Changing Destiny (Kancolle)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Its a good thing that 1° Guadalcanal is not happening in this fic, that was the nastiest naval battle of the entire war, one fight where no one could honestly claim winning, just having different amounts of regret and cold fury. Frankly the statements of some of Atlanta's survivors of the battle were chilling, especially since the crew of the San Francisco had a very warm reception in their California's port which was still the talk of the town when the injured and crippled sailors arrived weeks later.
At it is I cannot help but to imagine a post-battle Atlanta being quite bitter after losing her captain and admiral in one of the most tragic Blue-on-Blue of the entire war hating the japanese only a little more than she hates her own side, and a lot less than she hates herself for her inability to protect her crew.
At it is I cannot help but to imagine a post-battle Atlanta being quite bitter after losing her captain and admiral in one of the most tragic Blue-on-Blue of the entire war hating the japanese only a little more than she hates her own side, and a lot less than she hates herself for her inability to protect her crew.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
That we know about, although we finally kind of have an idea as to who did what to who when. it is still an incredibly ungodly mess.
It is even more surprising that the Japanese did not have any more blue on blue, although IIRC Kirishima fired on one of the IJN destroyers briefly. At least the USN started the fight in line ahead where they knew where everyone was. The Japanese...not so much.
Spectre
eternal servant to the Fire/EMS gods
- Location
- NY
Atlanta's personality here is (so far) mostly created by the fact that compared to the rest of the cast, she's reversed the order of how she got noticed. Sara and the others have had years of peacetime people watching before Thompson showed up and kicked everything off, so they at least no how humans normally act. Atlanta's only been around two months if we're generous and consider her launch date when a ships spirit manifests, and even back in October the understanding in the military was that it was no longer if we got dragged into the war but when. She's only seen people working their ass's off to get her ready. Because she's pretty much stuck trying to learn howtoeverything all at once, she's doubling down on what she thinks is normal. Most of what Atlanta has done to get spotted so fast weren't even attempts to do so but rather just her trying to help out (the power of "that toolbox is floating three feet off the ground and moving down the hallway under its own power" just happens to be very compelling), and by sheer luck managed to make contact with her crew.
As for Black Friday... yeah if Sky has that play out again, I'm calling bullshit on him seeing as the amount of bad decisions just at Halsey and Yammamoto's command level needed to cause that to happen would give you enough material to write a masters thesis on, nevermind the two knuckle heads running the respective fleets.
As for Black Friday... yeah if Sky has that play out again, I'm calling bullshit on him seeing as the amount of bad decisions just at Halsey and Yammamoto's command level needed to cause that to happen would give you enough material to write a masters thesis on, nevermind the two knuckle heads running the respective fleets.
- Location
- North Carolina
Part of the reason that battle was so chaotic was because the American formation basically blundered right into the middle of the Japanese formation, so full blown pandemonium erupted when the battle began.
- Location
- Pacific Northwest
And don't forget Callaghan's incomprehensible order, "Odd ships fire to starboard, even ships fire to port"
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Plus Callaghan ordering the turn into the middle of the Japanese formation, which resulted in several near-collisions.
But yes, I said that the Americans started the fight knowing where they all were. The Japanese didn't even have that because their formation got messed up in the storm that they hid in coming down the Slot. Abe was asking if the ships ahead were his own destroyer screen right before all Hell broke loose.
Needless to say once everyone opened fire, any attempt at tactical coordination, target identification, or anything else was iffy at best. Bar brawl, lights shot out.
Certainly the most desperate and confused, probably the most savage with ships slugging it out at literally small-arms range at points.
Reading the descriptions of it from the survivors on both sides are absolutely chilling. Those chapters of Neptune's Inferno will both break your heart with pride, and just break your heart.
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- Location
- North Carolina
If I remember right Battle 360 made the comparison to the ranges involved to what you would see during a battle in the age of sail.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Well Laffey and Hiei nearly collided, ditto Aaron Ward and Yuudachi. Atlanta's final radar directed fire setting when she got torpedoed was for 450 yards. There are multiple accounts of US crew using 20mm gunfire and similar light AA weapons for direct-fire into superstructures. IIRC one of the USN cruisers, maybe Helena was actually having to elevate her guns to have them reach their loading angles.
Age of Sail ranges I can easily believe.
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Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
Jesus that's close. Like absurdly close.
- Location
- Sydney australia
Because im not sure what is the black friday thing was that Guadalcanal or some other monumental screw up
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal - Wikipedia
First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Short version.
The Japanese sent down two battleships, one light cruiser and eleven destroyers to bombard Henderson Field in the middle of the night. The US navy ran into them in Ironbottom Sound with a scratch cruiser/destroyer task force (2 CA, 1 CL, 2 CLAA, 8 DDs). Moonless night, and because of massive command screwups by USN Admiral Callaghan he turned his battleline right into Japanese Admiral Abe's force, who were coming out of a storm and in a lot of disarray. So you have 28 ships all within about 10,000 yards of each other in absolute pitch darkness when the shooting started.
The two forces interpenetrated, all hell broke loose, and from 0148 to 0226 they slugged it out at literal hull-scraping distances. There were at least two cases of ships firing on their own side, most notoriously Task Force flagship CA San Fransisco blowing CLAA Atlanta's bridge apart. There were also at least two near collisions between ships. Japanese DD Yuudachi and USN DD Aaron Ward almost hit bow to bow and Japanese BB Hiei missed T-boning USN DD Laffey by around 20 yards.
