# Talk:Japanese battleship Hiei

I am no naval warfare expert, but I suspect the addition of bilges is not a defense against torpedoes.  I have read of the addition of bulges, filled with shock absorbing materials.  Is this what's meant? Hue White 20:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Anti torpedo bulges, not bilges, were added. -Nibios 19:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

"On 1 August 1933, work commenced on Hiei's sister-ship Haruna to reconfigure her as a fast battleship.": The connection to the rest of the paragraph isn't clear.  I'll remove it for now to help me make some other changes, but feel free to give some context and re-insert it. - Dank (push to talk) 05:43, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Change "#" to "No." per Chicago and MOS. - Dank (push to talk)
"14 inch turret": 14-inch turret. There are lots of these that need hyphens. - Dank (push to talk)
OTOH: "25-mm gun mounts": 25 mm gun mounts. - Dank (push to talk)
"Hiei sortied as part of the with Rear Admiral": ? - Dank (push to talk)
"From 26–30 October": needs a "to", not a dash, per Chicago and WT:MOS. - Dank (push to talk) 06:05, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

On the image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japanese_training_ship_Hiei.jpg we can see that only aftmost turret was removed, not the both ones, as the article states.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.52.79.26 (talk) 23:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC) 

Hiei did not shell Atlanta's bridge; those shells were friendly fire from San Francisco. Idk what to replace that text with, though. 99.249.94.60 (talk) 06:08, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The ship was struck from shells fired from the USS San Francisco. The information is listed in Hornfoscher's Neptune's Inferno, but I've found an online source that'll substitute. I will correct the pages on the other Kongo Class battlecruisers as well. MG George H Thomas (talk) 18:43, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Atlanta was hit about 50 times, including 35 14-inch shells from Hiei and under 20 8-inch shells from San Francisco Micheal Harrens (talk) 16:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

All - the date listed here for the sinking of Hiei is 14 Nov 1942.  The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal#Aftermath page has the sinking as 13 November. This is probably an error caused by sources reflecting different sides of the international date line. How do we handle this?  user:JMOprof ©¿©¬ 15:13, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Since Hiei wasn't responsible for the damage to Atlanta's bridge, it may be best to simply remove that information.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.239.146.137 (talk) 03:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC) 

I found that somebody incorrectly attributed dye shell colors. Apparently it was deliberate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.64.17.141 (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC) 

So, I got noted for omitting Robert Lundgren's claim that Hiei was hit by six torpedo hits that successfully exploded, when I did this for a reason. Lundgren's take on the battle of Guadalcanal is pretty underbaked, and any claim he makes should not be taken at face value without verification from other sources, given he admitted to fellow historian Anthony Tully that he has been misled on several notable actions during the battle, especially pertaining to the destroyer action, and is currently revising his take on the battle. His current document on Navweaps is far from a finished product, and until Lundgren releases an actual book or something to that effect, his current take on the first naval battle of Guadalcanal should be taken with a grain of salt, especially given how......... interesting many of his extraordinary claims are. 
The idea of Hiei surviving six torpedo hits, yet alone surviving relatively intact and battle ready (besides the rudder jam) is completely non-sensical, given Kongō sank to just two or three torpedo hits. It's possible the wreck damage was just premature explosions, as noted by several critiques of the document. This is just one of the many extremely questionable points Lundgren makes. I re-emphasize, until an actual book is published or some other form of a finished product, many of the new stuff he claims (much of which is without elaboration or explanation) should not be taken at face value. Micheal Harrens (talk) 21:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

