What Was The Largest Naval Battle Ever? 

The sheer numbers in these WW2 battles in terms of personnel, munitions or ships/tanks are truly astounding

I'm from Leyte, and it was always taught to us that the battle was the largest naval engagement in history. A lot of us grew up questioning that with a lot pf the critieria you mentioned, but that never stopped us from commemorating it each year. I'm super glad this topic has been tackled, and now I'm pretty sure a lot of students are going to bring this video up in school. I would, and I hope you make a documentary series on it

I think you can easily argue that Leyte Gulf took place in the home waters of the IJN at the time. What surprising about that battle is the Japanese thought they were taking on the bulk of the US Navy, not just a Task Force. They made a miscalculation of scale in poor weather and confused the Escort Carriers involved with Fleet Carriers and consequently the size of every other ship involved. Halsey had moved his Fleet Carriers and Battleships North to chase another formation. Had he turned them around this IJN force would have been annihilated. This matches Jutland were Scheer nearly sailed The German High Seas Fleet into combat with The British Grand Fleet, while pursuing the 5th Battlecruiser Squadron. Midway holds the rightful place as the key to the Pacific war as its not easy to understand how the war would have proceeded had the IJN sunk all the USN Carriers and invaded Midway instead, whereas the loss of TF3, although a tactical disaster, would not have altered the war and been dramatically avenged by the rest of the USN within days.

Jutland . Thanks for coming to my Ted talk . This is also born out by the fictional commander of the American carrier group in ' The hunt for red october ' saying " Somebody messes up, we'll be in the biggest naval battle since Jutland." Incontrovertible proof , I think you'll agree . :)

This narrator is a treasure! He presents the facts in an outwardly neutral manner but he does the subtle things like an occasional raised voice to peak interest and instil feelings in the events he’s describing.

My grandfather, Charles A Orr, who was a Master Sargent at wars end, 3rd Marine, 'Para Marine" trained and helped develop equipment and tactics for airborne operations, before the war. When the Marines disbanded the Paramarines, became the chief parachute rigger, as his duty station, for the Carrier "Marcus Island". As part of Task Force Taffy 2, He was wounded on the Marcus Island in a double Kamikaze attack on the ship. When the first of them came in, they shot it down, but parts hit the ship, decapitating the man next to my grandfather, my grandfather took metal into his thigh. This was when he was at his battle station, above deck, as an observer, spotting aircraft and torpedo's etc during battle . As the other plane attacked, it too was shot down, but skipped bombs into the side of the ship killing another 19 men. Some time around Xmas. He convalesced in Guadalcanal's hospital and reppledeppled back into the 3rd Marine in mid February, landed on Iwo Jima in late February and left in early April, unscathed. Then he went to Korea a couple years later, but thats a different war....

From a strategic perspective, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was almost completely anticlimactic because the Japanese Navy had already been defeated so badly that the most it could hope to accomplish was to sacrifice its remaining strength in a delaying action. Japan came close to achieving its goal of battleships being able to pound America's beachhead for however long the battleships could have stayed around before the main U.S. carrier force either sunk them or forced them to withdraw (quite possibly sinking them while they were withdrawing). But at most, that would have set the U.S. back a few weeks replacing losses. Because the battle was a sacrifice maneuver to make the war more expensive for the U.S., not an attempt at real naval victory, it cannot rank high on the list of naval battles that caused a major difference to the wars they were part of.

Given how the airplane changed naval warfare, Leyte Gulf certainly stands out given the numbers involved.

I think your presentation of the criteria and how one needs to look at the question in order to arrive at a conclusion is both excellent, articulate and concise. A brilliant video.

Battle Of Cape Ecnomus in the 1st Punic war

The ships at Leyte Gulf were much larger than the ships in ancient and medieval sea battles. So the total tonnage at Leyte Gulf should have been the greatest ever in any naval battle. But the total number of ships and/or men might possibly have been larger in one or more ancient or medieval sea battles. For ancient sea battles, the battles in the First Punic War might have been the largest. During the rebellion that overthrew the Yuan dynasty of China, two rival factions of the Red Turban rebels fought each other in the Battle of Lake Poyang 30 August to 4 October 1363. Zhu Yuanzhang with allegedly 200,000 men defeated Chen Youliang who allegedly had over 100 vessels and 650,000 men.

I love your content. My vote goes to Rome v. Carthage in the third Punic War. I do not even understand how this was not a contender. Rome went all in with everyone. As did Carthage. RIP Carthage. I always root for you.

