Top 10 Longest Battleship Hits: NEW RESEARCH 

Hi, excellent video, probably one of my favorite videos from the channel so far. Can you please include some links (in a comment or video description) to the sources used for further ease of access?

Hell Yeah. That should be good for at least a 3 hour dry dock episode from Drac!!!

Drach has already discussed a few of Yamato's long range near misses and said that they are near misses, not hits. If the shell actually penetrated the target underwater that would still be a hit, everyone agrees that hit below the waterline are still hits, but shells exploding near a target and causing damage have always been classified as near misses.

​@@davideidolon927you need to draw a line, for purposes of discussion. But it sure is fencing with words: Someone on a battleship sank an enemy ship, shot it to death with the ship's gun, without hitting it.

Hood! Drach!🤘

Drach is gonna be so mad he called Kongo a Fast Battleship 😂

😆so true

It was scuttled but it also sank. So I dont see your point.

My take on the Bismarck is this: She was sinking regardless. The scuttling just helped it sink faster. But if your enemy beats you to the point you feel you need to scuttle and abandon ship, then they sank your Battleship. Doesn't really matter who let in the final bit of water.

​@@G777GUN"was sunk" is not the same as "sank" If you get in a sword fight & the other guy falls on his sword, you can't really claim you stabbed him to death.

perhaps a maritime duel is in order....

14" rounds

​@@christianweagle625316"

@@christianweagle6253 16 inch en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Massachusetts_(BB-59)

@@christianweagle6253 16 inch

@@christianweagle6253incorrect. What US battleship was believed to have fired the first and last 16” shell? Google is your best friend

Taffy 3 gave them hell as best they could

My Fraternal Grandfather Chester M. Richie was on Gambier Bay and he survived but yeah... Yamato ironically is my favorite Warship I love this dudes vids but the pic looked like Gambier under fire and that is why I'm watching it now as opposed to later

My Father Kenneth McLaughlin served on CVE-73 USS Gambier Bay

Was that the only 2 way Radar directed Battleship fight? fucking insane

@@rohanthandi4903 Yep. Battle of the North Cape. December 26th 1943. Pitch black, in a force 8 gale ice storm, in the winter, in the Arctic ocean, North of the very tip of Norway. Probably the worst weather conditions imaginable, at the top of the world, in the winter storm from hell. At full speed (26-31knots) battleships from both sides blasted at each other using radar plotting, muzzle flashes and occasional starshells only. 2nd last battleship v battleship action in history, the last one being Surigao Strait, which was an execution, not a fight. Scharnhorst was alone, heading for safety and would have gotten away to fight another day but the very last long range, unaimed, salvo from Duke of York found a boiler room and axed her speed, sealing her fate. Scharnhorst went to the bottom as a worthy foe. After the battle the British Admiral told his officers "I hope that if any of you lead a ship into action against a many times superior opponent, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today"".

@@crazyguy32100as a combat veteran on land and I have to say I can’t imagine the tension in the air on the ships as the sea gave em a FN beaten as the shells rained in amongst the black of the night. That changes a man

Although your statement is mostly true. It wasnt the only one of 2 warships engaging each other. The USS Johnson was engaging multiple Japanese ships and was on what was basically a suicide mission. Yes the 5in fire was basically useless, but it did fire Torpedoes, that missed. The USS New Jersey was straddle by one of the Destoyers she was engaging, the torpedoes would have hit her if she wasn't warned by US Aircraft. The thin skinned CVE at Samar could of done some real damage that day if they had been warned (One of many Halsey failures leading up this battle) The Jean bart which was a Battleship but was not fully operational and was moored. did fire at the Massachusetts and the Massachusetts was hit and nearly hit by several shells. The Jean Bart is lucky to not have been operational as one of the shells pentrated its empty secondary munitions locker. But yes its the only Battleship maneuvering duel on open waters

