The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?

[Music] [Music] a stiff morning breeze ruffles the hair of the flight deck crew aboard USS sent low the small escort carrier is expecting a calm day of flying small anti-submarine patrols and the occasional airstrike in support of the amphibious assault that's taking place to the west a long way off to the north the Third Fleet is charging after a reported Japanese aircraft carrier Strike Group and has taken every cruiser destroyer battleship and fleet carrier the Admiral Halsey can muster with them if the flight deck crew expected to see anything afloat apart from one of their own small escort group then presumably it would be the returning units of the Third Fleet once they had smashed yet another Japanese fleet then came a report over the radio from one of sint Lowe's pilots he was reporting seeing ships and they weren't American were still they were close incredulous admiral sprog demanded confirmation and circling in closer the pilot radioed back he wasn't wrong either that meatball flag was flying from the vast battleship yamato all 70,000 plus tons of her was steaming at speed straight towards them and she wasn't alone the u.s. commanders received the news in a moment of stunned silence then all hell broke loose as off in the distance and he aircraft fire was spotted as the anti-submarine patrol aircraft made optimistic and recklessly brave assaults for aircraft in total armed with depth charges attacked over a dozen enemy fleet units then the seas around the escort carriers of taffy 3 began to erupt in avast geezers of water as massive battleship grade shells began to land all around them the Battle of Samar had well and truly begun the Battle of Samar was one of four distinct battles fought in the area of the Philippines in late October 1943 they're grouped together because they were all fought as part of one single Japanese operation operation Shogo one this came in response to the u.s. invasion of the Philippines and envisioned a three-prong offensive with a decoy force in the north to draw away the bulk of the defending US forces and then two attacking forces one in the center and one in the south to catch the American landing craft and the rest of the invasion fleet in a pincer movement and destroy them due to the sheer scale of the operation and the distance between various forces there was no overall commander to the Japanese efforts on the American side of things command was almost equally disorganized direct naval support for the landings was provided by Admiral Kincaid's 7th fleet reporting to General MacArthur as overall commander but the 3rd fleet containing most of the modern US ships and all the fleet carriers primarily concentrated in task force 38 was under Admiral Halsey reporting to Admiral Nimitz this split in command would prove almost fatal the southern Japanese force consisted of the older and slower battleships Fuso and Yamashiro and let's just say that that particular part of the expedition didn't end too well for the Imperial Japanese Navy but even before that things had not exactly started well for the Japanese in attack the center force by far the most powerful of all the Japanese fleets involved was a truly impressive sight as it left harbor five battleships including both Yamato and Musashi accompanied by the normally impressive but in this circumstance dwarfed Nagato along with the converted battle cruisers Congo and Haruna no less than 10 heavy cruisers two light cruisers and 15 destroyers would accompany them but unfortunately for this very impressive collection of surface warships to gato class submarines USS data and USS dace noticed them coming past their position thanks in part to the generally terrible nature of Japanese anti Sur anti-submarine warfare even this late into the war the two submarines managed to sink the cruisers Otago and Maya and crippled tucao which was forced to withdraw taking a pair of destroyers with her as escort losing nearly 1/3 of the heavy cruisers including Admiral caritas flagship the Otago was not an especially auspicious start to the operation especially with the Admiral himself having to be fished out of the water by a destroyer data also managed to report the sighting before getting itself stranded trying to chase down two cow although the third fleets carrier groups were actually quite badly out of position at this point the carriers that were in a position to launch did so the resulting strike badly damaging the Cruiser Myoko which was also forced to withdraw and the aircraft also scored hits on the three largest Japanese battleships the American strike aircraft would then concentrate on Musashi sending bombs and torpedoes into her like it was going out of fashion after seventeen bombs and nineteen torpedoes at least some of which were probably unnecessary the mighty battleship slipped beneath the waves and the rest of the center force turned to get out of aircraft range for the rest of the day Halsey assumed that this meant they were retreating