Good Morning...Imperial Japanese Navy plays its last ace

[Okla-homey]

April 7, 1945: Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk by US forces

http://aycu19.webshots.com/image/50418/2001349382502844853_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001349382502844853)
Yamato's death throes

63 years ago on this day in 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, the most powerful battleship ever built, is sunk in Japan's first major counteroffensive in the struggle for Okinawa.

Weighing 72,800 tons and outfitted with nine 18.1" guns, Yamato was Japan's only hope of destroying the Allied invasion fleet off the coast of Okinawa.

http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/50198/2001388750961126600_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001388750961126600)

In order to understand Yamato's huge size, know that the largest US battleships of the period were of the Iowa class and weighed in at 58,000 tons and were armed with nine 16" guns. Germany's Bismarck tipped the scales at 45,000 tons.

http://aycu37.webshots.com/image/49716/2001356671635972011_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001356671635972011)

Insufficient air cover and fuel cursed the endeavor as a suicide mission.
Struck by 19 American aerially launched torpedoes from SB2C Helldiver dive bombers launched from USS Bennington, Yamato was sunk, drowning 2,498 of her crew.

http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/51358/2001355311972847153_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001355311972847153)
Curtiss SB2C Helldiver (nicknamed "Son-of-B---h Second Class" by crews as a play on the dive bomber's official designation and because Helldivers were an underpowered and troubled design)

http://aycu22.webshots.com/image/50301/2001353737114345267_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001353737114345267)
Helldivers in pre-launch positions aboard USS Yorktown in 1943

SB2C data
Performance
Maximum speed: 294 mph
Range: 1,200 miles
Service ceiling 25,000 ft
Rate of climb: 1,750 ft/min
Armament
2 x 20 mm cannon in the wings
2 x 30 caliber machine guns in the rear cockpit
Internal bay: 2,000 lb of bombs or 1x Mark 13-2 torpedo
Underwing hardpoints: 500 lb of bombs each

http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/51447/2001341091374103612_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001341091374103612)
USS Bennington underway in 1945

USS Bennington (CV-20) was commissioned in 1944. She survived WWII and was converted to a split deck carrier capable of supporting jet aircraft in 1952. She was redesignated as an anti-submarine warfare support carrier (CVS-20) in 1959, and was on hand for the 1960 Laotian Crisis. She also had three tours of duty, between 1965 and 1968, in the Vietnam War. Bennington was the prime recovery vessel for the unmanned Apollo 4 mission and on November 9, 1967 recovered the capsule which splashed down nine miles from the ship.

http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/50760/2001306552072263349_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2001306552072263349)
Bennington underway after her conversion

Bennington served until de-commissioning in 1970. She remained in storage until she was stricken from the Navy list in 1989. She was sold for scrap in 1994. That year, Bennington was towed to India where she was beached, cut apart and dismantled.

[King Crimson]

i watched tora tora tora the other afternoon, and it's got a comment from one of the Japanese fighter pilot/commanders about the fold-up wings and getting more planes on a carrier deck. i thought that was kind of interesting.

[SoonerStormchaser]

For a moment there, I thought "when did they get one of these?"
http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/imperialstardestroyer/img/movie_sm.jpg

[TUSooner]

It was also the denoument of the battlship era; the war had already shown that aircraft carriers and submarines had rendered the Big Battlewagons obsolete (except maybe for lobbing massive amounts of exploding stuff onto land targets).

[12]

Are they camped out in tents on the deck?

[M]

It was also the denoument of the battlship era;

I like that word...dénouement...merci! :P

[Curly Bill]

Are they camped out in tents on the deck?

Yeah, it's a Boy Scout outing. :P

[Okla-homey]

Are they camped out in tents on the deck?
no chowderhead. Those are aircraft with their wings folded.:rolleyes:

[Curly Bill]

no chowderhead. Those are aircraft with their wings folded.:rolleyes:

Chowderhead...I love that term! SPEK to you. :D

[12]

:O I was, uh, just kidding.

[Okla-homey]

:O I was, uh, just kidding.

I know, but the Official Curmudgeon's Manual, 3rd ed. states at Rule 126 to never waste an opportunity to call someone a chowderhead.;)

[olevetonahill]

So there Ya Chowderhead !
Hey Homey ? WTF is a chowderhead ?

[12]

Etymology
From chowder + head. One might be a chowder-head if one doesn't use one's brains effectively, which would give others the opinion that one has clam-chowder for brains.