⁠@@Matt-mt2vithat’s all very true and great points and all but none of Those aforementioned points you stated don’t really count for the point he was trying to convey. Reason being is that as they either aren’t against moving targets or aren’t a pure battleship vs battleship scenario which is why HMS Warspite and HMS Duke Of York should get more notice because they scored extremely long range hits against other fast moving Battleships 1 engagement was Modern Battleship vs Modern Battleship HMS Duke Of York vs Scharnhorst and the other one was refitted Dreadnaught vs refitted Dreadnaught HMS Warspite vs Giulio Cesare. But still you do bring very valid points nonetheless

@paemt6220 - Those are great stories... as a WW2 naval historian, I always love to learn new things...and there is always something new to learn when it comes to that conflict. The Japanese navy operated on wartime footing throughout the 1930s, since they were already presuming (behind closed doors, of course) that the U.S. would be their likely opponent. They drilled gunnery and torpedo drills relentlessly, and took special steps to select men with especially acute vision to serve as lookouts and gunnery officers. They also took the trouble to test and select men with exceptional night vision capabilities. And as the coming of war later proved, their technology and weaponry was first-class much of the time. All of these steps bore fruit when the war began, and the navies of the allied powers all paid the price in the early going in the Pacific, i.e., the U.S., British, Commonwealths and the Dutch. The Japanese also used colored dies for identification of a particular ship's guns, to aid in identifying the fall of shot at long range. This proved especially useful if several ships were engaging the same target, or just in the chaos of battle. The tide turned eventually, not only due to technological advances such as superior U.S. radar-controlled fire control, but due to the rising experience and expertise of the U.S. Navy, so hard won in those early IJN victories, and in the middle years of the war when things were in the balance.

What a gift. To have had any conversation with one of the heroes of the Greatest Generation is an honour, and you had a really good one. Let us always remember and revere them, and do our best to follow the examples they gave us.

Is tha the same unit as curator's size?

Lundgrens book states the shell exploded under the White Plains- not a hit unless you believe that the hybrid battleshil Ise suffered 33 bomb 'hits'

USS Mass. vs MN JeanB - should that be 14,250 curators rather than 11,250?

It is highly believed from USS MASSACHUSETTS records and oral histories at the museum, French records, and Vincent O'Hara research that BIG MAMIE hit French destroyer Boulonnais at ~30,000 yards. However, we have no confirming evidence at this time like there is for the MILAN hit.

I seem to recall there is some actual evidence to this as well, but no definitive proof.

He noted the new evidence about the hit that Ryan mentioned and then kept hitting the math of the plotting solution

My father was on the Massachusetts for the entire war . He told us they had hits on two ships during the battle. Yes the French ship was at a pier when it was hit.

Just a little fun facts about the Big Mamie in one of her 16 inch gun turrets there is a scorecard on how many ships the Big Mamie hit and sunk in the battle of Casablanca 2 Destroyers and 1 French Battleship the Jean Bart .. Also in that battle the Jean Bart fired an 8 inch shell hitting the Big mamie giving her a Bandaid cut for damage .. But the 16 inch AP shell from the Big Mamie Tour Through Jean Barts Amor Plating and exploded 30 feet inside of the Jean Bart

Apples and orange comparison. If it was a fleet carrier or other ship its unlikely anything would be damaged much less a dent. As thin and weak hulled as those carriers were, even compared to a Destroyer. Even they are not as fragile as a fish. The Gambler Bay type carriers were a thin, walled, non-reinforced civilian hull ship made into an extremely slow and unbalanced ship that was never intended to be used in any waters that were even slightly contested. Although they ended up doing so and were easily severely damaged and, in most cases, sunk. That other warships shrugged off. Well, the projectile didn't hit the ship. The claim is that a near miss exploded near the ship. There are issues with that claim. But let's go with it, and let's look at other real-life scenarios that are not apples and orange like yours. If say I got knocked on my ass by an IED explosion but received no injures. I would slend the next 20 years saying I got nearly hit. Saying otherwise would be wrong. If shrapnel hit my vest or it punctured my skin, then I could say I got hit. If a boxer or MMA fighter misses a hit, but the other fighter gets injured for some reason in dodging that hit the other fighter, she shouldn't get a point for a miss. A hit is a hit. A miss that misses it a miss. A near miss is when injures or damage is received by shrapnel or explosive force. The infatuation people have that want to change definitions

Agreed. If damage is done, it's a hit. It may not be as brutal as a full on metal-on-metal connection, but lots of shells were designed to do damage nearby.