in total that assumption would almost cost the Americans their invasion force but just in case Halsey was prepared to detach four battleships including Washington and Alabama along with supporting escorts to cover the San Bernardino Strait but due to unclear communications everybody he told of this assumed that he had actually formed the force and so nobody did anything such as maybe move the six old battleships of the seventh fleet north or armed aircraft of the escort carrier groups with their limited supply of armor-piercing bombs and torpedoes convinced instead that sent a force was beaten when he received reports that the northern force and its carriers had been located Halsey promptly took off with his entire fleet having not detached the Surface Warfare ships as everybody else thought he had and so off to the north went every modern battleship and fleet carrier in the area even the Pickett destroyers were gone recon aircraft did in fact now spot that the center force was turning back toward the American landings but Halsey or his staff seemed to have done their best to ignore or rebuff every single such report possibly because they were determined to a final victory over what was left of Japan's carrier force overnight the southern force would attempt to transit sir gale straight and since seventh Fleet hadn't moved they ran right into it and will promptly sunk although in the narrow confined waters the battleships of the seventh were probably somewhat superfluous with the destroyers and cruisers doing considerable damage with their own guns and torpedoes still it did make for a good light show and a satisfactory amount of revenge for the old battleships who had either survived or been salvaged from Pearl Harbor anticipating the potential to attack survivors since the escort carrier formations of Taffy's one two and three had been following the battle as best they could fire radio intercepts the central formation of the three was ordered to load some of its aircraft for anti shipping strikes the southern force as well as the northern force that being Taffy three were to maintain their usual mix of anti-submarine and Shore support loadouts helpfully for students of history the commander of taffy 3 and the overall commander of the three taffy groups were separate individuals but were both called Rear Admiral sprog which make things very difficult to follow when you're trying to piece together various sources and comments but as a result of the third fleet going off after the Japanese northern force a decoy group with barely enough aircraft to even look like a threat the center force would proceed completely unopposed through the San Bernadino straight to air search patrols one at night and one at dawn failed to spot them and so they were steaming south as dawn broke to encounter the bemused force of taffy three all that stood between the largest battleship human artifice had ever built and it's numerous escorting ships was a handful of slow escort carriers and an even smaller group of destroyers and destroyer escorts Yamato alone displaced slightly more than every single ship in Taffy three combined and that was before the other three surviving battleships six heavy and two light cruisers and around a dozen destroyers had got involved much much closer fights had ended in a one-sided slaughter and so the outcome seemed somewhat inevitable [Music] with reports of the Japanese forces bearing down on them confirmed Rear Admiral sprog orders his ships East heading towards a series of rain schools hoping for concealment this will hopefully delay the Japanese closing the range and also draw them away from the much more vulnerable landing ships wildcat fighters and Avenger torpedo bombers begin to take off loaded with whatever they'd been equipped with at the time Rockets depth charges and machine gun ammunition being the general case not having all that much faith in his carries ability to actually survive the morning the aircraft are directly ordered to land at shore-based air strips to rearm once their initial tak runs are done by Admiral sprog yamato opens fire followed shortly thereafter by the other ships in the fleet the shell splashes are of many colors with no fire control radar in the fleet except for a very basic unit on Yamato herself the other large ships use shells with dye packs to let them know which splashes were theirs therefore a rainbow of pink red purple blue green and yellow fountains all fall around the embattled task force punctuated by the massive white splashes of Yamato is 18 inch shells Admiral carita has no identification charts for escort carriers and so assumes that the distant targets are fleet carriers commensurately by scale their escorts must either be battleships or cruisers the Japanese forces therefore continue to load armor-piercing rounds what will turn out to be a very fortuitous mistake for their targets for as long as it lasts nevertheless the general attack is ordered this promptly causes a bunch of confusion as the fleet has just moved