Drachinifel how’d you find yourself becoming a naval historian ? Was this something you wanted to do since you were a kid or something that caught your interest later in life ?
So, they were originally designed to fight the American standards, how well did they actually compare to their contemporaries? Did Japan's plan for engaging a numerically superior force have any chance of working out well for them (presuming that war breaks out in the 1920s)?
In order to not panic, it is usefull to do something. Even if it is objectively useless. Like shooting the infamous japanese 25mm AA gun at enemy aircraft....
@@bkjeong4302 The worst part was the Japanese had both the 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors by 1940. The IJN deluded themselves into believing that the 25mm was better than the Oerlikon and at least equal to the Bofors, even though their own testing had shown neither claim to be true. The Italian 13.2mm machine gun even showed better results in testing than the 25mm. The 25mm gun was just a development of the French Hotchkiss, but the Japanese developed it as their own to the point that the NIH aspect of the other three guns overtook common sense. The IJN was the only navy in WWII to not develop, or at least use, a light AA weapon larger than 25mm, and they paid dearly for it during the last two years of the war.
@@sarjim4381 thank you, I could almost understand the triples, but the single mounts always drove me raving mad. When they were flying around with a variation of the 20mm & 60 round drums, yet a single 25mm in free mounts. End rant. Thanks again!
Combinedfleet says that only 8 were planned to be floatplanes. The rest were going to be D4Ys that would land on land bases or other carriers. Still, that would be a funny image.
To be honest, I always thought an Ise Hybrid Battleship would always make for an interesting ship model for display. It's such a unique looking war machine and you get to put a little bit of everything on it.
@@1buszybudy13 Right.... The one thing I don't get about is why don't they just ask for the IJA, the army had a entire series of actually functional 40mm anti-airs. And yet I guess the navy just didn't bother to ask
Strap some tubes to the top of the primary turrets launching over the rear (to keep them clear of the guns) That way to launch torpedoes you have to turn your main guns away from your target. None of your contemporaries will complain and no one expects rear launched torpedoes.
The Pacific Ocean isn't really that stormy. It's why the Americans opted for deck storage of planes on their carriers . So I doubt the Pagado was that much of a concern for the IJN in light of its benefits.
@keith moore Which are a rare occurrence in the waters the IJN found themselves fighting in. They happened but not with enough frequency to worry any sailor worth their pay. Just take a look at history. None of the naval forces that ever fought in the Pacific ever took great care to worry over much about the weather. Hell the storm that gave us the term Kamikaze was considered such a rarity as to be considered divine providence. Think about that for a second.
@@clothar23 The North Pacific can be regularly nasty once you get up by the Aleutian islands and into the Arctic Circle. Admittedly, this wasn't really considered as a theater so navies that sailed in the Pacific didn't give it much mind- until the IJN conducted their 'feint' in order to hide their true target, which was Midway (though some historians would argue that it was actually not a feint and was intended to protect their northern flank). Both the IJN and later the USN had the extreme displeasure of heading up there for invasion operations but wisely chose NOT to do so during winter. Personally, I've been in a winter storm in that area in an Adams class destroyer, and we all had to trice up. 40 degree rolls were the norm and even the saltiest of sailors were getting green around the gills in that weather. No one was allowed topside during the storm- not even the loookouts.
@@VintageCarHistory Well yes , the northern extremes of the Pacific aren't exactly the nicest of places , it shares this with the Atlantic . But as you say naval engagements in these reaches were rather rare. Though I will have to bow to your personal experience in these waters aboard a destroyer. Lord knows the few summer time trips I made in my uncle's yacht in the Northern Atlantic made me realise I wanted no part of it during wintertime.
This reminds me of something The Chieftain said about halftracks. He said the major problem is they are mermaids: "When you want a fish it's a girl, and when you want a girl it's a fish." Sometimes "hey, let's make a combination (thing) and (other thing)" turns out awesome, but usually you wind up with something that does neither job well.
The issue wasn't if you could give it planes, but rather where exactly you expected these planes to land. The runway permitted takeoff not landing, and she's a bit big and expensive for a seaplane tender.
@@glenmcgillivray4707 I can think of a couple possible uses. One is for the ships to extend the range of land based planes by serving as a starting position closer to the target. Second is to operate with regular carriers that will recover Ise's planes afterward. Considering the losses in the latter part of the war, they probably wouldn't worry much about having too many survivors to recover.
It would be interesting to hear about the IJN Seaplane Tenders/Light Aircraft Carriers Chitose and Chiyoda. They were both involved in the battle of Cape Engano in the same decoy force Ise and Hyuuga were part off.
After pressing like, sipping on my coffee and watching the video I concluded, that the actual usefullness (or lack of) a battlecarrier was not tested by the Ise's....
I rather agree while its in that strange realm of having to try to design around to vastly different sets of needs but as a niche weapon system they may have had a place but by the time isa ,hyuga where converted japan was so beaten down that even if they had seen a fair fight they wouldn't have really been to do much.