I think what we're saying is that it's more accurately a "near hit."

It comes from armchair admirals who haven't been within 8,000 miles of a war engaging in goalpost moving and thinking that war is a game played for points. Instead it's about hurting and killing the other guy before they can do the same to you, then do it again and again until they give up or there's nobody left to hurt or kill. If your ship fires a shot at another ship and the result of that shot is the other ship's crew takes casualties, the ship slows down, and the stacks start belching black smoke, then its a hit and everything else is just semantics.

Agreed.

Ryan has mentioned this battle before I think

@@andrewhoughton8606 Operation Hailstone, the Feb. 1944 carrier raid on Truk Atol. The Unofficial History of the Pacific War channel has a dedicated video on it, where Seth, Bill and official unofficial 3rd member Jon Parshall wail on Spruence for risking his brand new battlewagons in an surface engagement while the carriers could strike with impunity: Maikaza was able to send a torpedo salvo towards New Jersey that passed way to close to anyone's liking.

Welcome to the party, kid. It gets wild

You're in the right place. There's an Infinite amount of videos here 😂

Good for you! I wish I had this available to me at your age. Not to mention Drachinifel's site.

Go for wee man, be a sponge, take it all in , you will be amazed at what you will learn unconsciously by just being interested subject. I can guarantee you that what you learn here will relate to other subjects. Good luck, take care.

Missing a continent really would take a bit of bad luck.

​@@brucesim2003my thoughts exactly, ha.

Well, small Europe isn`t that easy targe you may think!

This is not one shred of clear evidence which supports your claim that Massachusetts actually hit Milan. French reports that she was hit by 16" shells are no more reliable than U.S. reports that USS Johnston was hit by 14" shells off Samar. The simple fact here is that claims such as this without clear evidence by an individual with your tag constitute grandstanding- and are a back- handed slap at the other officers and men of the other U.S. vessels present that day who performed their duty in the action against Milan. At least you ended your post with the disclaimer that "BIG MAMIE is believed..." Jean Bart was a stationary target, which great simplified Massachusetts' gunnery.

​@manilajohn0182 Lighten up, Frances.

Jean Bart wasn't MOVING in open sea So nope, that was just shelling a stationary target

@@markwilliams2620 You need to think things through.

​@manilajohn0182 one ship was only recently found in 2019, the other didn't sunk, but was beached. Which means getting physical evidence, is easy compared to the other. One deing so deap its kinda hard to get evidence. But of course , you're mistaken on what was debated. It wasn't if it was struck by a 16-inch shell. Both US and French records are clear on that, plus the shell fragments and the ships French Capt also stating that. The debate has always been at what range.

And he got lucky they didn't get hit by torpedoes because of that insistence.

Neither Iowa nor New Jersey registered any main battery hits during Operation Hailstone. As much as I hate to say it, Iowa's main battery gunnery was rather poor. She engaged Katori in a daytime clear visibility scenario using the Mark 8 at an average distance of less than 14,500 yards. When she opened fire, Katori had already been hit by a torpedo, from 2- 7 bombs, numerous 8" and 5" hits from U.S. cruisers and destroyers, was making no more than 1- 2 knots at best (one report had her dead in the water) and was already sinking. Iowa fired 46 rounds. Per the ship's after- action report, the captain claimed no hits, stating that all salvoes were straddles. He also added that the main battery shell splashes were easily visible both visually and by the Mark 8. There are two likely reasons for this. The first was the significant shell dispersion of the class (1.9% of range for a nine- gun salvo). The second was a relative lack of main battery gunnery practice for the crews after they arrived in the Pacific.

