conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled The Battle of Tassafaronga about Capt, USN, Ret with the genre: History, Asia.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Capt. the author, USN (Ret.), is the author of Naval Shiphandling and lives in Drayden, MD.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first three paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Battle of Tassafaronga
  The antennae of these early radars, mounted as high in the ship as practical, would slowly scan the horizon until the presence of a target was indicated by a blip on the horizontal range line traced on the face of the cathode-ray scope of the radar console. When the operator spotted a blip, he interrupted the antenna's motion and moved it back and forth across the bearing of the blip to find the center. Range was then measured by cranking a "range step" out to the target blip and reading the resulting range on a calibrated dial. Unfortunately, even with the large antennae, the angular beam width of these early radars was quite large, and significant amounts of energy were focused in other directions in side lobes. As a result, if a radar was close to land or a heavy rain squall, enough energy was received with the antenna trained in any direction to saturate the receiver and blank out the desired weaker targets within the range band of the land or weather "clutter."
  As mentioned frequently in the preceding chapters, the first radar developed for detecting surface ships at sea, the SG radar, was a dramatic leap forward. Operating at a much higher frequency than the air search radars, its beam width was a narrow 3° and its side lobes negligible. Most importantly, it scanned rapidly at one complete horizon search every four seconds and displayed its echoes on its PPI, scope with "own ship" in the center and targets displayed at their true bearings and relative range. Set on long range, the scope could show targets out to 75,000 yards; at short range, out to 15,000 yards. The special coating on the PPI screen glowed long enough so that returns from one sweep lasted until refreshed by the next sweep, so a continuous picture was displayed. For the first time, the sailor had a bird's-eye view of the sea around him, day or night.
  But even the SG had shortcomings. Its 3° beam width still exaggerated narrow targets and smeared them into nearby neighbors, but the biggest disadvantage was that to measure range accurately, the steady rotation had to be interrupted while the antenna was scanned back and forth to find the center of the target and the range measured on an adjacent range scope. This took several seconds for each target, so the SG picture was lost each time an accurate range or bearing was needed.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The tracks of the Japanese torpedoes were constructed by connecting a known hit on an American ship with a reported time of firing by a Japanese ship combined with the 49-knot speed of a Type 93 torpedo to determine its source. The positions of the beached transports were derived from the location of submerged wrecks shown on the current navigational charts. A summary track chart of the action is shown in Figure 5 and the two most critical 5-minute periods are shown in Figures 6 and 7.
  Wright and all of his cruiser captains believed that he had kept them out of torpedo waters, so he might be forgiven for pressing in a bit closer than his planned 12,000 yards, but why did he not turn away to control the range as he stated in his plan? More importantly, why did he not simply reverse course to really foil any incoming torpedoes; even American torpedoes could reach 10,000 yards. Despite his concern about restricted waters, Iron Bottom Bay is a big body of water, certainly big enough to allow a lot of tactical maneuvering. If there had been enemy cruisers or battleships, as had been experienced in every previous battle, he would have been much better off standing off at 15,000 yards or more and capitalizing on the anticipated American superiority in gunnery and radar.
  Wright's order to commence fire less than a minute after he had released his torpedoes demolished any hope of the fish catching the Japanese off guard, but as things turned out in the first frantic minutes of the battle, several of them managed to maneuver into harm's way. Until the lead destroyers opened fire with their guns after Wright's general order, there is no evidence in the Japanese reports that they were even aware of the presence of these four ships.
  Wright gave only two significant orders during the entire engagement. The first was to prevent Cole from firing and the second was his "commence firing" to all ships. He ordered no tactical maneuvers at all in the period from 2314, when he turned to 300°, until 2328, when his flagship had her bow blown off and his TBS was knocked out. Before opening fire, he obviously believed that his ships could not be seen by the enemy units being tracked by his radars. Even after he was hit, he could not believe he had been torpedoed by any of the surface ships he was engaging.
  Obviously the view from above was not much more accurate than that below—the aviators too were expecting to see transports and they saw them.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The positions of the beached transports were derived from the location of submerged wrecks shown on the current navigational charts. A summary track chart of the action is shown in Figure 5 and the two most critical 5-minute periods are shown in Figures 6 and 7.
  Wright and all of his cruiser captains believed that he had kept them out of torpedo waters, so he might be forgiven for pressing in a bit closer than his planned 12,000 yards, but why did he not turn away to control the range as he stated in his plan? More importantly, why did he not simply reverse course to really foil any incoming torpedoes; even American torpedoes could reach 10,000 yards. Despite his concern about restricted waters, Iron Bottom Bay is a big body of water, certainly big enough to allow a lot of tactical maneuvering. If there had been enemy cruisers or battleships, as had been experienced in every previous battle, he would have been much better off standing off at 15,000 yards or more and capitalizing on the anticipated American superiority in gunnery and radar.
  Wright's order to commence fire less than a minute after he had released his torpedoes demolished any hope of the fish catching the Japanese off guard, but as things turned out in the first frantic minutes of the battle, several of them managed to maneuver into harm's way. Until the lead destroyers opened fire with their guns after Wright's general order, there is no evidence in the Japanese reports that they were even aware of the presence of these four ships.
  Wright gave only two significant orders during the entire engagement. The first was to prevent Cole from firing and the second was his "commence firing" to all ships. He ordered no tactical maneuvers at all in the period from 2314, when he turned to 300°, until 2328, when his flagship had her bow blown off and his TBS was knocked out. Before opening fire, he obviously believed that his ships could not be seen by the enemy units being tracked by his radars. Even after he was hit, he could not believe he had been torpedoed by any of the surface ships he was engaging.
  Obviously the view from above was not much more accurate than that below—the aviators too were expecting to see transports and they saw them.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Japanese navy: methodical nature of, ; night fighting policy of, ; night vision study by, ; offensive strategy of,
  Operation Plan No. 1-42: aerial reconnaissance in, 20–21; Kinkaid in development of, ; night battle instructions in, 21–22; over-thinking in, 130–31
  Task Force Sixty-Seven, ; composition of, ; firepower available to, 127–28; performance at Tassafaronga, ; Wright assumption of command of, 19–20
  Wright, Carleton H., ; action report on battle, 54–55, 59–60, ; assumption of command of TF67 by, 19–20; background of, , ; in Battle of Tassafaronga, 33–34, , , , ; in delay of torpedo firing, 33–35, , ; on enemy force composition and movements, 60–62; lessons learned from Savo Island battles, , ; Nimitz assessment of actions of, ; post-battle actions of, ; pre-battle situation report of, 22–23, ; preparations for battle, , ; on U.S. forces' performance,
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