Homerun after Homerun Guys!
Scott
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Well, the Atlanta class had
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta-class_cruiser
Otherwise a good question which also are connected to the poor US torpedo Technology and not knowing of the Long Lance
Explained here by a naval officer:
https://www.quora.com/Why-didn-t-the-US-cruisers-in-WW2-have-torpedoes
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You keep on asking excellent questions.
The reason why is due to American naval battle doctrine at the beginning of the war.
The basis of the American naval battle doctrine arose in the aftermath of World War 1 in response to the major navies of the world. The Austrian-Hungarian navy was being divided up by the Allies. The German navy was rusting away in the mud at the bottom of the Scapa Flow anchorage. The Russian navy had ceased to exist as the ships were seized by various warlords and the Communist party. Great Britain, France, and Italy were bankrupted by the war and could not afford a new naval arms race. All that remains is the Imperial Japanese Navy and the substantially larger United States Navy.
So American battle doctrine called for the more numerous warships and naval guns of the United States Navy to engage the Imperial Japanese Fleet and the other major navies during the daytime at maximum gun range. Once the majority of the IJN, Royal Navy, French Navy, or the Italian Navy was turned into sinking scrap metal, the torpedo carrying destroyers would be unleashed to finish off the surviving warships. So, the USN poured the majority of its funds into research and development to maximize naval gunnery.
The Imperial Japanese Navy also knows about this battle doctrine and had no intention of providing floating targets in an American shooting gallery. So, they modified and updated their existing battle doctrine that they had used successfully against the Chinese and Russians to confront the USN. The Japanese poured their research and development into technology to attrit away superior American numbers. They poured their research into creating the Long Lance torpedo. They invested heavily into long range torpedo bombers to strike the American fleet with the Long Lance Torpedo, specialized range finders for their naval guns to engage targets at night, better illumination shells to highlight enemy ships, and optical equipment to spot enemy ships at night. They constantly modernized their existing warships with the newest technology as it was developed to give them the advantage at nighttime fighting. All new construction destroyers launched after the Fubuki Class (modified to carry the Long Lance) in 1933 gave primary emphasis to the Long Lance torpedo with destroyers being built reloads for the torpedo tubes.
The original Japanese doctrine was to whittle down the US Navy with torpedo bomber attacks during the daytime. At night, expandable destroyers and submarines would strike with devastating torpedo attacks to attrit down the US Navy even further with the destroyers and submarines fleeing before sunrise to evade the American guns. This attrition would continue until the Japanese decided to engage in all out attack to destroy the remaining American ships in a final showdown.
On the American side, the majority of funds poured into the development of a new generation of naval guns built with semiautomatic and automatic loaders to maximize fire power. Naval engineers and physicists researched and developed the streamlining of naval shells to maximize the range and still keep the maximum armor piercing capacity of the shells. Naval engineers, meteorologists, and physicists also created targeting tables so warships could maximize their firepower in any weather or sea condition. More advanced optical ranging systems, analog targeting computers, and later fire control radar was developed to maximize firepower.
The combination of all this technology will come together in the St. Louis Class Light Cruiser armed with 15 Mark 16 6-inch naval guns in 5 turrets and 8 single mounted 5/38-inch guns. The St. Louis Class could fire a maximum of 150 6-inch shells and 120 5-inch shells in one minute to the maximum range of its naval guns. The St. Louis would become the template for the North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa Class Battleships; the Alaska Class Large Cruisers; Baltimore Class Heavy Cruisers; Cleveland Class Light Cruisers; Atlanta Class AA Cruisers; and the Benham, Sims, Benson, Gleaves, Fletcher, Somner, and Gearing Class Destroyers.
In the future, you are going to see in upcoming episodes what happens when the Japanese blunder into American gun range in the bloodbath known as Friday the Thirteenth and what happens when the French Navy makes a direct assault.
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