IJN Fleet ??

Japanese cruiser design was avictim of one of those "law of unintentional consequences" occurrences. Many cruisers designs featured longitudinal bulkheads that subdivided their machinery spaces into port and starboard units. The idea was that this would allow one side to continue operating if the other side was hit. An admirable goal, and one which I (as a survivability engineer) would be happy with. Unfortunately the execution actually made them horribly vulnerable to flooding damage since, although flooding would indeed be restricted to one side of the ship, this was sufficient to seriously destabilise the ship, often resuting in capsize. Japanese cruisers torpedoed amidships rarely survived, inevitably rolling over. Nowadays we wouldn't dream of putting in such an awful feature, but that is with the benefit of (a) hindsight and (b) decent naval architectural tools to allow comprehensive damage stability analysis (which is where I startedmy career many years ago!)

Another odd snippet from the rambling mind of DM :)
 
I'd just like to take a second to thank DM & BuShips and any others for the wealth of info found here.

As a gamer with a non-historical slant, I figured I'd have a lot of work ahead of me researching the Japanese fleet. Especially since Naval Warfare is especially unfmiliar to me, being landlocked and all. Thankfully most of my work is done and I can concentrate on arranging my pruchases out to make my fleets as historically accurate as possible.

I'm learning a lot. Thanks guys.
 
Breten said:
I'd just like to take a second to thank DM & BuShips and any others for the wealth of info found here.

As a gamer with a non-historical slant, I figured I'd have a lot of work ahead of me researching the Japanese fleet. Especially since Naval Warfare is especially unfmiliar to me, being landlocked and all. Thankfully most of my work is done and I can concentrate on arranging my pruchases out to make my fleets as historically accurate as possible.

I'm learning a lot. Thanks guys.

No problem, as I'm sure we both enjoy the discussion :wink: . DM and I bounch off of each other's posts and thus seem to pry out more information for all to digest. As for me, I'm going back to my roots in both gaming as well as love of military history. I have focused more upon the Pacific Theater of WW2 than any other period, as it was just an enormous battlefield. For example, the Pacific Theater encompassed over 60 million square miles. An impressive number, correct? This also happens to be the amount of total land area in the World, so this part of WW2 spanned a very large area indeed. I also had an uncle who was at Pearl Harbor the day it was attacked, as well as another uncle that served on three destroyers throughout the Pacific, even spending 3 days trapped in the bow compartment of a bobbing DD riding out a Pacific Typhoon (now there's an oxymoronic term!). I had a great uncle that spent three years fighting the Japanese around New Guinea, sometimes hand-to-hand. None of them talked about it much, and I can't blame them any for that attitude. Still, it is history that should not be forgotten, or we'll be reminded of Santayana instead (Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it). I also have a great affinity for the Japanese, and make every attempt to look at their WW2 history from their perspective. [wry]Sure it was an empire expanding at the cost of many other's lives, but what empire hasn't trodden on another's posessions and freedoms?[/wry] The Japanese were just "late to the party", as past expansions in the world (the U.S., the U.K., France and Spain for example) had mostly halted and tried to hold the "status quo" with their assets intact. Japan's mistake was in not doing their "land grab" in earlier times, so as to secure critical strategic materials such as rubber, tin and oil. I'm not saying it was a "good" thing to do, but rather that it was good for them, I suppose. It was not good for those they occupied, however. A very interesting phrase that I saw during my early reading was an eye opener for me. The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" seems rather comical from a historical viewpoint, as Imperial Japan absorbed as much territory and resources as it could conquer, sharing their treasure with no one but themselves. From Korea through Taiwan (Formosa back then), and down into the Philippines (after Dec. 7), Malaysia and Indochina (now Vietnam), they kicked out any western interlopers (Australian, Dutch, Britain, etc.) and secured it for Japan's needs Although Vichy France was ally of sorts, Hitler allowed the Japanese to "manage" it for France, efectively adding it to their conquests. China holds a grudge to this day for the large part of China that was taken for the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", even though China was a territory of no one(!). Indeed, it was a matter of perspective, but one looked at from a rather narrow viewpoint, I would say :roll: .
 
I have to agree. My gaming background is all fantasy and sci-fi. While I have had a longstanding interest in naval warfare from the age of sail to the end of the battleship era, my studies of actual history have been cursory at best. Its great having some folks around here who actually know a lot about the topic!
 
Is there a way to get the Mogami (Suzuya, Mikuma, Kumano) class
in their 8" twin x 5 configuration with the detail of GHQ? (GHQ version looks like it is prewar 6" triple turrets x 5.)

If the 6" 15 gun version is the only GHQ what's the fastest cheapest way to mod it (get 5 dual 8" turrets cheaply)?

Thanks.

John
 
I got mine from C-in-C. While not as detailed as GHQ, they are nearly as good and cheaper. I have no problem mixing GHQ and CinC models.

Dannie
 
I have the Mogami from GHQ. I don't know why the site advertises it as the pre war 6.1" guns as It is definitely the 10 gun 8" version. Reading this thread I panicked a bit thinking I had purchased the pre war version which I most definitely did not want. I looked at the model and they have 2 gun turrets. Thinking I may have mixed up the turrets from a different ship I then checked the little information slip that comes with GHQ models. In black and white the code was IJN17, the same code as the website. The description of the ship give the stats for the 8" gun model. It may be that GHQ have included the turrets for both versions. I can,t confirm this though as all my ghq spare parts are all mixed up but they are known for including lots of spare bits and pieces with their models so who knows. Maybe an email to them may confirm this as they could also have changed their specs, since I purchased mine about 2 years ago. Long winded but I hope it helps
 
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