Personally I would divide "largest" and "most significant" into two different categories. For "largest", I like the idea of measuring using displacement, since that favours high-quality and technologically advanced vessels over tiny wooden boats. However, I would also only count vessels intended for combat that are in an area that is of significance to the battle. This means that transports are not counted, but escort ships and vessels that don't actually engage but do manoeuvre to threaten the enemy can be counted. Sadly I do not have enough detailed information about Leyte Gulf to calculate if it is larger than Jutland with these criteria. For "most significant" I would use something in the same style as the Helmut Pemsel scoring system, but I would completely disregard the "numbers involved" score and only go for strategic and political significance. I am uncertain what the "Tactical execution" score is used for, so I can't tell if I would include it or not. Leyte Gulf is definitely NOT the most significant battle in history as per the points that are pointed out in this video. Salamis or The Spanish Armada are more fitting candidates, but there will probably be a lot of contenders for first place.

My late father was there. He was an Army Air Corps engineer. He operated a bulldozer working on airfields.

Another factor with the ancient battles is the relative size to the population of mankind. A staggering proportion of soldiers to civilians would be engaged, whereas the more modern ones its only a tiny percentage.

It occurs to me that the Battle of the Atlantic qualifies as "battle" in the same sense that the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain does. Or even the Battle of the Bulge, the shortest of the four. Multiple different actions spread out over one or more months but in a more or less cohesive area. Britain and France have the further unifying factor that within each battle there was no real change in tech within each one (Britain added radar to the mix between the battles, but the Spit and the Hurri and the 109, 110, and the Heinkels and Dorniers remained largely the same from 10 July through the end of October). The Battle of the Bulge didn't have a change in tech so much as a change in the _weather_; the battle was largely a stalemate as long as the clouds prevented American air superiority. Once that was able to return, GI Joe got fresh supplies and close air support, and Fritz had a very hard time indeed. The Battle of the Atlantic lasted long enough that it was improvements in both escort availability and tactics and technology - both British and American - that finally tipped the scales. In that sense it is unique among "Battles"... even the protracted Guadalcanal campaign didn't see any tech improvements; the Corsair and Hellcat and new/refitted American carriers didn't show up until 1943, after the Japanese had extracted their people and left the island to the Yanks. The thing of it is, though, the Allies lost France, and it just made the war longer. If the Allies had lost Britain, things would've gotten *really interesting* (though I have doubt in the ability of the Wermacht to make it north of Hadrian's Wall). If the Allies lost the Bulge or the Canal, they still would've won the war, though it would've taken a lot longer. If they'd lost the Battle of the Atlantic? Ich würde diese Bemerkung auf Deutsch machen. But the Japanese saw fit to get all rowdy, which meant the Brits got their Liberators and everybody got jeep carriers and Herr Dönitz started having a Really Bad Time... and as we speak it's the Germans who are fighting Nazis, and appear to be winning.

Nicely done... The Battle of Lepanto might be on the list as well. Things would have been radically different had the outcome been different...

I REALLY hope this means will be seeing a "Battle of Leyte Gulf" popping up soon on the operations room. would really like to see a 4 part (1 for each battle) on the main channel.

Ive always favoured Jutland here. At no other time did you see a pure massive naval battle like that, only being ship v ship, with massive modern dreadnoughts duling it out. its scale is often overlooked in favour of Leyte, which I think is unjust.

For me, in terms of modern naval battles (ie Age of Steam & Steel) it is either Jutland or Midway, Jutland for sheer numbers and Midway for sheer scale of distance. And significance also is a major factor for me; Jutland because the entire war could have changed in that day, and Jellico is famously remembered as the only man who could lose WWI in a day. Equally had the German fleet been destroyed, Germany would have been exceptionally vulnerable so not only is at a huge battle, but also incredibly important. Equally Midway was a major turning point in the Pacific War, and while neither side could lose the Pacific War on the day, the battle essentially shaped the rest of the entire war, or at least the duration. As I’m not too knowledgeable on battles of antiquity, I tend to stick to talking largest battles in more modern context, Napoleonic and onwards.

Enjoyed the video. A bar graph that doesn't start at zero is less useful for comparing the total amounts of things than just writing the numbers.

I think you should calculate the joules of energy expended during the battle to determine the “largest.” That would incorporate the energy expended by an average galley slave to the propulsion and detonation of 18 inch naval guns.

