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Buckrock -> RE: Arleigh Burke's standing orders (3/11/2019 9:30:02 AM)
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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
As with this game .... it depends. During the battle of Cape Esperance a destroyer found itself out of position between the cruiser column and the Japanese. Instead of informing the TF commander of his position and going to his assigned battle position, the captain decided to attack the Japanese alone.
Actually, the situation was a bit more complicated. The commander of the destroyer in question (Taylor of the USS Duncan) believed in the circumstances that he was following the lead of his divisional flagship (USS Farenholt) in making a divisional torpedo attack against an enemy force some 8000yds away. This belief came from a combination of the leading Farenholt's wide turn appearing to take the Van destroyers (including the Duncan) directly toward the enemy, that a standing divisional order had it that Van destroyers should be prepared to follow any such moves of the Farenholt "without signal" and finally, pre-battle orders stating the intention of the US task force was to close the enemy so as to engage at short range. Together, these factors suggested to Taylor a decision may well have been made on the Farenholt to close in for a torpedo attack and therefore he should have the Duncan follow and prepare for action. By the time it was realized the Duncan was going in alone, Taylor considered it too late to break off as his ship was already within visual distance of a Japanese cruiser (likely the Aoba) when orders came over the TBS to begin the engagement.
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In doing so, he doomed his DD and caused the US TF to check fire until they could sort out friendly from enemy. This check fire came at the moment when CA Aoba had been hard hit and would likely have been beyond saving by a few more shell hits. Instead, Aoba turned away under smoke cover and escaped.
The Task Force commander (RAdm Scott) did not know that the Duncan was already amongst the Japanese warships when he issued his cease fire order. That order was given because his Van destroyer force (believed at the time to also include the Duncan) were currently racing along the engaged side of his cruiser force and therefore exposed to both friendly and not so friendly fire. Later, when Scott was convinced the formation of Van destroyers had all cleared the firing area, he then gave the order to re-open fire. So even had the Duncan stayed with the rest of the Van rather than closing the enemy, Scott would have almost certainly issued his cease fire order anyway as he still would have found the Van destroyers present on his engaged side when the firing started.
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Standing orders to attack immediately were workable if only the DD Squadron was involved and communication with the TF Commander kept a clear picture of the situation.
One of the many complications of the Battle of Cape Esperance was that TBS communications were ordered to be kept to a minimum, partly to keep the comms clear for messages RAdm Scott deemed critical and partly because it was suspected the Japanese may have had the capacity to listen in. This restriction in turn led to a reliance on "follow the leader" responses along with the need to anticipate what the "leader" might be planning. Guess wrong and you get the Duncan.
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