IJN Cruiser shadowing USN fleet exercises

Grand Admiral Thrawn

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I was researching about another topic when I came across this from IJN Yubari on Wikipedia "In April 1925, Yūbari shadowed maneuvers of the United States Navy off of Oahu. American destroyers gave chase, but Yūbari was able to outrun them..."

Has anyone heard if the IJN did stuff like this, and also if they got any useful information out of it? Had heard of the Soviets doing this, but never heard of any WW1 era nation doing it.
 

Carl Schwamberger

Assorted nations had their war ships intercept & follow the Russian fleet from Europe to the Far East. Some of these rendered honors & moved on aftera few hours. Others like the Brits kept the Russian fleet under observation for days or perhaps weeks. My take is its not uncommon.
 

Grand Admiral Thrawn

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Carl Schwamberger said:
Assorted nations had their war ships intercept & follow the Russian fleet from Europe to the Far East. Some of these rendered honors & moved on aftera few hours. Others like the Brits kept the Russian fleet under observation for days or perhaps weeks. My take is its not uncommon.
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Guess I'm more surprised they could make it that far, rather than it happened. The Royal Navy would have ships and bases around the world, so expect them to be able to. And of course the Soviets did it a lot. Guess curious if Japan got any useful info from it- seems like a nice POD.
 
SsgtC

SsgtC

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Grand Admiral Thrawn said:
Guess I'm more surprised they could make it that far, rather than it happened. The Royal Navy would have ships and bases around the world, so expect them to be able to. And of course the Soviets did it a lot. Guess curious if Japan got any useful info from it- seems like a nice POD.
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In 25? Not real likely they would have gotten much useful info. Not for a war that wouldn't start for almost 17 years. Whatever info they did gather, would only be applicable short term. 17 years is too far out to build plans on. Any Admiral who said, "hey, they did things this way in '25, so we should plan for that." in 1940, would likely be cashiered as incompetent.
 

Grand Admiral Thrawn

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SsgtC said:
In 25? Not real likely they would have gotten much useful info. Not for a war that wouldn't start for almost 17 years. Whatever info they did gather, would only be applicable short term. 17 years is too far out to build plans on. Any Admiral who said, "hey, they did things this way in '25, so we should plan for that." in 1940, would likely be cashiered as incompetent.
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Was thinking of 1 main POD, where since the cruiser outran the destroyers, causes a panic akin to the Los Angeles class submarine (AIUI Soviet sub trailed a carrier group, kept up with them. USN freaks out, demands and gets a 30 knot sub- the USN was deciding 20 knot but quiet, or fast IIRC). I know the Washington class was designed to chase down the (formerly) 26 knot Kongo class, wondered if there was any POD ore in this vein.
 

CalBear

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Grand Admiral Thrawn said:
Was thinking of 1 main POD, where since the cruiser outran the destroyers, causes a panic akin to the Los Angeles class submarine (AIUI Soviet sub trailed a carrier group, kept up with them. USN freaks out, demands and gets a 30 knot sub- the USN was deciding 20 knot but quiet, or fast IIRC). I know the Washington class was designed to chase down the (formerly) 26 knot Kongo class, wondered if there was any POD ore in this vein.
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The Yubari couldn't outrun the USN WW I "four pipe" DD classes, the IJN ship was rated at 35.5 knots, while the Wickes class was rated at 35.3 knots and the Clemson class was rated at 35.5 knots. Depending on sea state and condition of a specific ship's bottom there could be a difference of a few knots, but nothing dramatic.

What actually happened was three U.S. DD took off after her but were unable to overtake her, which makes sense since the ships had the same rated max speed and the U.S. ships would have been in a pure tail chase.
 

duckie

CalBear said:
The Yubari couldn't outrun the USN WW I "four pipe" DD classes, the IJN ship was rated at 35.5 knots, while the Wickes class was rated at 35.3 knots and the Clemson class was rated at 35.5 knots. Depending on sea state and condition of a specific ship's bottom there could be a difference of a few knots, but nothing dramatic.

What actually happened was three U.S. DD took off after her but were unable to overtake her, which makes sense since the ships had the same rated max speed and the U.S. ships would have been in a pure tail chase.
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Yes, this would mean that the destroyers would find it difficult to get in "good" position for a "possible" "torpedo attack", I mean seamanship training... The bigger guns on a "more" stable platform would be a problem during a shooting war.
 

deamy

CalBear said:
The Yubari couldn't outrun the USN WW I "four pipe" DD classes, the IJN ship was rated at 35.5 knots, while the Wickes class was rated at 35.3 knots and the Clemson class was rated at 35.5 knots. Depending on sea state and condition of a specific ship's bottom there could be a difference of a few knots, but nothing dramatic.

