I absolutely agree with you here. Yamato does have better range with her guns. But I believe that PoW is better able to place her shots on target at these extreme ranges than Yamato. Regardless, surprise is crucial for PoW. Which is why I think the engagement would HAVE to happen at night when radar would help.
@CWO:
Let’s assume a chance encounter in the China sea between the two in 1942 when Churchill wanted British raiders operating the way the Germans had done in the Atlantic. � This is the only possible way I see an encounter between the two happening without other ships and carriers taking part (at least on the British side). � We’ll assume that Japanese carriers are engaged elsewhere and Yamato and other ships are hunting for the British raiders. � Low cloud ceiling, so planes can’t participate. � Prince of Wales was destined for this type of operation, so this match-up MIGHT have happened. � We’ll substitute DoY with PoW. � As the ships are identical, shouldn’t be an issue. � And PoW is most likely to have made this encounter, had she survived.
Interesting analysis, but there’s one other factor that needs to be considered: main gun range. Yamato’s 18.1-inch guns probably out-ranged PoW’s 14-inchers; Garzke and Dulin’s books would give the exact figures, but I don’t have them on hand at this moment. If so, Yamato would be able to open fire on PoW long before PoW could do likewise to Yamato. Or to put it another way, any situation in which PoW is in range to hit Yamato (even at extreme range) would automatically be a situation in which PoW would be well within Yamato’s range.
On the issue of who-spots-whom-first, Japanese inferiority in radar might well be compensated by the IJN’s excellent optical rangefinders, particularly in view of the fact that Yamato’s greater size would place her optical fire-control stations (and perhaps her radars too) at a greater height than those of PoW – so Yamato might actually spot PoW first, since the horizon is further away as you observe it from higher up. PoW did have a slight edge in speed, but in this situation the main advantage this would confer to PoW would be the ability to get away from a situation in which she was confronted with an opponent way above her weight class. This was basically the same principle behind the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe: with a few exceptions (these being the three British battlecruisers they might face), they were more powerful than anything faster and faster than anything more powerful…the latter point meaning that, if they encountered a fully-fledged battleship, they were supposed to run away from it.
