They do have some brilliant tactical-level commanders (like Amatsukaze/Shigure/Yahagi's captain). The bigshots over at Imperial HQ and Hotel Yamato did suck, yes.
If we are talking about competent officers, then my pick would be Tanaka Raizo and Yamaguchi Tamon. Unfortunately (for the IJN) the later had fallen into disfavor with the high command and the later chose to go down with his ship.
Japan commited many war crimes in WW2, but let's not pretend the Allies didn't commit any. People do horrible things to eachother throughout history.
The important lesson here is to remember war crimes of not only (former) enemies but also your OWN nation/people, to avoid repeating them again, a prospect all the keyboard warriors here seem so quick to forget.
stoicapple explained it but had been downvoted. You might want to adjust your comment rating threshold in your account settings so a random buttmadder doesn't hide a comment from you.
I didn't downvote him, but his explanation may as well be non-existence. It didn't do the original ship any justice.
Taiho's sinking can be attributed to poor damage control, which unfortunately nullified her compartmentalized design. Her two hangars were divided into sections, five on the upper and four on the lower, separated by fire-proofed fabric curtains. The curtains were to limit the supply of air to and delay the spread of any fire breaking out on the hangar decks. Further protection against fire was supplied by a foam spray system fed by two rows of pipes and nozzles running along the walls and ends of the hangars. The lower hangar could also be flooded with carbon dioxide where the likelihood of fuel vapor build-up was greatest.
When she was hit by torpedo, no fire has started and the open elevator well was planked over by a flight deck damage control party in order to allow resumption of normal flight operations, however the leaking fuel begin to vaporize, effort to pump out the fouled air has been bungled and no one thought to try to cover the increasingly lethal mixture with foam from the hangar's fire suppression system.
Eventually the decision was made that all doors and hatches be opened to try to rid the ship of fumes, this back-fired as fumes-free areas are now saturated. And the rest are history.
Before I don't really care for her, "Another average DD" I said. But now that she's in my base her voice and personality sort of grew on me. She's still an average DD, but she's my favorite average DD.
