a sense of scale, the USS Washington firing on the IJN Kirishima in the Second Battle of Guadalcanal is reckoned as one of the shortest-range engagements in WWII... at about 5km. That said, the remaining ships in the area were the surviving Japanese destroyers, and destroyers closing in closer to ships would not be unusual. Furthermore, the Yamato was in the process of abandoning ship at this point, and the destroyers may have been closing in to help fight fires or rescue survivors. I doubt they'd be closer than about a km from the ship at the time of the explosion, and none of the Japanese ships (so far as I'm aware) reported any effect from the explosion. Some planes (up to 7) were lost in the fireball, though.
  - jwilliamson 6y ago
    Some WW2 battles were fought at significantly shorter ranges than that. Just in the Malta campaign, at Cape Passero the Italians closed to around 1700m before opening fire. In the attack on the Tarigo convoy, the British closed to 1800m before opening fire and approached as close as 50m to the Italian ships.
    - forgot_account 6y ago
      Another good example is the Battle of Cape Matapan where British battleships obliterated Italian cruisers at 3500m, at night, in a few minutes.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    Sorry, bad wording on my part. I was more wondering about ships/watercraft around the port for this current explosion.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    The WW2 battle of Leyte Gulf was fought between US destroyers and Japanese cruisers at very close range - the cruisers couldn't aim low enough to hit the destroyers, while the destroyers raked the cruisers topside with 5" guns. Also in the WW2 battle of Singapore, two British battleships were sunk by Japanese bombers, but the Japanese ships were very close to the British fleet at times. The result was that Japan dominated both the Pacific and Indian oceans until Midway.
- jabl 6y ago
  In https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/pictures-report-idUSRTX7NJMH https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/pictures-report-idUSRTX... you can see ships berthed after the explosion, with no visible damage (as seen from a distance, surely there must be lots of minor damage to the superstructures etc.) even though they must have been really close to the explosion. Since it was a ground level explosion, the quay and other buildings probably largely shielded the hulls of the ships from damage. Ships in general are quite sturdy things, they are made to withstand heavy seas and winds after all.

jcranmer 6y ago

Another fun note about Yamato's explosion is that it appears to have been responsible for more plane losses than all of the AA fire during the battle. For a battleship with well over 100 AA guns, that's a pretty damning indictment of their quality.

forgot_account 6y ago
One of my favorite YT naval historians, Drachinifel, constantly derides the Japanese 25mm AA gun, which was based on a French design. One of his longer podcasts (in the Drydock series) has a segment explaining the technical details of why.

justinclift 6y ago

On that note, I wonder how the ships / watercraft in the area handled it. Overturned/sunk/? :(

jcranmer 6y ago
Naval ships are generally spaced at about "I can see the nearest ship to me in my binoculars"-distances. To give a sense of scale, the USS Washington firing on the IJN Kirishima in the Second Battle of Guadalcanal is reckoned as one of the shortest-range engagements in WWII... at about 5km. That said, the remaining ships in the area were the surviving Japanese destroyers, and destroyers closing in closer to ships would not be unusual. Furthermore, the Yamato was in the process of abandoning ship at this point, and the destroyers may have been closing in to help fight fires or rescue survivors. I doubt they'd be closer than about a km from the ship at the time of the explosion, and none of the Japanese ships (so far as I'm aware) reported any effect from the explosion. Some planes (up to 7) were lost in the fireball, though.
- jwilliamson 6y ago
  Some WW2 battles were fought at significantly shorter ranges than that. Just in the Malta campaign, at Cape Passero the Italians closed to around 1700m before opening fire. In the attack on the Tarigo convoy, the British closed to 1800m before opening fire and approached as close as 50m to the Italian ships.
  - forgot_account 6y ago
    Another good example is the Battle of Cape Matapan where British battleships obliterated Italian cruisers at 3500m, at night, in a few minutes.
- justinclift 6y ago
  Sorry, bad wording on my part. I was more wondering about ships/watercraft around the port for this current explosion.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  The WW2 battle of Leyte Gulf was fought between US destroyers and Japanese cruisers at very close range - the cruisers couldn't aim low enough to hit the destroyers, while the destroyers raked the cruisers topside with 5" guns. Also in the WW2 battle of Singapore, two British battleships were sunk by Japanese bombers, but the Japanese ships were very close to the British fleet at times. The result was that Japan dominated both the Pacific and Indian oceans until Midway.
jabl 6y ago
In https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/pictures-report-idUSRTX7NJMH https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/pictures-report-idUSRTX... you can see ships berthed after the explosion, with no visible damage (as seen from a distance, surely there must be lots of minor damage to the superstructures etc.) even though they must have been really close to the explosion. Since it was a ground level explosion, the quay and other buildings probably largely shielded the hulls of the ships from damage. Ships in general are quite sturdy things, they are made to withstand heavy seas and winds after all.