into a circular anti-aircraft formation now each division is supposed to attack at its own best speed but either way it doesn't seem to change the odds all that much Yamato itself is slightly slower than usual after taking on several thousand tons of water due to bomb hits sustained during the same attacks that would sink Musashi although the Japanese have engaged with little hesitation they are as surprised as the Americans to be fighting this battle although the escort carrier groups have been under sporadic air attack for over a week these attacks appear to have been conducted by aircrafts from the Japanese army who of course have utterly failed to mention any of this to their counterparts - rivals - mortal enemies in the Imperial Japanese Navy on the American side the destroyer USS Johnston begins by laying down a smokescreen to cover the retreat and starts to zigzag to evade incoming fire using both the black smoke from its Bunnel x' and the white smoke from its smoke generators to screen the escort carriers USS White Plains is targeted by Yamato and a number of other ships at least if the rainbow of reported splash colors is anything to go by and within minutes something explodes beneath the hull close to the keel briefly knocking out electrical power and the starboard engine sources differ quite greatly and vehemently on whether this was a cruiser shell or one of yamato x' 18-inch projectiles if it was the latter then this would be almost the longest range hit in history by a battleship or really any naval surface gun but whoever fired it it is only just a near-miss the damage to the machinery results in a huge column of black smoke for a while and the Japanese ships assume that the carrier has been sunk which allows white planes to escape any further fire for the immediate future as the various formations of the Imperial Japanese Navy break to attack the fifth cruiser and tenth destroy divisions cut across the third battleship division forcing Kongo to turn north to avoid collision this puts her out of formation and on her own for the rest of the battle but carita now decides this high-speed Stern chase will make his destroyers burn too much fuel and orders them to drop back the tenth destroyer division get the order just as they're getting into perfect flanking position on the American forces for a torpedo strike with their devastating long Lance's but instead of launching they dutifully obey surrendering a chance to deal major damage second destroy division is ordered to fall in behind third battleship division but as this means finding the Congo they surrender their position south of the main battle line as they head off north to go looking for the errant battleship the Johnston begins firing at the closest Japanese ships who respond by targeting it with accurate fire faced with an enemy whose largest gun turrets weigh more than the entire ship Johnston decides that running is boring and instead pulls a full 180-degree turn and charges straight back at the attacking forces the destroyer ho L is still following the carriers and also begins to engage at maximum gun range receiving a hit from Miyamoto's secondary 6.1 inch guns to the bridge for its trouble concentrating fire on the heavy cruiser Camano Johnston somehow still alive is rewarded by seeing explosions and flames amidst the superstructure of the Japanese Cruiser the Destroyers radar and mark 37 fire control system are paying dividends early sprog orders the rest of the destroyer screen to follow suit and soon he'll and human joined their fletcher-class compatriot in the attack albeit starting somewhat behind the already charging Johnston the American escort carriers reached the first in a series of rain schools and Japanese fire drops off significantly as their optical systems are unable to see through the rain at this point in time almost any other major Navy would simply have used their radar to keep spotting and firing as Duke of York had done to Scharnhorst almost a year ago and as the battleships of the seventh Fleet had done to the Yamashiro mere hours earlier but since only one ship in the center force has gunnery radar the American ships gained some respite Johnston meanwhile has managed to get within five miles of its target and fires a full spread of ten torpedoes minutes later at least two possibly three tear the bow off the hapless Cruiser Camano first blood unbelievably therefore goes to the Americans the ceserea also drops out of the engagement as it pulls alongside Camano to assist this brazen action further help skimmed convinced carita that the johnston is actually a cruiser since obviously no mere destroyer would dare risk this kind of charge nor achieve this kind of damage in the confusion a johnston manages another about-face and heads away to open the range with its torpedoes spent to the south admiral Kincaid receives the first of many requests for help from the embattled taffy three having been led to believe that at least four modern battleships from the third fleet should be in the