Kirishima commissioned this

Krugger said:

Kirishima commissioned this

Oh, WWII "in" joke.

Well... Good to see the two ships have worked out their differences.

Hey, Washy, didn't you learn anything from Guadalcanal? SoDak can hold out a lot longer than you can.

K9Thefirst1 said:

Well... Good to see the two ships have worked out their differences.

What's the story behind that?

g3gen said:

What's the story behind that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal#Second_Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal,_14%E2%80%9315_November

The big battle that featured these two was the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the IJN Kirishima was sunk. The most notable feature was that SoDak had an extremely ill-timed electrical failure and Washington held off firing upon Kirishima out of fear that it might be the SoDak. After SoDak was struck repeatedly by Japanese shelling and illuminated, Washington figured it out and destroyed Kirishima and routed the Japanese force fairly quickly.

As for why there would be "differences"... I'm not sure, outside "failure to coordinate well", you'd have to ask K9 that.

NWSiaCB said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal#Second_Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal,_14%E2%80%9315_November

The big battle that featured these two was the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the IJN Kirishima was sunk. The most notable feature was that SoDak had an extremely ill-timed electrical failure and Washington held off firing upon Kirishima out of fear that it might be the SoDak. After SoDak was struck repeatedly by Japanese shelling and illuminated, Washington figured it out and destroyed Kirishima and routed the Japanese force fairly quickly.

As for why there would be "differences"... I'm not sure, outside "failure to coordinate well", you'd have to ask K9 that.

Their differences is that their crews got into a big fight about it afterwards with both blaming the other on the lack of coordination and a lot of sailors got thrown in the brig. Things only got worse after the South Dakota's captain took all of the credit for the victory, even though it was Washington that actually sank Kirishima and routed the Japanese fleet. The crews of the two ships had a long lasting bitterness towards each other after that.

NWSiaCB said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal#Second_Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal,_14%E2%80%9315_November

The big battle that featured these two was the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the IJN Kirishima was sunk. The most notable feature was that SoDak had an extremely ill-timed electrical failure and Washington held off firing upon Kirishima out of fear that it might be the SoDak. After SoDak was struck repeatedly by Japanese shelling and illuminated, Washington figured it out and destroyed Kirishima and routed the Japanese force fairly quickly.

As for why there would be "differences"... I'm not sure, outside "failure to coordinate well", you'd have to ask K9 that.

Prince_of_Darimar said:

Their differences is that their crews got into a big fight about it afterwards with both blaming the other on the lack of coordination and a lot of sailors got thrown in the brig. Things only got worse after the South Dakota's captain took all of the credit for the victory, even though it was Washington that actually sank Kirishima and routed the Japanese fleet. The crews of the two ships had a long lasting bitterness towards each other after that.

It got so bad that the Admiralty decided that it would be easier to just not give the ships leave in the same port at the same time.

K9Thefirst1 said:

It got so bad that the Admiralty decided that it would be easier to just not give the ships leave in the same port at the same time.

I did recall reading something like that. Now I got it. Thanks for clearing it up. One of those stories that is hard to track down because it's left out of accounts of the second battle.