If this means a Leyte Gulf Operations Room series I'm so hyped. I've not been able to find a good video on it yet.

Informative AND entertaining documentary as always. Thank you!

I have to think that Lepanto belongs in the discussion of "most significant" naval battles. In modern sports statisticians have developed a measure of win probability, which tracks in real time during the game. In principle, this allows us to look back for individual plays that caused the biggest changes in win probability. This is harder to do with wars for many reasons (not least of which is the lack of a fixed definition of "winning"), but maybe there is some room to develop there.

I submit that the Battle of Okinawa should be considered for the title. The allies had over 700 vessels (including 44 carriers and 20 battleships) while the Japanese had 10 surface combatants (including notably Yamato) and over 200 kamikaze boats, plus submarines on both sides.

I would argue Jutland, because Leyte Gulf was more consecutive battles imo. Jutland and it's consequences of blockade against Germany probably shortened the war by many years, considering the main reasons for German surrender in 1918 were lack of money and food, not territorial defeat.

This was a lot more informative than I expected, especially the consideration of criteria for 'the largest'.

I believe that is was the battle of cape ecnomus but I may be wrong

Terrific presentation. Thanks!

Tbh, Leyte Gulf wasn't such a decisive battle. Even if the Americans had completely screwed up, they still would've likely won the war. The Japanese carrier force was already in tatters before Leyte Gulf. As far as historical significance is concerned, battles like Salamis or Trafalgar are surely more important.

"What Was The Largest Naval Battle Ever?" my answer: "ask me again, but do not used vague terms like 'largest' or 'biggest'." as this will force the questioner to zero in, themselves, on what aspects need be focused on.

The Battle of the Atlantic which went on continuously from 1939 to 1945 and involved thousands of ships,submarines and aircraft and millions of men was undoubtedly the largest naval engagement in history

A thoughtful analysis. Thank you.

Haven't watched yet, but if we're talking about ships and men then it's probably a one of the Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome. Though a lot of the historians in that period exaggerated the hell out of their battle sizes it's pretty obvious from findings and what we do know that the naval battles in those two wars were extremely large.

This was very well done. It covered the associated issues and didn't make the mistake of actually trying to pick one. .

A naval engagement that includes the Battle Off Samar has to be epic.

There is a difference between most important/significant battle and largest battle. When talking about largest I think most people just wanna know size of fleet or tonnage. I also think ships not involved in the actual fight and are just in the general region should not be counted.

Well done. You treated that thorny topic very fairly and I believe came to the correct conclusion, i.e. that it really depends on how each of us ranks the various criteria in importance.

The battle of lepanto involved more than 500 ships. It should have been mentioned

Coming from an american, i have 2 favorite battles of ww2. One is midway, the other stalingrad. Not like I'm stepping out going with those two but they were just effing epic, and i can't help myself.

I'd still say Jutland, if one counts capital ships in action. Leyte was a whole series of battles.

The battle of Lepanto should've been in the list due to the significance and importance of it, it stopped Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean

Battle of leyte gulf was the largest naval battle in WW2. However, the Roman-Punic war saw an even larger battle, where 1280 ships fought each other. By tonnage, Leyte gulf is the largest. By ships, that one is, i can't remember the name though

One of the largest and bloodiest naval battles was the battle of Actium 2 September 31 BC. Here Octavian (Emperor Augustus) defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra.

The battle of Trafalgar changed history. A loss by Britain would mean that this comment would likely be in Spanish. The battle of Leyte gulf, while large, didn't change hosting because the US could outbuild Japan in naval strength. A loss by the US would only have prolonged the war.

Doing data science study here, your vids really are an example with how to do a great, unbiased presentation. Gg

I still never can understand why it's call the "Battle of the Atlantic" outside of it's initial term or why it's still called that.

Id say if we're going for 'largest', displacement or tonnage of ships involved seems to be the most appropriate metric. We often describe quantity of shipping in terms of tonnage as well, so it makes sense to compare the size of naval engagements in the same way.

I believe it's the Battle for My Wife's Egg. Tens of millions of seamen died in a matter of just two days. At the end, there was only one survivor.

Lepanto doesn't even get a mention?

Fantastic video as always, really well done. One minor critique: for future videos with graphs can you please make the x-axis start at zero?

My instincts said Jutland....but good analysis..interesting.

