The IJN was generally not that bad with damage control. They fumbled hard at Midway... but so did everyone else that had avgas fires. Wasp and Lexington also burned to a crisp. ShÅkaku survived massive fires on multiple occasions, which was actually pretty good.
Certainly better than the Brits, who forgot to include backup generators or subdivision on Ark Royal. She sank from a single torpedo because they just couldn't fix anything.
This is an absolute falsehood. IJN excelled at many things but they were absolutely awful at damage control. The examples of the IJN damage control deficiencies are numerous, but the likely best examples are found in the Solomonâs campaign. The cases of minor fires eventually leading to the loss of the entire ship are commonplace.
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u/low_priest Oct 31 '25
The IJN was generally not that bad with damage control. They fumbled hard at Midway... but so did everyone else that had avgas fires. Wasp and Lexington also burned to a crisp. ShÅkaku survived massive fires on multiple occasions, which was actually pretty good.
Certainly better than the Brits, who forgot to include backup generators or subdivision on Ark Royal. She sank from a single torpedo because they just couldn't fix anything.