User:Micheal Harrens thanks for bringing this for discussion here.
So to be blunt your analysis is original research in its entirety. Original research does not belong on Wikipedia. It's not even good OR, random chance plays a large part in ship-on-ship engagements, HMS Hood was an extremely well-built vessel that was felled by a single hit. Conversely at Samar, USS White Plains, a tinclad escort carrier, survived a salvo from the most powerful guns ever fitted to a battleship.
Robert Lundgren is a respectable naval historian; if you think he should be considered unreliable then should take it up at WP:RSN, but otherwise the analysis forms part of the mix of sources which we examine to determine article content.
But even if we excluded Lundgren your proposed text still could not stand since there is not a single reliable source that states that every torpedo was a dud. We absolutely under no circumstances can make that claim in the encyclopedia's own voice unless it is explicitly backed up by the weight of RS that cover the topic. Using sources that cover the sinking of Kongō to make claims about Hiei is WP:SYNTH.
Now I am open to wordsmithing proposals here. And that is where the Lundgren issue becomes important because we need to assess WP:WEIGHT. There are a lot of RS on this topic so I'm not quite sure where the weight of them is here but there are a few approaches to take. One would be to state variants and attribute them e.g. "according to $AUTHOR1 foo happened, according to $AUTHOR2 bar happened" without deciding between them, potentially omitting extreme outliers. Though that can be long (WP:SUMMARYSTYLE). Another option is to write in a way that is in accord with all of the sources while remaining vague on points of disagreement. That is what I tried to do with my last edit, since all sources agree that at least one torpedo was a dud even if they disagree on how many were, but for whatever reason that dissatisfies you.
While we're on this topic can you provide a source for "O'Bannon and Sterett then re-engaged Hiei and further peppered her in 5-inch (127 mm) gunfire and another pair of dud torpedoes" because the naval history site covers only USS Laffey, while ch. 29 of Neptune's Inferno covers only the opening stage of the fight, and while it details a torpedo hit, it is the one on the USS Atlanta. As stands it appears to me the statement is unsourced. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
Firstly, I meant to put both Chapters 29 and 30, I'll correct that.
My contention with the Lundgren document is not poking at his integrity as a historian, but more focused on how it's still a work in progress, and much of the stuff he claims now he may omit when he further researches the battle, especially given he's admitted in footnotes and a Drachinifel interview that he has not studies a number of important IJN records pertaining to the battle. Just look at the beliefs about the battle off Samar he proposed in the Navweaps forum site in the 2011 time frame that he later omitted in the 2014 book he wrote.
He also never proves why he thinks any claimed torpedo damage was actually scored by the destroyers and not the air attacks, any damage he suspects aren't written with a time stamps of when it happened
Previous takes on the battle have never written of any torpedoes exploding during the surface action, not even Japanese centric ones using primary sources. The idea of any of the destroyer torpedoes actually successfully damaging Hiei is something completely new and unique to Lundgren's version on the battle, which is why I decided to omit it since much of the new and unique stuff he claims is extremely questionable. Here's some examples.
-I really don't buy into his take on how the destroyer USS Laffey sank. He claims she was torpedoed and sunk at 2:15, over 10 minutes after she is almost unanimously stated to have sunk. He also claims she was crippled and disabled by gunfire for about 20 minutes before being finished off by torpedoes, as where every other source I've read (including official US navy damage reports) all state she really wasn't shot up by gunfire, hit by one or two type 3 AA 14-inch shells and torpedoed right afterwards just after 2:00. Laffey's wreck is extremely intact, with basically no evidence of shell damage besides a single 14-inch shell hole to her superstructure I've seen. Finally, he claims the torpedo to have been a friendly fire incident from USS Sterett, which I don't buy. I've aways seen Yukikaze and Teruzuki attributed for engaging Laffey by trustworthy sources, with Yukikaze being credited for the torpedo hit (EX: Combined Fleet/Yukikaze's TROM, Japanese-Warship.Com, "Yukikaze's War" by Brent L Walker, "Warship Profile 22: IJN Yukikaze" by Masataka Chiyaka and Yasuo Abe). Lundgren admitted in a footnote that he has not studied Yukikaze's or Teruzuki's actions during the battle. Sterett's claim to torpedo an enemy destroyer was probably just a premature detonation or trick of the eye, false claims of sinkings happened all the time in naval warfare. Lundgren himself proved USS Samuel B Roberts never torpedoed Chokai during the battle off Samar.
-Another big claim is that USS Portland was hit by three torpedoes from USS Fletcher striking the same exact area. HMS Barham was a much larger battleship hit by three torpedoes in the exact same area, she violently capsized and sank 4 minutes later. This is also ignoring that he claims the first two came from her first salvo, while the third came from her second. Given there would be a time delay, the crew would have figured out they were hit by more than one torpedo. Lundgren is correct that Yūdachi's claim to torpedo Portland is suspect, but most modern sources don't credit Yudachi with torpedoing Portland, they credit a spread fired from Ikazuchi and Inazuma. Lundgren in an interview with Drachinifel admitted he has not analyzed Ikazuchi or Inazuma's records past their initial action.
-The claim of Amatsukaze's target being the destroyer USS Monssen and not the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco is cartoonish at best. He claims it was Yukikaze, Teruzuki, and Amatsukaze that sank Monssen as a group, even though Captain Hara's book makes it clear Ikazuchi and Inazuma's counterattack against USS Atlanta blocked her from joining Yukikaze and Teruzuki in their initial take down of USS Cushing, and Amatsukaze pretty much operated independently for most of the battle while Yukikaze and Teruzuki acted as a duo, in fault to Lundgren not taking Yukikaze and Teruzuki's records into account. Amatsukaze was so close to her target, she almost collided with her, San Francisco was barely moving, and Amatsukaze lit up her searchlights and very clearly saw the ship at only a few hundred meters away. She was so close, the torpedoes she fired failed to arm, otherwise Captain Hara would have had another cruiser on his kill sheet alongside Juneau. It's also known Monssen was lit up by star shells which she mistook as signals from friendly vessels. Amatsukaze's mystery ship was hidden in complete darkness before her searchlights were fired up and revealed the identity of her ghost ship. This is even ignoring accounts of San Francisco being shelled by a lone destroyer, with 5-inch gunfire disabling her port secondary armament and shelling her bridge, matching up with Captain Hara's claim to shell the crippled San Francisco. While the idea of Amatsukaze helping to sink another destroyer alongside sinking Barton and helping to sink Juneau sounds nice, It should be taken with a grain of salt.
Lundgren pains the Friday 13th engagement as a completely different battle from how everyone has accounted it for the past 80 years, and as the phrase goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", which is something I feel he fails to accomplish. For example, he doesn't detail why exactly Captain Hara would mistake a destroyer less than 500 meters away from him lit up by his searchlights as a heavy cruiser, he just claims that's the case without elaboration. He doesn't say why his take on Laffey's sinking is completely different from all previous versions, he just states that's the case without elaboration.
Given how suspect and unsourced many of his other unique claims are, I feel like the claim of Hiei being damaged by torpedoes should be omitted until further elaboration on the part of Lundgren, as he plans to do with further research on the battle. Micheal Harrens (talk) 23:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)
User:Micheal Harrens while I appreciate the effort that went into your post above, it is largely ancillary to the discussion. Furthermore only WP:RSN can make a definitve ruling on Lundgren as a whole, though editorially we may decide to exclude certain things following discussion here if the WP:WEIGHT of other reliable sources indicates otherwise. "
Now in fact some sources aside from Lundgren discuss torpedo usage including the combinedfleet one "Jesse G. Coward's STERETT that launches four more torpedoes at HIEI. Coward claims two hits"
The closest we get to what you want to put in the article comes from Neptune's Inferno (quoting under fair use)
Despite some claims to the contrary, the U.S. destroyers likely never got their torpedoes effectively into play. Opportunities to fire them occurred at such close range that the weapons seldom had time to arm. The destroyer O’Bannon, last in the van, spied the Hiei close on her port bow, burning but still roaring salvos over the mast of destroyer at unknown targets behind her. Commander E. R. Wilkinson loosed four torpedoes, the third of which coincided with the battleship’s complete envelopment “from bow to stern in a great sheet of flame.” The Sterett claimed a pair of torpedo hits on the Hiei as well, but Japanese records, which chronicle gunfire damage in detail, suggest that the damage went unnoticed. Very possibly these claims arose from the battering the Hiei was taking from the San Francisco around this time.