It's odd that the Battle of Lepanto got left out considering that it forces consisted of around 490 ships and around 130 000 men on both sides which all were active combatants in the battle. In addition, being fought in 1571 there are multiple written sources both from historical accounts, eye-witness accounts, letters and even muster lists, so it is considerable better documented and with more reliable sources then the naval battles of the Punic wars for example. I'm not saying, it was bigger than Leyte Gulf but it should at least make the list as a contender.

But can we all agree, that Admiral Yi Sun Shin is one of if not the best Admiral of all time.

Part of the issue with ancient battles is a large number of the ships are invasion/ transport craft that are mainly just to move the men around. If you include criteria like this Normandy has almost 200,000 naval personal and something like 5,000 ships.

I've been waiting with bated breath for the next video. Yay!

The biggest battle is more a relic of the single knockout blow thinking. Maybe a comparison of the most Important naval/land/air campaign in history can be interesting using some of these factors along with a few more. Great work by the way

Fantastic episode. 🇨🇦 Army Veteran

A good question also, would it be ok to consider ALL naval battles throughout history (think hundreds/thousand+ years ago) as well? Or just the modern age ones.

They say Leyte Gulf. but that's how they brand four different battles. Surigao Straight, Subuyon Sea, Samar Island, and Cape Engano. The Naval College has published studies of each, with the exception of Samar Island.

Ships sunk and tonnage sunk would be interesting to look at. If few ships are sunk, it's hard to say it was a large battle; it's more of a meeting of ships.

I just personally think the Roman victory solidified them as an empire and thus holds the importance of the Roman empire making it the greatest because of how Rome would shape the West and how the West would shape the world.

Battles of red cliffs and poyang are not really a fair apple-to-apple comparison. Those battles cannot be called "naval" battles per se as they were fought on rivers or inland lakes, not on oceans or open seas. Also, they were composed of numerous small skirmishes, many of whom were land battles instead. In Battle of Red Cliffs for example, the instances of ship-to-ship combats were rare and very small in scale. Caocao's fleet were mostly burned by the sneaky attack at their mooring (more akin to Pear Harbor), not really a sea battle. The same goes for the Battle of Poyang. While there was one large-scale ship borne combat, but it was inconclusive. Chen's subsequent defeat by Zhu was also due to a fire ship attack.

During the First Punic 0:21 War, (260-246 BCE) there was the Battle of Cape Ecnomus, fought off southern Sicily. The Roman Fleet met the Carthaginian &Allied fleet. Over 2000 ships and 80,000 men fought for quite,a while and over 35000 dead (Galleys - Triremes and Quinquiremes) carried between 60 and 120 slaves for rowing power, a crew of up to 40, and a variable number of infantry Soldiery, so usually had over 150 men aboard. On the Cartaginian side there were also a large number of troop transports, not warships. Carthage was the Naval Superpower at the time, but it was the numerically inferior Romans who prevailed. In terms of numbers of men and ships involved, it DWARFS every Naval 0:21 Battle since.

The sizes of those bars in the bar graphs bug me to no end. They aren't proportionally sized

I was a little surprised to no hear a mention of the battle of lepanto (1571) -- while fully falling under you description of renaissance battles, it could have been mentioned under strategic importance, as it halted the ottoman advance in the mediterranean -- though I don't think it would have changed your conclusions

Excellent history lesson. Thank you. I always wondered of the transition from the Roman republic to the Roman empire.

The importance of a battle is probably more interesting than the amount of means and men, but it's also harder to establish.

Japan in WWII: *"Midway, Leyte Gulf, Philippine Sea"* China in WWIII: *"South-East Asia Sea"*

I would say Midway was larger in overall impact. 200 ships from the Japanese against only about 50 from the US, even though the only Japanese ships that fired a weapon were the carriers and their screening vessels, the Aleutian fleet, and maybe the invasion fleet under Admiral Kondo. As the video mentions, without Midway, Leyte Gulf likely wouldn't have seen those engagements.

The largest naval battle in History was the Battle of Cape Ecnomus.

To add an extra sheen to your videos, I recommend checking your scripts and readings again. Especially the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'. Or if there is a background noise.

It seems like Leyete Gulf was most certainly the most "diverse" with all sorts of craft playing quite significant parts within it.

The nature of naval battles change with technology so largest battles are impossible to determine. Decisiveness is the best measure and that is only per period and we determine that, your eye of the beholder is the best answer.

Did you factor in the weight of taffy 3’s bullocks for the tonnage?