There is a account of that in one of the books I read first hand. The tank crew affected burned. That one hit was able to halt the assembly and march to contact by the armor that day.

The hits on Yamashiro by West Virginia were unconfirmed. Per West Virginia's after- action report, the initial claim was made that "...the first salvo was a straddle with numerous hits...". This was later qualified by the statement that "There were possible and probable hits in all salvos. Three pronounced flare- ups were observed on the target at the splash time of our 1st, 2nd, and 6th salvos". This could just as easily have been Yamashiro firing back. Moreover, Yamashiro's wreck has been discovered and explored. The ship (which was not adequately protected against even 14" hits) is essentially intact and was sunk primarily due to six torpedo hits by U.S. destroyers.

The japanese had a whole range of those shells for nearly every gun size - look up "Type 91 shell". But in the end, it looks like they didn't really work out, because performance on direct hits on armour plates was poor and hits on non-armoured parts only resulted in overpens, the shell detonating way behind the target if at all.

That is not how characterization work, a direct impact is a "HIT" Damage from a shell that do not directly impact is a "Near miss".

That's just what I was thinking! I'd be interested to know the greatest distance at which a shell caused substantial damage to or sank an opponent rather than just, for example, soaked the uniform of anyone on deck

add man

Sugar high

History is a tricky thing, it all depends on who you ask. I agree with you though that a fresh look at things can't hurt. Sometimes a good distance is the best thing to observe correctly.

According to some accounts the Yamato spotter was directing fire and was shot down not long afterwarfs. The Japanese also had some advanced maps that were ahead of it's time. Much like grid coordinates that we use in maps today As for size the USS White plains was not small, it was about the same size as most pre WW2 BB. As for it's actual beam that would include it's flight deck, ment the top 1/3rd of the top part of the ship actually slightly wider than Iowa class BB. It was also had half the speed of the Iowa's BB and could hardly maneuver as it extremely top heavy. So no chasing the splashes or wild turns that a fast BB could do it any other combat warship could such as IJN Nowaki. But yes if the Iowa or any other fast Battleship only went about 14kt sailed in basically a straight line even under fire, it would have been nearly hit as USS White plains was or if plunging fire was used (at that range probably not) hit the BB

In this case, considering the targets hit by the Japanese Type 91 AP Shells, IMHO they were near misses because the Japanese thought they were aiming at targets with actual armor like heavy cruisers and larger carriers, and so aimed for where they expected the armor belts to be. Since they aimed too low for that, we get the seeming near miss - but because their AP shells were legitimately designed with that type of dive to hit the belt in mind, we get a lower than expected actual hit. If the IJN had realized their targets were just DDs (and to them, DEs were considered DDs since they had torpedoes) and CVEs, they might not have used APs that would just go straigtht through lightly armored ships, and switched to the good ol' Sanshiki HE shells instead.

@@mindwarp42 The Sanshiki (Type 3) shells weren't the HE shells but the AA shells that were developed in a somewhat misguided attempt to use battleship main guns as AA guns.

Also the code phrase for the day when Samar occurred was “the world wonders”

@@themecoptera9258 "the world wonders" was padding at the end of the coded message which wasn't part of the actual message. Where did you hear it was "the code phrase"?

it's time to build a time machine so we can go and measure theses shots........

And thus she exacted revenge for Pearl Harbor.

That's known as "avenging Pearl Harbor," wouldn't you say?

Where are you going to put it ? 😁

knocked it into the twilight zone..................

Japanese Navy records.

One thing I can think of is the dye packs. It was known the IJN used them in the battle, the colors were known, and I'm sure at least a couple sailors saw the color of the splash that hit Gambier Bay. Then you have Japanese records. If they say "We shot at this target at this time." and the American records state "This ship was hit at this time..." then it was a likely hit.

