U,S. Destroyers vs Japans and German Destroyers.

[TRDG]

Just a question I was thinking about here for a while, was there much of a difference between the three, as to fighting capacity? And, how did one on one battles go between them, who was proved to be "the best", be it crew training, the guns, the way they were built or the tactics used?

The Rising SUn was always thought to be an outstanding naval force in her own way, but how about the destroyers, they had more than a few there at the time I think.

Cheers

Tom

[Brett]

IIRC, Morrison in his official USN histories was quite critical of early
USN surface actions up through the New Georgia campaign (mid '43).

US destroyer doctrine kept them tied to the main battle line of heavier
ships (cruisers & battleships), while the IJN unleased their destroyers
for independent torpedo attacks. The IJN torpedo (long lance) was
bigger, longer ranged, faster & more reliable than US ones.

IJN lookouts were better trained & spotted US ships often before
the early radar on US ships. USN doctrine tended to open combat
with gunfire, often concentrated on the unfortunate enemy ship
in the van.

IJN tried to initiate combat with a torpedo attack & only opened
gunfire after results from this attack were known. This meant they
had more devasting effects than the US tactics which would lose
much of their chances to make torpedo attacks against a non
violently manuevering enemy.

Of course, US ships often had to fight with other Allied ships in
the early combat in the Dutch E. Indies and S. & mid Solomon
islands. It is always easier to fight with ships that have the
same national doctrine. I believe (but I'm much less confident
of this) that at this stage of the war, Allied task forces were
much more likely to be newly thrown together, vs. IJN forces
that had trained for years together.

After mid '43 US destroyers fought much better.


As for German, I don't know that US and German Destroyers ever
clashed, so I couldn't give an opinion on their relative merits.

[TRDG]

Thanks Brett

Something I did not know, I think the British tangled with some German ones maybe, Dieppe I think?? I can't quite remember that one....

Cheers, good post!!

Tom

[McCoy]

Royal Navy broke the back on the German destroyers at Narvik. Bigger isn't allways better. The German high sea destroyers were bigger the the other nations destroyers n' armed with 15cm guns instead of 4.7" guns. But seamanship does count for a lot n' the German Kriegsmarine lacked much needed high sea experience.

[MAGNA]

Originally Posted by McCoy

Royal Navy broke the back on the German destroyers at Narvik. Bigger isn't allways better. The German high sea destroyers were bigger the the other nations destroyers n' armed with 15cm guns instead of 4.7" guns. But seamanship does count for a lot n' the German Kriegsmarine lacked much needed high sea experience.

Narvik certainly gave the German destroyers more than a bloody nose. The RN having HMS Warspite on hand didn't exactly help matters either. On paper the German destroyers were superior to most but they suffered badly in the early stages of the war and never recovered. i don't think there were that many of them to start with either.

[TRDG]

Dave, any clue on the German Destroyers crew training status. and if you might know, how many Destroyers would all the pocket battleships and Bismarck, Tirpitz type ones make? Would it have helped the Germans out on the sea war at all, or would not matter in the least. Maybe if Operation Sealion was followed through with maybe, but otherwise.....

Cheers

Tom

[MAGNA]

I'm sure the training would have been fairly good but as McCoy noted the Kreigsmarine wasn't experienced in long stints at sea when compared to the RN and others. The overall effect would have negated the size and armament superiority which showed in the Norwegian campaign.

As to how many you could build if you didn't make the larger capital ships, I would say at a rough guess around 35 - that could be wrong though. They certainly would have been useful but against the larger British navy they probably wouldn't have been around for long.

[TRDG]

Thanks you sir, Kinda what I thought, but I wanted to ask someone in the "know" here for Naval topics, which I am not one of!!

Cheers

Tom the non-sea Captain

[McCoy]

IJN destroyers was really good n' one edge the IJN did have was the "Long Lance" torpedo that was a real threat to the USN. Bigger warhead n' greater range than the allied torpedoes at the time. Plus the fact that IJN seamanship was pretty good. USN expanded cosiderably n' that led to a great number of sailors that had to learn the tricks of the trade rather quick.

[MAGNA]

Good points about IJN destroyers. They seemed to have the edge over all others until 1943+ even though the Allied ships had the advantage of radar.