As a naval architect, I’m more familiar with ships than almost anybody else. There is only one correct way to measure size of anything ship-related, and that is displacement. Biggest by any other measure is biggest **by that measure**, but just plain “biggest” has to be displacement. And taking geopolitical impacts into account is perfectly legitimate, but then it’s not size you’re measuring, but importance.

RIP Cmdr. Ernest E. Evans, the lost of the USS Johnston and the rest of Taffy 3.

It was and is the Battle at Cap Ecnomus Rom v Carthago in first Punic War. There were never again as much Ships and Men involved in single location at same time as here. around 700 Ships and 300000 man, all on few km2. Leyte spans over multiple days and locations so no single Battle.

Omg please do the battles of ancient naval battles on the operations room

I would always argue that battles with outcomes significant enough to change the momentum of a war should be considered as the most significant battles. Examples would include Gettysburg, Stalingrad, and Midway, where a previously successful military turns from being the aggressor the defender. These could be described as battles that, after they are over, one side believes they cannot win and is either routed, on retreat, or believes that defeat is inevitable.

2:57 Check out the drip on this one. I didn’t know Supreme made warships.

In my humble opinion to find the largest naval battle one must consider the number of ships involve, whether its transport, a small row boat, or the massive warships, the bottom line should be a ship is a ship. Those ships are part of the area of operation, part of the fleet, part of the campaign, and regardless of if they are mere transport of whatever... they are still a part of it.

I vote for the Battle of Salamis. Because reasons. 🤙 But that's just like my opinion man.

Outstanding videos. I love these!

Okay so I seldom have substantial complaints about your videos, but come on, if your graph has to not start at origin, put axis-broken symbols on it to make clear the bars cannot be linearly read. Otherwise great video, keep up the good work 👍🏻

This was an interesting discussion. I've always been team Leyte, but I've come around to the idea of Jutland being the biggest "pure" naval battle. By the same criteria that would dislodge Leyte, you could also dislodge every pre-Renaissance battle, since those were more like infantry battles fought on ships.

What an interistring debate.

Another great video👍🏻👍🏻

I don't think strategic or political significance is normally a part of what we mean when we ask how big a battle was. If we want to know how significant a battle was, we can always just ask "how significant" it was, without having to roll significance into a discussion of size. While we generally expect significance to correlate with size, significance and size are not the same thing.

Very informative video. I found it interesting and made me think, Jutland was surface ingagement the was some aircraft for scouting and U boats but all sea battle . So thats something to think about. Leyte was land, sea and air. Hummm?

It'll be like debating the Guinness Book of "World Records".

Does the displacement count in the amount of planes that were on board of the carriers?

Well done & balanced. Thanks.

referred and received, thanks. i now kinda truly understand “…one of…”, the more you know

The measures and the chosen subjectivity of the measurer is more indicative of how they see history than their actual conclusions. Their conclusions say more about the rater than history. I, for one, see no naval battle as more significant than Salamis, for upon it did not only rest the outcome of war, but the eventual existence of western civilization and the eventual turning of the near east in and upon itself. The "biggest" is less of a matter of consequences and more for the trivial and the amateur. For example, the Battle(s) of Leyte Gulf did not dramatically effect the outcome of WW2, if Japan had won even a strategic victory, there would have been little impact on the war's results. Eventually Japan would lose, would be crushed, regardless. Jutland? If the Brits had significantly lost, it would have had an impact on WW1, but the German losing of it had no impact on the war's outcome...in a sense of a worldview, the naval battles of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812 were far more significant. Lepanto? Highly significant. Actium? No, the Empire was on the way and the Republic was already in it's death throes. Significance of outcomes is the size that matters, not tons, square mileage, personnel, or hulls.

I was not aware of the battle Of Cape Ecnomus (1st Punic war), which seems to be definitive in the Rome-Carthago balance of power. Therefore besides that one I would argue that the battles where both sides had a chance of winning and making a real turnpoint in history where Salamis, Lepanto and Midway. I'm afraid Britain committed only a part of its forces in Trafalgar and therefore the outcome was not so definitive in the event of losing it..

What about including the length of the battle as a criterium? For example the Four Days Battle between the English and the Dutch in 1666?

One factor not discussed is the extreme differences in technologies between the ancient sea battles and the modern/recent engagements along with the effectiveness those societies to build ships.

Here's a twist. The largest naval battle in history was the Battle of the Atlantic.