That alone is supposed to sustain a battleship ?

Not sure if heartwarming.

Deathmatcher said:

Not sure if heartwarming.

It is... the problem is Hyuuga and Ise ruining the mood.

Deathmatcher said:

Not sure if heartwarming.

I think it might be. Rather than being sent off do die without any expectation of victory (such as in the top part of the image), she's being held in reserve as they build up their forces as a trump card as mentioned. While she may not be active in battle, she's at least being considered a valuable person/ship/asset rather than thrown away.

Hyuuga doesn't get it. But it'll be fun to watch her punish the Admiral.

And damn, but it looks like Akagi isn't the only one with traumatic past life memories. Hyuuga seems to treat hers as just a bad dream, though.

Dakkan said:

I think it might be. Rather than being sent off do die without any expectation of victory (such as in the top part of the image), she's being held in reserve as they build up their forces as a trump card as mentioned. While she may not be active in battle, she's at least being considered a valuable person/ship/asset rather than thrown away.

Except she was thrown away. She was used in the infamous Operation Ten-Go; an operation so pointless that Yamato wasn't even given enough fuel to make a return trip.

Operation Ten-Go was seriously just stupid...

MMaestro said:

Except she was thrown away. She was used in the infamous Operation Ten-Go; an operation so pointless that Yamato wasn't even given enough fuel to make a return trip.

It might have been a little less pointless had the American battleships been able to get into fighting range instead of the carriers. Sure, the US battleships combined outclassed Yamato in every area except size, but at least she'd be able to give the enemy a bloody nose before going down-as opposed to dying like a bitch at the hands of attackers she couldn't even damage.

JsTuCkEy said:

It might have been a little less pointless had the American battleships been able to get into fighting range instead of the carriers. Sure, the US battleships combined outclassed Yamato in every area except size, but at least she'd be able to give the enemy a bloody nose before going down-as opposed to dying like a bitch at the hands of attackers she couldn't even damage.

I expect that's exactly why they didn't.

MMaestro said:

Except she was thrown away. She was used in the infamous Operation Ten-Go; an operation so pointless that Yamato wasn't even given enough fuel to make a return trip.

That's the point. Unlike the 'real' Yamato, the admiral isn't throwing her away recklessly to die, considering her valuable enough to save. This admiral isn't going to repeat Ten-Go with her, and she's touched by it.

Kaymarx said:

JsTuCkEy said:

It might have been a little less pointless had the American battleships been able to get into fighting range instead of the carriers. Sure, the US battleships combined outclassed Yamato in every area except size, but at least she'd be able to give the enemy a bloody nose before going down-as opposed to dying like a bitch at the hands of attackers she couldn't even damage.

I expect that's exactly why they didn't.

Not really. Task Force 54 (the 6 US Battleships) were planning to fight Yamato "alone" (with 2 BCs, 5 CLs, and 21 DDs), but Task Force 58 (8 US Carriers) decided to launch an air attack without telling them. Of course, the air strike got there first, and the rest is history.

JsTuCkEy said:

It might have been a little less pointless had the American battleships been able to get into fighting range instead of the carriers. Sure, the US battleships combined outclassed Yamato in every area except size, but at least she'd be able to give the enemy a bloody nose before going down-as opposed to dying like a bitch at the hands of attackers she couldn't even damage.

In theory, sure. But what was the Japanese objective in Operation Ten-Go?

Was it to engage the American battleships/fleet and give them a bloody nose before dying? NOPE!

The Japanese objective was for the Yamato to beach itself on Okinawa and act as shore batteries/infantry reinforcements. An inglorious end for a glorified battleship.

But like PraiseVectron says, the air strike happened and the rest is history.

MMaestro said:

In theory, sure. But what was the Japanese objective in Operation Ten-Go?

Was it to engage the American battleships/fleet and give them a bloody nose before dying? NOPE!

The Japanese objective was for the Yamato to beach itself on Okinawa and act as shore batteries/infantry reinforcements. An inglorious end for a glorified battleship.

The IJN wasn't the Kriegsmarine-they wouldn't have run at the sight of American battleships. I'm pretty sure they would've abandoned the original mission to engage the enemy.

It was part of the Japanese martial mindset-if defeat is inevitable, make your opponent's victory as costly as possible.

JsTuCkEy said:

It might have been a little less pointless had the American battleships been able to get into fighting range instead of the carriers. Sure, the US battleships combined outclassed Yamato in every area except size, but at least she'd be able to give the enemy a bloody nose before going down-as opposed to dying like a bitch at the hands of attackers she couldn't even damage.

Very, very unlikely at sea naval gun engagements are largely decided by mathematics (assuming roughly comparable technology) due to the lack of terrain and everyone largely being able to see and shot everyone else, but the equation is rather non-linear; ie someone with three times the numbers doesn't take 30% losses for instance, they're actually quite likely to win overpoweringly and take almost none. The US plan if they engaged on the surface was to send more or less the entire line of six modern sixteen inch gun battleships, about half a dozen cruisers including the two 12" Alaska class, plus about 20 destroyers.

In major units then they'd have had close to a ten to one advantage even after spiting off say half their cruisers and all their DDs to engage the enemy screen. It's extremely likely that the end result is pretty much the same as Bismark only in stereo. Yamato is wrecked before she hits anything and then reduced to a floating trash heap were successive hits are just rearranging the debris as over fifty 16" inch and eighteen 12" guns rain shells on her. I'd actually be more concerned about the screening unit honesty. A torpedo hit anywhere is more dangerous then even the largest shell and with ten or so light units engaged there is a non trivial chance someone could get lucky in the melee between screens.

