Yuku free message boards

Let me get through this quickly before the cyber-trolls do to me what they do to USAFcop. First reactions to Gohbhined:
I think we're beginning to uncover some of the fallacies propagated by popular literature. Yamato's armor "recipe" was little advanced from WWI days. However, the quality control was unsurpassed, and skunkie plates would be non-existent. American plates had pretty good QC as well, but the face-hardened armor suffered from a wrong turn the US made in the days before WWI. Against the very largest shells, American face-hardened armor was WORSE than Japanese. There appears to have been some realization of this problem as the modern US battleships all had homogenous turret faceplates, a feature never seen in foreign dreadnoughts. Unfortunately, Japanese shells were great at penetrating homogenous armor.
If you'd like to compare the two ships one-on-one, Yamato has quite a substantial immune zone to Iowa's shells encompassing most of the 20,000's of yards, while Iowa has little or no immune zone to Yamato's shells. Some compensation could be had in Iowa's ability to fire reduced charges; this comes with the obvious penalties.
There is a range band just under 20,000 yards, where Iowa's shells could survive an impact with Yamato's belt better than vice versa. This means the Japanese shells would be more likely to have the explosive cavity exposed, rendering the burster inert but not preventing damage from the impact itself. I shudder to consider the consequences of these two ships slugging it out at such short range.
Speaking of which, we need to reconsider the significance of the Shinano faceplate that was penetrated during a 16in shell trial. Neither of the hits replicated anything that relates to real-world conditions; in order to recreate that hit that penetrated, you would have to put Iowa c20,000 yards away from Yamato and induce a 30deg list in the target to provide the most accommodating angle of impact. In the real world Iowa could not hope to do anything but crack the faceplate, and even that would be unlikely.
I don't know how to define an "all-Japanese battleship." I guess Nagato fits the bill, completed in 1920.
The story of the barrel damage from the Type 3 shell is just plain wrong. The Japanese had fired hundreds of Type 3 shells starting from October 1943. Musashi's damage resulted when an American bomb landed on the muzzle of her gun and detonated a shell in the chamber.
SoDak and North Carolina have a speed advantage over Yamato?
No FC system allows hits at will. Iowa's first bit of gunnery involved a target that was dead in the water and only 15,000 yards away. She fired eight salvos and scored no hits. We can all agree that Iowa's FC was superior to Yamato's, but let's not exaggerate the ramifications of that.
Now reactions to USAFcop:
Yamato's belt was angled more acutely than Iowa's (by 1 whole degree). But unlike Iowa Yamato also has beneficial deck and bulkhead angles. So how is Iowa's armor "smarter." I urge all, once again, to consult armor schematics. You shouldn't need me to describe these basics when good references abound. Pick up a copy of Garzke & Dulin's Axis BB book or Skulski's Yamato Anatomy book.
If I haven't posted this earlier, here it is: Yamato's barrel life was 250 EFC, Iowa's was 290 EFC. That's not a major difference.
Iowa was a superior carrier escort by almost any definition. Her AA ability is far superior. No one who understands that the Japanese developed one of the best HA FC systems in the world would say Yamato had squat for AA. I hope I'm not coming off as rude, but you're saying things that remind of someone claiming Nolan Ryan had to be a finesse pitcher because he had no fastball. Many of the things I'm relating here are readily available in published material. Just make sure you're dealing with credible sources like Warship International, G&D, Skulski, Richard Worth (Hee!), etc.
Yamato never got anywhere near a PT-boat.
I asked if there was any basis for saying the 16in shell was ballistically more efficient; you responded with several irrelevancies plus the admission that Yamato fired at higher velocity.
You also claimed that a 2700-lb shell with less kinetic and less chemical energy would not cause less damage than a 3219-lb shell with more kinetic and more chemical energy. And apparently, you're okay with that.
There were two battleships at Surigao Strait with 16in guns, but you're right that only one was firing. The other couldn't even see a target to shoot at. Well, actually she did fire one salvo, but not at anything in particular, just "clearing the guns through the muzzles."
If you want to continue your worship of Americana, then I guess it's appropriate to cherry-pick your facts. How come you trumpet Japanese failures, but fail to mention how SoDak fared in her first battle? How many ships suffer the ignominy of knocking themselves out? Why not mention Iowa's first combat, where she couldn't hit a thing with her ultra-ballistically-efficient 16in shells?
If you really want to understand this stuff, divest yourself of all the emotional stock in Iowa-worship.