Richard Fernandez had an interesting post a ten years ago that discussed the USS South Dakota and the failure of it’s electrical systems in the Battle of Gualdacanal

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/10/11/musketeers/

“…But if anything the current financial crisis is driving politicians to propose increasing, rather than reducing system integration. The dangers of that were illustrated by the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal when the battleship USS South Dakota was almost lost to the IJN Kirishima because the temptation to provide a ‘quick fix’ led to putting the eggs in one basket.

The South Dakota’s role in that night action was rather ignominious, as she was bedevilled by a series of power failures, starting some 17 minutes after the action commenced. Gunfire had caused a short circuit on the feeder cable to number 4 secondary fire control director. The circuit breaker was locked in, and the overload resulting from the short was transmitted to the main circuit supplying half the power to the forwad part of the ship. The breaker on that line tripped, causing power to be interrupted. A switch to the alternate power supply had the same result, as the circuit breaker causing the problem was still locked in. All power was lost aft, gyros and fire-control equipment went out, and for three minutes all power was off in all turrets.
By tying down the circuit breakers, a fault in one place became a fault everywhere. The USS South Dakota lost all offensive combat systems and was riddled by 14″ shells from Kirishima, unable to fire anything in return. Fortunately for the BB she was saved by a design redundancy. Her thick armor kept the ship from sustaining critical damage while her battle squadron mate, the USS Washington, sank the Kirishima with 9 x 16″ hits. The history of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal is interesting because some authorities, ……”

Fernandez’s main point concerned the reaction to the 2008 financial crisis, that history can teach many lessons.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/nelly-sachs-poet-nazi-germany-sweden-holocaust-poem-house-of-death-jewish-jews-a8675606.html

Her most famous poem, “O Die Schornsteine” translates as “O the Chimneys”, and addresses the camps where the rest of her Jewish relatives would meet their end.

‘O Die Schornsteine’ (1967)

O the chimneys

On the carefully planned dwellings of death

When Israel’s body rose dissolved in smoke

Through the air –

To be welcomed by a chimney sweep star

Turned black

Or was it a ray of the sun?

O the chimneys!

Paths of freedom for the dust of Jeremiah and Job –

Who dreamed you up and built stone upon stone

The path of smoke for their flight?

O dwellings of death

Set out so enticingly

For the host of the house, who used to be the guest –

O you fingers

Laying the stone of the threshold

Like a knife between life and death –

O you chimneys

O you fingers

And Israel’s body dissolves in smoke through the air!

No, Mike, the problem was they were probably the most thoroughly tested weapons in the arsenal. They were just being tested by the same self-satisfied men who were building them. Every single one of them arrived in the fleet with a log book attesting to just how thoroughly tested they were.
* * *
Words fail.
Kind of like the torpedoes.
I suppose it is too much to hope that this was the only instance of (to put it charitably) poor protocol.

Willis Lee and the USS Washington was written about “Neptune’s Inferno,The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal” bj J. D. Hornfischer. He knew his gunnery and the use of radar to direct it in the Battleship Night Action of November 14-15, 1942. The IJN was defeated in that action but it wasn’t the last fight in those waters.

No, Mike, the problem was they were probably the most thoroughly tested weapons in the arsenal. They were just being tested by the same self-satisfied men who were building them. Every single one of them arrived in the fleet with a log book attesting to just how thoroughly tested they were. So when the fleet reported back that the torpedoes just didn’t work, as evidenced by the fact that during practice exercises in San Diego harbor they were recovering muddy torpedoes or they were putting holes in nets far too deep all of which were indicating the weapons were running way too deep, the weapons guys at Newport could pull out records showing that their torpedoes were perfect. And the guys in the fleet must have been doing something wrong. The Torpedomen were mishandling the fish, they weren’t maintaining them, something.

I believe it was Pete Farrell in Seadragon who lined up 8 carefully aimed shots at a Japanese whaling factory ship converted into a fleet oiler (a valuable target) and only got one torpedo to detonate. And the one torpedo that did explode was a fluke. Running too deep was just one of the problems. It turned out the exploder was completely hosed up. In a fit of pride a Naval officer, it later turned out, showed a diagram of the mechanism to Albert Einstein. It was top secret, very hush hush. It was designed to either explode on contact or underneath the keel of the target, which would have made it the most deadly naval weapon ever devised. Einstein took one glance at the diagram and told the Navy guy it would never work. One of the reasons why is because the firing pin would be crushed on impact. He drew a picture of an exploder that would work, and naturally noting happened. Because, see, the torpedo was perfect.

The only reason that Farrell had one torpedo go off is he hit his target obliquely with the first shot. He stopped the big target but didn’t sink it, though. The other seven were carefully lined up on the DIW target, and the firing pin it turned out was crushed every single time.

So after returning to port he marched into Admiral Lockwood’s office and demanded the commander of PACFLT submarines unf*** his g*****mned torpedoes. Which the admiral proceeded to do despite the b****ing and moaning from Newport.

Thanks for the lesson. Does the name Willis Augustus “Ching” Lee ring any bells?

It’s obvious that starting a war was easier than winning a war.