It's also likely almost Yamato's entire crew dies. Any ships that could pick up survivors will be driven off and based on experience up to that point the US rescue effort will likely be half-hearted at best and the Japanese sailors inclination to accept it just as tepid. A few crew that look important might be forcibly dragged from the water for intelligence purposes, but most will likely simply be left to drown. The entire US force can also make over 30 knots if the 27 knot ships are detached to finish cripples and will surely be eager to chase stragglers meaning it's quite likely even fewer DD manage to escape (though ten bucks says Yukikaze at least somehow manages to get away). In other words a surface battle actually probably ends up even worse. They still probably do no damage of note and even more of them probably die in the process.

That said there is of course also the potential for one golden BB from Yamato to find a magazine and blow up a ship or a lucky torpedo from the screen to blow a DD in half and so the commanders wisely let aircraft handle it rather then risk hundreds or thousands of deaths on some misguided sense of pride. Ironically pretty much the exact opposite of what those in charge of Yamato were doing.

Thing is the Imperial Japanese forces lost the war the minute they declared war on America. Putting the "Murrica, F*** yeah!" nonsense aside, the Japs were horribly outdated and unprepared to meet the industrial might of America.

People say it was Midway, that changed the tides of war, which is perhaps true. But even if the Japs theoretically won Midway, it would have not been in their favor. They signed their death sentence the minute Pearl Harbor happened.

Here's an article of interest. TL;DR but it's a pretty good read.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

Simply put they didn't have the capacity to replace their losses. Whereas America could churn up a ship they lost in a battle, the Japs felt that loss where it hurts. Also note that before Midway they managed to repair the Yorktown, which was damaged in the Battle of Coral Sea, in 24 hours. That talks much of the capabilities of the US.

It doesn't help that even their doctrines, and equipment were horribly outdated as well. The high command is full of idiots clinging to archaic ideas that have no place in the modern battlefied. And the more sensible soldiers, and commanders like Yamamoto himself, were ignored.

Operation Ten-go was a crowning example of the idiocy of those commanders. The waste of lives was unnecessary. And Yamato, their prized ship was sent out to deny the Americans a trophy. It ruffles my feathers to think that those men died for some old men trying to save face.

JsTuCkEy said:

The IJN wasn't the Kriegsmarine-they wouldn't have run at the sight of American battleships. I'm pretty sure they would've abandoned the original mission to engage the enemy.

It was part of the Japanese martial mindset-if defeat is inevitable, make your opponent's victory as costly as possible.

Sure, but thats not even reasonable. I don't disagree that they would have gone in for a fight, but FINDING said fight, let alone engaging in said fight? Kinda hard to do that when you don't even have enough fuel to make a return trip.

Even if we assume the American air strike never happened AND the fleets ran into each other (lets say that met off the coast of Okinawa), so what? It was 1945. Even if Yamato magically took out the entire American fleet singlehandedly, then what? America wasn't going to surrender, Yamato would be dead in the water without fuel and Japan would still lose in the long run.

It was a pointless operation regardless of how amazingly wonderful you dreamed outcome to be.

MMaestro said:

Sure, but thats not even reasonable. I don't disagree that they would have gone in for a fight, but FINDING said fight, let alone engaging in said fight? Kinda hard to do that when you don't even have enough fuel to make a return trip.

Even if we assume the American air strike never happened AND the fleets ran into each other (lets say that met off the coast of Okinawa), so what? It was 1945. Even if Yamato magically took out the entire American fleet singlehandedly, then what? America wasn't going to surrender, Yamato would be dead in the water without fuel and Japan would still lose in the long run.

It was a pointless operation regardless of how amazingly wonderful you dreamed outcome to be.

The American battleships would have had no trouble finding Yamato first and they no doubt would have sunk her-after all, Yamato was built to fight the WWI-vintage dinosaurs that made up the US battleship fleet at the time her construction, not the modern battleships that were hunting for her at the time. But if she was able to do some meaningful damage to the enemy before going down, it would make her end a little less pointless, at least in the eyes of the Japanese.

Yamato was sunk by the massive air-assualt, not battleship vs battleship. I doubt that any US battleship can sink Yamato easily because the strongest US battleship is Iowa has far less armoured than Yamato and smaller main gun. Even in Bismarck case, no shells from any UK battleship can penetrate Bismarck's armor, only 1 shell penetrate her deck, and UK use series of bombers for just sinking Tipitz.

Hmm... so Yamato back then was trying to do what the BRP Sierra Madre already made cool...

Though I would agree Yamato would've been taken away if she wasn't sunk. But I bet she'd be treated like Nagato if America captured her.

I, uh. Think this isn't heartwarming at all. This is literally the lead-up to Ten-Go - This is how it happened. Yamato never gets to sortie until she sorties at the very end. No fuel for Yamato, because she can't be sustained, just like in real life.

Why the hell is this in Heart-warming? This is heart-breaking. The whole point is that Yamato is never allowed to do anything because she consumes so much and is considered too important to sortie, but then the leadership turns around and says she's a stain on their honor for still being alive when Japan is beaten and near-defeat, and thus sends her out to die for "glory."

Big_Mario said:

Why the hell is this in Heart-warming? This is heart-breaking. The whole point is that Yamato is never allowed to do anything because she consumes so much and is considered too important to sortie, but then the leadership turns around and says she's a stain on their honor for still being alive when Japan is beaten and near-defeat, and thus sends her out to die for "glory."

The heartwarming thing in this is that the admiral is NOT like the IJN pencil-pushers who would rather have Yamato sunk than staining their honor by surviving. He's keeping her safe while training her for the events because unlike Ten-Go, those events are that promised glorious naval battle she'd been denied of. While Tenryuu, Ise, and Hyuuga are misunderstanding the admiral's scraping for resources as being stingy, Yamato is crying of happiness for being allowed to sortie at all.

Look at the next Yamato pic; she's practically brimming with happiness.