Scorecard was the USN lost two light cruisers (Atlanta and Juneau), and four destroyers (Cushing, Laffey, Barton, Monssen), the Japanese lost two destroyers (Akatsuki and Yuudachi) and one battleship (Hiei). Plus lots and lots of ships wrecked (IE Portland damn near had her stern blown off by a torpedo the point where it cause her to circle helplessly). Tactically it was a draw, strategically it was a USN victory since the Japanese had to abandon their mission to bombard the airfield.
In naval historical circles, it's known as First Guadalcanal, Black Friday (happened on Friday the 13th), or the Bar Room Brawl. That last is the description from one of the surviving officers "It was like a bar room brawl after someone shot the lights out." It is also notorious where it is one of the very few fights where it took decades to finally get a coherent picture of what happened* in those 40 minutes of hell even with all the accounts from all the survivors on both sides. It is easily the most brutal naval battle in the Pacific Theater and maybe in all of WWII.
*For a long time the most that could be said was that Akatsuki illuminated Atlanta at the start with her searchlights then got lit the fuck up by the whole USN battle line when they opened fire, Laffey and Hiei nearly collided, San Fransisco shot up Atlanta's bridge thanks to either not seeing her or misidentifying her (we don't know which since San Fran's command staff was killed very soon afterward), everyone got a piece of Hiei with everything from 8" to 20mm shellfire, and we know when the shooting started and ended.
It might have been San Fransisco now that I think of it. San Fran was firing 8" shells into Hiei from under 2000 yards. According to one of her surviving officers, she was setting reload records on her main battery too.
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- Location
- Pacific Northwest
The only thing needed to complete that, is for an IJN and USN destroyer to lock sides and the call going throughout both ships of "BOARDERS AWAY!"
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Joyful_Overkill
satisfaction in knowing your enemy won't survive.
Jeez
The more I learn about the Pacific Theater of World II the more I am convinced that it was the stage of the Epic naval war in history.
The more I learn about the Pacific Theater of World II the more I am convinced that it was the stage of the Epic naval war in history.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
At least from the American and Japanese perspective, yes. There is a reason why if you ever go to a Navy football game, just over half of all the battles commemorated throughout Navy/Marine Corps history in their stadium are from the Pacific theater.
Plus you had arguably the largest naval battle in human history at Leyte Gulf.
Certainly one of the most consequential naval battles in history at Midway.
Some key USN traditions like there always being a carrier named USS Enterprise and several ships from WWII like USS Samuel B. Roberts being honored by their names being kept in service date back to the Pacific.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Not to mention the very specific tradition that any Navy vessels travelling through the Ironbottom Sound does so in strict silence to honor the fallen from the ships sunk during one of the most brutal and active naval campaign ever fough in modern times.
- Location
- North Carolina
She was setting that record through a technique called cue-balling which is sort of insane, as quoted from Navweps below:
Crazy when you think about it.
- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
True, although when you are at about 2000 yards and shooting it out with a ship carrying five times your throw weight, you want to fire as fast as humanly possible. The turret officer in Turret One was motivating his crew with these words. "We just put a nine-gun salvo into the side of a Jap BB!" According to the after action report, San Fransisco took 45 shell hits that night, 12 of them major-caliber.
Exactly so. Exactly so. To quote Lincoln: "But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
Five major surface naval battles in and around Ironbottom Sound (Savo Island, Cape Esperance, First Guadalcanal, Second Guadalcanal, Tassafronga). 33 Allied and 18 Japanese shipwrecks there.
That also does not count the two major carrier battles fought nearby in Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz for control of the seas around Guadalcanal.
Guadalcanal was arguably the US Navy's finest hour and certainly the most desperate struggle in USN history. This quote about USS Enterprise getting sent back into the fight right before Black Friday says it all as to how tough it was. "She made the open sea with her decks still shaking and echoing to air hammers, with welders' arcs still sparking, with a big bulge in her right side forward, without water tight integrity and one oil tank still leaking, and with her forward elevator still jammed as it had been since the bomb at Santa Cruz broke it in half."
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- Location
- United States of America
*cough* Taffy 3 at Samar
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Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
On an individual level, yes. The Battle off Samar was... probably the most ridiculously lopsided victory in naval history.
But Guadalcanal went on for months. Months of non-stop, no-holds-barred knife fighting.
- Location
- United States of America
But that makes it a campaign not a single battle.
- Location
- In the depts of despair.
Second most loopsided, believe it or not there is one more complete victory against even worse odds, Battle of Myeongnyang where admiral Yi Sun-sin defeated a 120 strong japanese squadron with 13 ships, sinking 30 ships without losing any of his own.
Wobulator
Within 1 AU of you!
- Location
- Mars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
...damn.
Okay, the Battle off Samar was one of the most lopsided battles in naval history.
Honestly, in terms of warship tonnage, Samar might still have it beat. (But probably not quite.) The loss ratio wasn't nearly as insane, though.
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- Location
- Mountains of Appalachia
True, but First Guadalcanal is way up there in terms of desperation for the USN for a single battle. Unlike Samar, the USN cruisers and destroyers got close enough to actually mission-kill a battleship with shellfire (one of the 8" shells knocked out Hiei's steering and flooded that compartment, which forced her to be abandoned the day after).
Samar might have been more desperate in and of itself, but the rest of Leyte Gulf was the USN exploiting crushing advantages against the IJN. Guadalcanal was a slugging match with no overwhelming USN victories until the Japanese pulled out. I will also point out that just like Taffy Three, Callaghan's surviving ships got the Presidential Unit Citation for First Guadalcanal. Plus Enterprise earned her PUC for that part of the war.
Certainly the campaign as a whole was incredibly desperate and bloody. Not to mention a close-run thing. As I said, 33 Allied ships are on the bottom there if you count Juneau.
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