Talk:Iowa/@comment-180.254.107.246-20160229044542/@comment-174.24.184.172-20160302101729

Uhh the person who said neither would win... is wrong, knows nothing about how things work.

All it takes is one torpedo in the right spot: propellers and rudders.

Most famous example: Bismarck. A torp took out her steering and she was helpless, unable to manuever to make herself harder to hit.

Anyway, a common misconception is it took the entire 280 plane attack to solely sink Yamato, while in reality the attack was dispersed over Yamato's entire division, sinking/damaging the other ships aswell.

Yahagi tried to direct attacks upon herself and away from Yamato, she got overkilled, taking hits from 12 bombs and 7 torpedoes.

Asashimo lagged behind the force, due to engine problems and several planes detached from the force swooped upon her, expending ordinance to sink her.

Then futher planes detached to deal with Hamakaze.

Then more planes detached to take out Suzutsuki.

Then Kasumi, expending ordinance to badly damage her.

Then finally Isokaze, more ordinance expended to damage her and rendering her dead in the water.

Only Yukikaze escaped relatively unscathed.

Around 100ish planes were actually attacking Yamato herself.

The entire USN attack only lost 10 planes, 12 pilots and rear gunners dead.

Yamato took 11 torpedoes and 6 bombs, well within Enterprise's enevelope.

It was Musashi that took more because it was all scattered attacks, USN pilots didn't know how to attack and sink such a large battleship, but learned from it and applied to Yamato.

In an hypotheical Enterprise vs Yamato fight: Enterprise somehow (torp plane pilots were trained to aim for the rudders/props whenever possible, try to torpedo a swerving, lurching battleship that's doing her best to avoid you.) manages to land a hit on Yamato in her steering gear, rendering her dead in the water, then with Yamato unable to manuver and with fighters and dive bombers working in concert to keep the AA guns pointed skywards, allowing the torpedo planes to organize and get in range to release their torps, in a concenrated attack alongside one side of Yamato. It's been figured it would take least 9 torpedoes to cause a catastrophic capsization, anymore than that as shown by history was just 'make sure the thing goes down' overkill.

Also, remember, Enterprise was part of the attack that sank Musashi so she has 2 sunken battleships under her belt. (She singlehandedly landed the fatal torp hits on Hiei that led to Hiei's eventual scuttling.)

As an afterthought, Enterprise almost partipicated in Yamato's sinking but she was out of range, by the time she got into launching range, Yamato was already rolling over and going down.