Notice though, it explicitly specifies that claims to the contrary are found (i.e. not novel to Lundgren), further it at no point states definitively that all torpedoes were duds. The language is carefully qualified "likely", "very possibly" etc. They are not definitive and so even if we were to rely only on the source that is most suspicious of assertions of torpedo damage we could still not state things definitively the way you have tried to. Even if that were the only source perhaps at most you could get away with stating that it is unlikely any torpedo hits were effective and that is it. You couldn't say they were all duds (not in the source) or even that they all failed to arm (seldom != never).
As a practical matter I think it best to stick to where all sources agree, and one point they largely agree on is that usage of torpedoes was mostly ineffective, whether or not all were duds, even if there is some non-negligible chance of exceptions.
Bottom line we should not be stating things any more definitively than Hornfischer is, stick to the sources. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 00:32, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
Perhaps. I still think better wording would be to mention the possibility of the destroyer torpedoes explosion and not vise versa Micheal Harrens (talk) 17:31, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
User:Micheal Harrens what precisely are you proposing? I can think of many possibilities
"at least some of which failed to detonate" Comment: current wording
"some of which may have detonated" Comment: rather awkward
"the number of detonations is unclear" Comment: somewhat less informative
"some of which failed to detonate, while others may have" Comment: clumsy and longer.
"it is possible that some of them detonated, though this is disputed, but at least some did not detonate. Comment: Conveys more detail, but increasingly verbose.
Could you be more specific? Can you think of verbiage that concisely flows with the narrative and avoids getting bogged down in minutia? 204.111.137.20 (talk) 20:02, 20 May 2025 (UTC)
I am a different user. I have read with difficulty part of this discussion because its english is too slang for me. For the torpedo hits I remember of having read that the torpedoes did not explode because fired from below the minimum distance. 151.29.146.245 (talk) 10:38, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

The phrase
On 10 November 1942, Hiei departed Truk alongside Kirishima and eleven destroyers, all under the command of Rear Admiral Hiroaki Abe, to shell ...
misses the Nagara? If not, I suggest to add that the cruiser joined later. 151.29.146.245 (talk) 10:22, 18 April 2025 (UTC)