Roughly 17 degrees of elevation. The New York class (New York and Texas) could only elevate their guns 15 degrees max. They flooded the torpedo blisters on Texas to get 2 degrees more elevation which would be roughly another mile or two of distance. So probably 14 miles, max.

@@SealofPerfection great, thank you sir.

The hit drop it's speed down which would be death sentence to a DD against a fast bb

@@andrewhoughton8606 if I recall correctly, they were able to bring the speed back up quickly enough to continue to outrun the US fleet. The New Jersey stopped firing fairly quickly simply because they didn't feel like wasting ammo. The destroyer wasn't a high enough priority target this late in the war to make it worth the effort of resupply. It's entirely possible that if they're stuck it out and fired a few more times, they would have directly hit the destroyer.

@@selkiemaine then could see why it wouldn't count as anything more than a near miss

@@andrewhoughton8606 I see your point, but I feel, like Ryan does, that riddling the ship with splinters counts as damage. Even if the damage was not crippling, it was still widespread damage. Think about it this way - if a 16" shell put a hole in the ship's funnel and kept going without exploding near the ship, which is the likely outcome of a hit there, it would be considered a hit - even if the ship was functionally unimpaired. A hole in the funnel might have been less damaging to the ship than the splinter damage that she did suffer. So, it's not the extent of the damage, it's that damage was caused by the shell. I would point out that the explosive power of these shells is a major component in their effectiveness, and it doesn't matter where the explosive goes off, so long as the fragments do damage.

@@selkiemaine lol I never said it didn't I said I could see why it would not count

Giulio Cesare was repaired, escorted a few more convoys, became a training ship and finished her life with the soviets as war reparations, scrapped in 1957

​@@user-in9in8hf9wI do agree that Warspite does deserve some recognition for the circumstances of its hit, but Giulio Cesare definitely wasn't damaged that badly.

@@user-in9in8hf9w Yes. So she returned to port, was repaired. and never served in a combat role ever again. conclusively defeating the ship. They did the same thing as Tirpitz being put in a combat role where they didn't expect her to see real combat out of fear of loosing her. Right up until handing her over to the Russians and let them sink the ship for them by shear incompetence.

Giulio Cesare wasn't "crippled" at all; it was completely repaired in 2 weeks and it sailed out in late August with the battlefleet. It kept sailing out with the battlefleet for the rest of 1940 and 1941, and its last combat mission was in January 1942 because the ship was deemed too old to consume the very precious fuel the Navy needed for the more modern Littorio battleships. After which it was transferred in the Adriatic for major upgrades which then never took place. So no, the ship wasn't "effectively destroyed", the damage was minor and the relatively heavy loss of life from such a minor hit was due to the fires from ammo stored outside to facilitate a faster RoF of the secondary turret. Cheers

@@alessandroiorio6248 Yes it was "repaired" though not to operational capacity. A little known document written by the navel repair yard who worked on Giulio Cesare after meeting Warspite concluded the shell had penetrated through the aft smoke stack and damaged the engineering spaces. The boiler room was set on fire and the shell damaged the ships keel in such a place that firing the main guns at broadside again had the possibility to break the ships back. The number 3 turret was also damaged by the explosion though not serious it did distort the turret ring limiting the guns rotation on it's port side. Something the Russians would have to rip out the turret to eventually fix when they got the ship. Giulio Cesare did survive the battle but she could never again fight in such a battle again hence why she was settled to escort duty. With the fuel shortage they had they deemed it more of a risk to not have their convoys escorted by a heavy surface ship burning through that stockpile than to leave the convoy not escorted. Giulio Cesare was chosen for this as it could not be used in any other manner successfully. They didn't want to scrap the ship right until the end so they saw it best to sue the ship anyway. For the record I'm not trying to discredit Giulio Cesare. I love the ship. But just wanted to make my observations clear.