area Kincaid starts firing off of urgent messages to Admiral Halsey since his own older ships cannot possibly get there in time however even if he can't save taffy 3 there are still the ships of the landing force to consider and he orders a Perl Alden Dorf to extract to destroy squadrons five cruisers and the battleships Tennessee California and Pennsylvania from wrapping up operations in sir a gal straight and proceed at best speed north fuel and ammunition level concerns be damned the American escort carriers turned south passing right through would have been second destroy divisions kill zone but as a result of Caritas orders of a and their long Lance's are still off to the north of the formation looking for Kongo however the Johnston's luck seems to have run out as it is hit almost simultaneously by 318 inch shells and 36.1 inch shells from Yamato which has decided to swat the irritating vessel the smaller shells make a complete slaughterhouse of the bridge and the splinters side through anyone out on deck the larger shells smash through the port side engine room crippling the ship and disrupting power to the rear guns thanks to a combination of low fuel stores and her light structure not initiating fuses on the larger shells the ship is crippled but not blown apart although Yamato dutifully records the sinking of the enemy cruiser instead the ship drifts into another rain school and repair parties start work on the radar and electrical systems so that it can re-engage the enemy with its 5-inch guns meanwhile how well fires off half its torpedoes and reverses course but is likewise struck by a wide variety of shells causing much more significant damage than even that caused - to Johnston leaving the second torpedo launcher as almost it's only working system to the south Kincaid further orders every single aircraft currently in the air to divert to taffey three and four tapis one and two to launch any and all operational aircraft remaining on deck or in their hangars in that direction as well after a couple of minutes happily blazing away with its 5-inch guns and horribly abusing the natural cover system of the real world johnston meet meets how l and human coming the other way followed it at a distance by the destroyer escort Samuel B Roberts and despite having only forty percent the firepower and three-quarters of the speed of the larger fletcher-class destroyers and no automatic fire control the captain of the Roberts has elected to follow the full-size destroyers with the words deciding that he hasn't had enough action for one day captain Evans of the Johnston orders another 180-degree about-face to give gunfire support to the new arrivals this time picking on the heavy cruiser turn a ho L fires its remaining torpedoes at what turns out to be the Yamato no hits are scored but the giant battleship is forced to run to the north to evade taking it out of the pursuit in an ironic twist the relatively low speed of American torpedoes compared to the long launches of the Japanese actually prolong this evasion as the closing speed is so low this keeps the Japanese flagship out of the fight for a considerable amount of time with that done ho L makes a run for the rest of taffy three as shells begin to explode all around it meanwhile human engages kaguro with its main battery and accidentally launches seven torpedoes in the same general direction before heading off to send a few shells and the last three torpedoes aboard at the Harouna although the Japanese battleship manages to evade them all meanwhile the USS Kalinin bay currently the rear most ship takes a direct hit from a battleship grade shell wrecking part of the hangar deck the Roberts is hit by a stray shell that jams the torpedo mount up until now it has held fire to avoid being spotted but after some quick work by the crew the Roberts is once again able to launch its torpedoes and picks the heavy cruiser Chuck I as its target before making best speed into the smoke and heading back to the carriers minutes later choukai takes at least one hit and starts falling back here Minh tries to fall back to the carriers and ends up trading broad sides with Nagato for its troubles the other destroyer escorts are also making attack runs dropping their torpedoes and making back for the carriers with the dennis taking a number of shell hits in return as the escort carriers chug away south their single 5-inch rear guns are now clear to open fire as the range closes a disappointed Gunners on other weapons are informed it's not an idle boast either the damaged Kalinin Bay is taking repeated hits from the 8-inch guns on tone a and her Goro but forces one of the cruisers back temporarily as it scores a couple of hits on one of the cruisers forward turrets coming out of the other side of the smoke Roberts encounters the heavy cruiser chikka ma methodically blasting away at the escort carriers especially the gambia bay with the words Roberts matches its two 5-inch guns against the the 10 8-inch guns of the cruiser as well as its secondary