@@petman515 : Ironically, if someone tried to do a modern, something like the Ise hybrids would probably be one of the only sensible contenders, with Arsenal Ships and Conventional-Missile Submarines being the others.
@@absalomdraconis Basically a heavly armed and armored (battle)carrier comes from the perceived fact, that a carrier before long range air search radar would be unable to defend against an airstrike. HMS Glorious and even the Taffy 3 demonstrated unwillingly, that even surface combatants can get within gun range. Same for the Admiral Kuznetsov, which as a guided missile carrier cruiser was designed for the somewhat confined Black Sea. Besides, since "true" carriers cannot sail legally in and out of the Black Sea, so it was classified a cruiser, anyways.
Karl von Gazenberg .....except neither Glorious nor Taffy 3 are actually good case studies, because the former was caused by human stupidity and the rather involved slow CVEs (a fleet carrier could just maintain distance). In reality, a fast carrier task force will never be at risk of being attacked by surface ships if properly handled.
Especially, Latin suffers from a severe lack of accents… (However, some knowledge of Greek is of distinctive help with Latin, as there are regular constructs in Greek, which explain half of Latin's irregularities.)
E.g., the medial in Greek and transitive vs intransitive verbs in Latin. (Actually, most of the irregularities in Latin are explained by "hidden" grammar, like classes with just a few members, which were still present in languages that had an influence on Latin. If you happen to know any of these, Latin starts to make sense…) Regarding subjunctives, well, as a German speaker I wasn't even thinking of that. ;-)
Love your videos. I"m not really a WW2 enthusiast as I'm more interested in the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic Wars but I really enjoy the history of all of these ships. Thank you very much for advancing their study.
I remember in the 80s when ideas of turning the Iowas into hybrid battleship/STOVL carriers was floated about, and the hideous nature of it was offensive to the eye. I had no idea the IJN had actually done this for real. And I see it was a dumb idea in the 1940s as well.
One of the silliest conversions I have ever seen. It went from a half-decent battleship that might have been useful at Guadalcanal. To a near-useless hybrid. Desperation makes people do stupid things.
@@VersusARCH She was only 5 knots (5.75 mph) slower. Over 10 hours at night, plus an hour or two of combat, that is only 57.5 miles. Not a giant difference. And that is only if the Kongo's maintain flank the ENTIRE night. But okay, how about two extra battleships at Leyte Gulf? Or wherever. Two battleships offer a WHOLE lot more use than two hybrid carriers that carry a whopping 22 aircraft each. And half of them were floatplanes. The conversions were galactically stupid. Period. Either keep the battleships. Or convert them to full-on carriers. Not these useless things. ☮
Always found it kinda funny that, from a mechanical perspective, the Japanese appear to have pulled off something as batshit-ly badass as a carrier battleship... And then had few planes and fewer pilots for it... *insert hot fuzz meme* S H A M E
In theory and imagination an Aircraft Carrier/Battleship fusion sound like an awesome idea, in practice and reality however it is actually a pretty terrible one.
I know this is a hard history channel. Love it. But for all you science fiction nerds. These ships are the ancestors of the Battle Star Galactica. A battleship with a fighter wing. Just saying.
Yeah, a space ship with a runway to launch and land small spacecraft that act like they are flying but don't really. Another reason Galactic was lame in 1979 and this century too.
I think the BB CV version of the Ise looks cool AF. I reckon that it could have been a good design if they had made the carrier deck & hangar all the way to the pagoda (relocating the funnel to the side, naturally). Possibly giving said deck a diagonal tilt to the left so it doesn't end on a head on against the bridge, lol. Keep the two guns at the front just in case you need to defend against something and focus on carrier operation. Still, I love the way it looks. The Japanese had the coolest-looking ships of the war while the Italians had the most beautiful.
Apart from exploding guns they seem to have led a somewhat charmed life. Except that bit at the end when they came to the attention of the USN aircraft.
One quick thing to add about the conversion. Hyuuga's second turret detonation happened in her 5th turret, which is a big part of the reason that the conversions happened, and why they happened the way they did. Now onto the weeb jokes. Remodel in Japanese is kai, so when Ise got her refit in the 1930s, does that mean she got isekai'd? Ise and Hyuuga get to really take full advantage of their BattleCarrier conversions in (where else) Kantai collection. While their initial remodels (and those of the Fusos) let them use a wider variety of floatplanes, including the almighty Zuiun (Praize Zuiun!), their second remodels turn them into true BBVs. They can launch not only floatplanes and dive bombers, but fighters as well, making them invaluable for overcoming the limitations Kancolle's mechanics will sometimes put on fleet compositions. Not enough carriers? Just bring Ise! Hyuuga actually has a slightly different niche, being more focused on ASW especially when equipped with early helicopters. She's also a fun character, her (fan-exaggerated) love of Zuiun dive bomber floatplanes giving rise to jokes about a Cult of Zuiun with her at the head.
You mention the AA rockets that were installed. I have heard of these, but, I have never heard anything of their effectiveness, or, how they were used. A total unknown to me.