"any" is quite a big reach here when your example of "favorable engagement" was a whole gang of battleships and cruisers sitting the T ready to shoot at their already damaged target coming into range, It was not the night that's the deciding factor there. Yamashiro was bombed and torpedoed even before meeting the US battleships and cruisers line. West Virginia gunnery performance during this battle was mostly thanks to the extremely favorable situation she was in, basically just broadside shooting at a big, slow moving and already flooding target, of which many equipments had been destroyed by previous gun fires from cruisers. This "outstanding gunnery performance" of her was achieved thanks to all the US ships that were presented including the tiny PT boats, not by herself.

You assume that one ship's gunnery performance proves that many other ships would have the same performance. The reality is that the US fast BBs were doing very different work than the US slow BBs (the "standards" like WV) and got significantly less surface gunnery practice. This is why Lee declined the night action opportunity at Philippine Sea. The slow BBs had done at least 4 bombardment missions before this, had a good radar track on a slow-moving target and were crossing the T in constricted waters.

@@gregorywright4918 ''You assume that one ship's gunnery performance proves that many other ships would have the same performance.'' Yes, it does because the West Virginia had very recently been fitted with multy layer radar fire control similar to the system used by all the fast BBs. Proving the state of the art efficiency.

@@gregorywright4918 WV had more gunnery practice? Simply not true. When she reentered the war after being sunk at Pearl she had little of her original crew. All of the fast BBs had much more time in service.

Not sure if there is an official record, but I think the fatal salvo was fired between 16 and 17,000 yards.

The guns have a compressed air/gas system to clear any smoldering debris out of the gun barrel after each shot. If you search for video's of any of the Iowa's firing their guns, there is usually a burst of gas that leaves the barrel a few seconds after each shot was fired and the crew starts reloading. They can just use this same system to push the gun caps off before firing if they can't be bothered to take them off from the deck.

It definitely gets hits on his channel.

Every time I see a magayaght in the Mediterranean I wonder why these billionaire showoffs can't order a replica of Bismarck from Blohm&Voss in Hamburg? 😎

@mikemason9727 - Re: "I love that you guys have preserved so many of your great battleships. I'm ashamed at the fact that we Brits haven't preserved a single one. Our best is HMS Belfast, a light cruiser." It is a real shame that none of those battle-wagons were saved, not just from WW2 but perhaps even WW1, considering the outsized role the Royal Navy played during those years, and the key role Great Britain had in the development of the battleship as a weapon of war. When my wife and I traveled in Britain over thirty years ago in the early 1990s, we toured the HMS Belfast. Saw the Imperial War Museum, too, which was great also. But I wish HMS Warspite had survived; she was a real fighting ship, that one! "Sink the Bismarck" the old early 1960s black-and-white film, has been one of my favorite naval war films for a long time. Surprisingly good special effects for the era, too. I can distinctly remember a couple of friends and I, as grade-school kids, imitating PM Churchill's voice and saying to one another, "I don't care how you do it... you must sink the Bismarck!" My goodness, that was a long time ago... my childhood, I mean!

This is actually the metric why Warspite and Scharnhorst hold the record. As an analogy, a team in football scores when the ball goes into the goal. No points for hitting the goal posts. Goal post hits still "damage" the goal though, and it certainly causes a lot a hearts to stop beating for a while.

Consider ground artillery firing (indirectly) at moving trucks. If the shells land 10m from the truck and the trucks are set on fire and torn up by shrapnel, did those shells miss? (This is particularly relevant for the New Jersey's shot because they were firing high explosive shells, which caused damage exactly as they were supposed to: through fragmentation.)

@@littlecoldhands It’s a good analogy, but in this case the goal posts have been moved, There doesn’t seem to be any distinction between a ‘Direct Hit’ and close enough.

​@@littlecoldhands Slightly different, Warspite and Scharnhorst hold the record because no other ship beyond reasonable doubt were the ones that hit (or were at longer range than said claims). By direct hits, maybe Yamato and otherwise almost definitely Kongo would have the new record for longest direct hit on moving ship