battery with a slower rate of fire and her attention divided ChiCom n't immediately blasts the Roberts from the water and soon actually finds itself under a pincer assault as human joins in from the other side the Roberts empties its entire armor-piercing round supply and switches to a chi it run out of a chi and it resorts to firing anti-aircraft shells it then runs out of anti-aircraft shells and is forced as a last resort to fire star shells which actually have the unexpected advantage of setting off high temperature phosphorus fires all across the superstructure the embattled heavy cruiser is not in immediate danger of sinking but is being badly mauled despite the like carriers CVE designation being widely interpreted across the fleet as combustible vulnerable and expendable the fusillade of armor-piercing rounds intended for much larger fleet carriers which the Japanese still think that the escort carriers are means that a great many hits are simply passing right through them a meanwhile of the continuing hail of fire from the trailing carrier's 5-inch guns begins to score even more hits on some of the leading Japanese cruisers but at the same time the trailing carrier USS Gambia Bay is suffering from multiple hits from the Chicka MA which after a few salvos finally realizes the small size of its enemy now the range is closed and switches to high explosive the johnston emerges from a smoke screen to find the Haruna at close range so of course it shoots up the battleship superstructure whilst ducking back into the smoke as Kongo tries to take it out using its main battery three more heavy cruisers from further down the Japanese line begin to blast away at the now disabled Gambia Bay throughout this period and beyond into the rest of the battle aircraft of various types and loadouts are criss crossing the skies in desperate harassment attacks with the pilots having to play constant games of guess the carrier to decide where to land as escort carriers are hit sunk disappearing columns of shell splashes or a force to evade at angles to the wind that make landing on them impossible across the flight decks of not just the embattled tap e3 but the supporting taffy one and taffy to further South deck crews rapidly begin to ignore all technical protocol and simply accept rearm refuel and relaunch any incoming American aircraft with the American star painted on them the USS Manila Bay in the next group south of taffy three services aircraft from 11 different squadrons that aren't attached to her own flight group and at one point has representatives from no less than four other carriers air groups on her flight Dec at the same time having successfully evaded the battleships Johnson responds to calls for assistance from the escort carriers and appears near the gambia Bay seeing the ship under attack by a heavy cruiser it promptly shoots up this ship as well because of course it does however an eight-inch shell takes out what's left of Ho Elle's engines and the ship is rapidly overwhelmed by incoming fire the order to abandon ship is given 10 minutes later after trading fire with a tonne a class cruiser and 15 minutes after that the ship rolls over and sinks how L clearly not sharing quite at the same level of luck as Johnston Kalinin Bay is also in trouble trading fire with Japanese destroyers and taking hits from both them and cruisers at the same time unlike the gambia bay however it does not appear that these ships have realized they need to switch to high explosive from armor-piercing and despite being riddled with shell fire the ship stays afloat despite this rather unequal battering and going on for another twenty to thirty minutes a lookout points out captain Evans aboard the Johnston that a seven strong formation of Japanese destroyers is closing on the carrier's from behind what do you think happens of course the Johnston swings around to engage the entire flotilla and despite taking several more hits Johnston's successfully forces away of the first two ships which leads to the entire squadron taking a detour to avoid the single pugnacious ship it will take the Japanese destroyers almost three-quarters of an hour to work around to a a Johnston free firing position and as a result all their torpedoes will miss during the fun the Johnston nearly runs into here Minh and Roberts who are trying to make some sense of the confused mass of shipping whilst continuing their battering of ChiCom are with their remaining ammunition however the Japanese battleships and cruisers now come to ChiCom as aid and within 10 minutes the Roberts is knocked out of action as the Japanese ships firing at her also belatedly switch to high explosive and within minutes of this change several massive holes are blasted into her side and she begins to sink the embattled heavy cruiser withdraws but will later sink on her way home around about this time something happens to the cruiser choukai reports conflict as to whether the hit is scored by 5-inch gun from the USS White Plains or if it's a bomb hit from one