10: In their defense, this is probably as good as you can do a battleship-carrier hybrid without helicopters. 20: In indictment of them, this is probably as good as you can do a battleship-carrier hybrid without helicopters. Goto 10.
Looking at the battle-carrier plan, how the heck did they manage to rotate the back turret? It looks like its gonna to hit the crane in either direction and I dont see the guns able to raise high enough to clear the crane.
Are there any nations you would consider to have had the potential to be a major naval power, but which for whatever reason didn't live up to that potential?
China, then they became isolationist. I'm talking about medieval China, when they built one of the biggest navies in the world, then let it rot in harbour.
If I could make a wish to have preserved one of the WW2 battleships that was lost/scrapped, it would have to be for this crazy battleship-carrier hybrid. Wouldn’t that just be something to see??
4:48 That thing is beautiful. Ive always had a thing with long ships with multiple turrets like that. Iron Duke, Amagi, Wyoming...And now Ise. And the Tillman-IV (?)...If that thing was actually produced. Is there any games out there that let me play as the Ise BB? (Not the hybrid) Maybe theres a mod for Battlestations Pacific that i can play? P.S: I always thought that Ise was just another Fuso class. Seeing the hull and elevated deck now i see its diffrent.
Steel Ocean lets you play as both the BB and the hybrid but I wouldn't start playing it anytime soon. The servers are getting shut down in May, probably on account of the (Chinese) devs dying.
A few small number suspected, but the services (specially the leadership) did some audits and investigations and came up with the answer: "Nope, ENIGMA is safe and awesome."
When the qestion came up, the german leadership said: "We asked the guy who's arse would be on the line if enigma WERE compromised, and he assured us, every thing's fine. And we have no reason to not take his word at face vallue."
They were outright told it had been by the Italian navy, but chose not to believe it. On the other hand, the Abwehr was anti-Hitler, so that may have been intentional.
Yeah so many gun turrets and then the crazy conversion. Totally unreal but expected from a navy that has submarines with planes too. Forget space battleship Yamato because Ise is the real "Galactica" battlecarrier.
To be honest i do not understand the argument "multiple turrets needed to engage multiple targets there fore double instead tripples" multiple targets would also require multiple (heavy) sets of fire controls and observation to be effective. These seem to be missing.
Nguyen Johnathan The irony is that the Japanese actually went for the more efficient American-style model (3xtriples, AoN armour schemes, etc) with the Yamato-class.
Nguyen Johnathan Rather ironic that the most iconic IJN battleships of all were a major divergence from traditional IJN designs, and more of a American design supersized and then built in Japan.
As it turned out the Japanese should simply have left the ships as full battleships. Removing 33.3% of the main battery simply left them as even less effective Fuso types with nearly the entire area aft of midships not being covered by any portion of the main or secondary batteries. By the time these ships were back in service there is no way float planes could match the performance (speed, maneuverability and range) of standard carrier or land based fighters and bombers. Outstanding as always sir. Bravo Zulu.
It looks to be a floating sky scraper sir.....or a ship with a beehive hair do for a citadel/super structure. Whatever it is.....i bet it's easy to sink.
I hate to be pedantic but Drach might want to change the video description above. Hint "toady's". Unless he wants a toady side kick to pander to his ego, where do I submit my application?
As we laugh at the hybrid Japanese Battleship / Aircraft carrier that never got an air wing, remember there were people in the U.S. Navy in the 1970's and 80's who wanted to do the same thing with the four Iowa class battleships. The AV-8B Harrier was considered to be the perfect plane to use with such a short flight deck. There were alternative plans for combo battleship / amphibious assault craft with helicopters instead of jets and one proposal for removing all three guns turrets and converting at least one of the Iowas into a giant missile platform; with anti-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and nukes; the same ones the Polaris subs carried. The cost of doing any of these conversions was what kept them on the drawing board instead of becoming a reality.
Kwolfx The sad thing is, the Iowas even existing in the first place was questionable to start with.....arguably the best-designed battleships ever, but built after battleships were obsolete.
@@bkjeong4302 _ I once told something like this to a person who considered himself an maritime history expert. He wasn't, but he did write a pretty good book about the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Anyway, I told him the Iowa class battleships were only good as anti-aircraft platforms to help protect the far more important aircraft carriers and occasionally good for ground support fire; though in reality it was generally the older battleships which performed that type of fire mission. His reply was to ask a question. "If these battleships were obsolete, why was the U.S.S. Missouri chosen as the ship where the Japanese surrender ceremony was held?" My answer was that I had read that U.S. Navy leaders wanted to get on new President Harry Truman's good side by holding the surrender ceremony on a ship named after the President's home state. IMO the surrender ceremony should have been held on the U.S.S. Enterprise, except it was on the West Coast of the U.S. undergoing repairs, but as an individual ship and as a representative of aircraft carriers in general, the Enterprise did more to win the war than all of the American battleships combined.
Kwolfx This so much. The Iowas were very well-designed, but they likely take the cake for being the most overrated battleships in terms of their actual combat usefulness. Even in that AA role, two CLAAs would have provided just as much AA cover as one Iowa at less cost.
