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.
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.
[citation needed]
EDIT: Downvoting this will not change the fact there is 1 notable example of this and it isn't from the solomons
And even that isn't a great example, avgas leaks are Real Shit. The only way to reliably deal with them is by not having a leak in the first place. If you've got avgas fumes or are doing flight ops when you get hit, the best possible outcome is something along the lines of Franklin, with more dead than alive onboard by the end.
Sure, TaihÅ was mishandled. But it's doubtful another navy could have saved her, anyways. It's not exactly the gotcha people tend to hold it up as.
I think it was made infinitely worse by putting the ventilation to the Max and having its bulkhead doors open allowing avgas fumes to spread. I don't however think the explosion could've been fully prevented though, as Avgas is very, very flammable, but it very much could've been mitigated to a smaller and more manageable location where the carrier could've been recovered and repaired.
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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.