of the recently arrived aircraft or whether it's a combination of both but in any case the relatively small explosion causes the pure oxygen fuel on one of the Joker's torpedo banks to detonate causing a catastrophic explosion that forces the ship to heal out of line almost immediately the ship will be found limping away and sunk by aircraft later in the day with Gambia Bay and Ho L sinking and Roberts not much longer for this world the Johnston is now set upon by four cruisers and a number of destroyers the ship's crew patch holes as fast as they can but the ship is literally gradually being taken apart by repeated salvos the fact that this particular set of Japanese ships is still using armor-piercing instead of high-explosive is the only saving grace meanwhile a various aircraft from tap e3 launched piecemeal along with the arrival of a concentrated strike formation from tapis 1 and 2 further south begin to make runs at various Japanese capital ships with many aircraft machine gunning their targets once the more conventional anti-shipping weapons are expended this assault considerably disrupts the Japanese formation human has also been under heavy attack for about 20 minutes by now with the captain at one point wishing for caused by a near continuous barrage of shell splashes but the ship gamely exchanges fire with tonay until ordered back to lay smoke for the surviving escort carriers Corita convinced that his opposition is significant and not realizing that human is the only fleet destroyer still operational orders the fleet to cease attacking and regroup to the north thus just when the Japanese have stripped away almost any escort and with it much hope of survival they withdraw in the background the flaming wreck of the Gambia Bay finally slips beneath the waves in the air some aircraft are using their loads of small 100-pound bombs and they're gonna moment to try and disrupt or detonate torpedoes launched by Japanese destroyers and cruisers as parting gifts with some degree of success with three heavy cruisers already sunk or crippled and increasingly large and fierce air attacks convincing Corita that he must be facing fleet units he also learns of the destruction of the southern force during the night and that at least major elements of the third fleet especially its battleships are not actually here but may well be on their way back and despite none of his battleships actually having received any major damage during this engagement he orders the fleet to withdraw completely in the brief moments of silence one American sailor near Admiral sprog is heard to yell after a 45-minute struggle against a vastly unequal odds abort the Johnston the order is given to abandon ship the ship goes down twenty-five minutes later at ten minutes past 10:00 taking 186 of her crew including the gallant captain Evans with her he will receive a posthumous Medal of Honor for his actions in its last stand the ship still managed to draw off considerable fire that would otherwise have likely led to the loss of more American ships the various scattered aircraft are now making their way back after launching various attacks on caritas withdrawing ships some are forced to ditch through lack of fuel having launched with barely any in the first place others find a carrier any carrier to land on others still make for some of the barely functional landing strips that the invading troops have established a final PostScript to the battle comes as a late wave of Japanese aircraft appear and begin a 40 minute long attack every surviving escort carrier except kit can Bay suffers damage one incoming flight of Japanese aircraft make their attack runs and then a zero kamikazes into the flight deck of USS sent low punching through into the hangar and setting off a catastrophic series of fires and explosions that will see the ship sink within an hour another two kamikazes smash into Kalinin bay but luckily don't set off anything too explosive during the battle to the north the southern group of escort carriers had also been subject to a concentrated air and kamikaze attack along with possible submarine activity causing varying degrees of damage for pilots from the sent low returning from a strike land at the do lagg airstrip and a promptly handed carbines given a foxhole and told to help repel a Japanese infantry counter-attack with that job done with the aid of some stacked boxes and buckets full of petrol they rearm and repair their air and then head back out to land on other ships one pilot during all this vanishes off with a patrol of troops and returns with a new wing from somewhere to replace the ragged collection of scrap that one of his own had been turned into replacing it before heading off himself with that the battle is over during the latter stages of the battle furious messages asking for reinforcements were flying back and forth over the radio but the first help from Third Fleet doesn't turn around until almost an hour after Caritas forces have already begun their withdrawal a few hours later much