What actually happened was three U.S. DD took off after her but were unable to overtake her, which makes sense since the ships had the same rated max speed and the U.S. ships would have been in a pure tail chase.
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You are right but top speed isn't real speed on high seas conditions or sustrained speed. I dont have any reference but I recall cruisers outrunning faster, smaller ships in weather due to better seakeeping :)
 

HMS Warspite

CalBear said:
The Yubari couldn't outrun the USN WW I "four pipe" DD classes, the IJN ship was rated at 35.5 knots, while the Wickes class was rated at 35.3 knots and the Clemson class was rated at 35.5 knots. Depending on sea state and condition of a specific ship's bottom there could be a difference of a few knots, but nothing dramatic.

What actually happened was three U.S. DD took off after her but were unable to overtake her, which makes sense since the ships had the same rated max speed and the U.S. ships would have been in a pure tail chase.
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Maximum speed is one thing. Actual seaspeed is entirely different. Physics play a large role in this, creditting a larger and heavier ship less loss of speed in a seaway than a lightweight one. In the Arctic, larger ships, even battleships, could easily outrun their own DD's, though theoretically inferior in speed. At Northcape HMS Duke of York and HMS Jamaica were outpacing their Destroyer consorts, though these in theory could have run at 36 knots, where HMS Duke of York had a maximum of 29 knots theoretically.
 

jsb

HMS Warspite said:
Maximum speed is one thing. Actual seaspeed is entirely different. Physics play a large role in this, creditting a larger and heavier ship less loss of speed in a seaway than a lightweight one. In the Arctic, larger ships, even battleships, could easily outrun their own DD's, though theoretically inferior in speed. At Northcape HMS Duke of York and HMS Jamaica were outpacing their Destroyer consorts, though these in theory could have run at 36 knots, where HMS Duke of York had a maximum of 29 knots theoretically.
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Yes but I don't think the 1920s USN (or anybody else really) would be out exercising in the conditions like that, so the gain would be much smaller.
 
Sanderford

Sanderford

The use of light, fast warships to conduct reconnaissance on enemies and prospective enemies is pretty much routine in naval fleets. How effective it is varies.
 

steamboy

The Russian fleet on its journey to its doom in the East was also shadowed by the RN as a polite but firm reminder not to try anything or fuck up like they did off Dogger Bank when they shot up some British fishing boats in a panic thinking they were Japanese torpedo boats.
 

weasel_airlift

CalBear said:
Nyet!

The Russian and Soviet navies never did such a thing.

Those were fishing boats! Anyone who claims otherwise is a capitalist lackey!
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My father was on a sub tender in the '70s, and was often tailed by a Russian trawler with a heck of a sonar suite. Apparently the D-E sub that was a permanent escort for my father's tender enjoyed playing games with the trawler
 

CalBear

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weasel_airlift said:
My father was on a sub tender in the '70s, and was often tailed by a Russian trawler with a heck of a sonar suite. Apparently the D-E sub that was a permanent escort for my father's tender enjoyed playing games with the trawler
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Not sonar suite!

Fish finder!
 

CalBear

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HMS Warspite said:
Maximum speed is one thing. Actual seaspeed is entirely different. Physics play a large role in this, creditting a larger and heavier ship less loss of speed in a seaway than a lightweight one. In the Arctic, larger ships, even battleships, could easily outrun their own DD's, though theoretically inferior in speed. At Northcape HMS Duke of York and HMS Jamaica were outpacing their Destroyer consorts, though these in theory could have run at 36 knots, where HMS Duke of York had a maximum of 29 knots theoretically.
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True. However, Yubari wad close in size to a WW II destroyer than a true CL. She was well under 3,000 tons standard, which is larger than the 1,860 ton DD but not sufficient to allow the sort of heavy sea state advantages mentioned (at least in any sea state where a 2-3,000 ton ship should be exercising).
 

HMS Warspite

CalBear said:
True. However, Yubari wad close in size to a WW II destroyer than a true CL. She was well under 3,000 tons standard, which is larger than the 1,860 ton DD but not sufficient to allow the sort of heavy sea state advantages mentioned (at least in any sea state where a 2-3,000 ton ship should be exercising).
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I agree with that, Size was just about twice that of a Flush Decked DD, though her hull had better features for a faster ship in a seaway, compared to the lower and narrower Flushdecked hull of the common USN Destroyer. This was always a disadvantage of the Wartime designed USN DD's compared to the ones abroad with a raised f''castle, like the British V&W type and succeding vessels, as well as the Yubari, which had a half length raised forward section with higher freeboard to allow better seakeeping. (Not discussing other defects of the design).
 
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