of the decoy northern force is finally cornered and sunk by the combined strike power of third fleets large carriers a tragic final act plays out as further communication and navigation errors mean that many survivors from sunken destroyers and escort carriers aren't picked up until the 27th two days later resulting in many men dying from exposure dehydration and shark attacks after the enemy have withdrawn overall however the scoresheet was indeed almost as hopelessly lopsided as one would have expected going into the battle only the casualty ratios are entirely the wrong way round the US Navy has lost to escort carriers and one of those had been to a kamikaze strike rather than surface attack two destroyers and a destroyer escort along with one destroyer three destroyer escorts and a number of the other escort carriers damaged in return this tiny force had managed to turn back at the entire center force causing the Japanese to lose three heavy cruisers outright with another effectively permanently out of action we're the varying levels of damage to the surviving battleships the other cruisers and destroyers not including the losses to the center force from submarine and air attack the main action the entirety of taffy 3 would be awarded a Presidential Unit Citation as well as numerous awards for acts of individual bravery although the battle would not have gone the way it did had it not been for the astonishing bravery of the escorting destroyers and destroyer escorts it was also a salutary lesson in the number of other factors the lack of radar and advanced fire control on the Japanese side had badly hampered them with a disproportionate number of hits scored by the main and secondary batteries of a Yamato alone which was the only ship with some sort of radar in the fleet the fact that the American ships could maneuver and rapidly reacquire an accurate firing solution also meant that they had more freedom of action whilst the Japanese ships tended toward straight line or broad sweeping motions that made them far easier targets especially for torpedoes their lack of good intelligence also meant that they vastly overestimated the size of their foes for far too long hails of armor-piercing shells doing comparatively little damage compared to the high-explosive that they should have been using in addition the long fuses on many Japanese armor-piercing shells are designed for diving hits against capital ships meant that a lot of shell hits the actually contacted the American ships either didn't explode or would only do so after the shell had punched clean through the ship and out the other side resulting in relatively little damage the rapid demise of the Roberts and Gambia Bay once their respective attackers had switched to high-explosive gives some idea of how the battle could have gone if this one critical change had been made much earlier finally once again the quality of the cruise shows through particularly in the case of Admiral carita who appears to have committed so many basic errors as a fleet commander that it would almost have made more sense if he was secretly an American spy given that almost every order he issued after the initial one to open fire seems to almost have been calculated to minimize his own chances of success and maximize the relatively few American and advantages conversely the commanding officers of the ships of taffy 3 although they seem to have accepted that they were almost certainly all going to die were equally determined to cause as much damage as possible to the enemy and would maintain strict fighting discipline right up until the ships were literally shot out from under them resulting in combination with the factors above in a completely unexpected tactical and strategic victory that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for drydock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 1,134,619

Rating: 4.8822765 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle of Samar, Battle off Samar, Taffy 3, Yamato, Musashi, World War 2, USN, IJN, Fanshaw Bay, St. Lo, White Plains, Kalinin Bay, Kitkun Bay, Gambier Bay, Hoel, Heermann, Johnston, Dennis, John C. Butler, Raymond, Samuel B. Roberts

Id: 4AdcvDiA3lE

Length: 42min 9sec (2529 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Tropic_Turd]

If they add the USS Johnston to the game she should be an SR.

[u/dldallas]

USS Johnston for SSR Fletcher! Do it Yostar! You know you want to!

[u/RX-0Unicorn]

Ooh, nice, Drachnafel makes good stuff. Also SSR Johnston and Samuel B. Roberts pls.

[u/Nuke87654]

The best youtuber for naval ships and history imo. Drachinifel should always be welcomed here, especially for his classic British dry humor.

[u/FunkMasterDeLorean]

I want this to be an event plays out as serious danmaku.

[u/SLAIPINGkungz11]

"This is going to be a fighting ship. I intend to go in harm’s way, and anyone who doesn’t want to go along had better get off right now."

• Commander Ernest E. Evans at the commissioning of USS Johnston

[u/Morgrid]

Battle off Samar