The Ship Model Forum

The premise is fairly simple:

That the IJN gave up on their hope of repeating their "Decisive Surface Battle Victory," such as at Tsushima, and thought about building a Navy that actually worked properly.

In reading the accounts of debriefing of the IJN post-WWII, it looks like many of the IJN officers understood that they had been handed a bad deal in terms of the ships that had been built, and that they wholly neglected to take into account the effectiveness of air power, even after demonstrating it at Pearl Harbor (and then having it demonstrated again and again).

So, what if, in the 1920s, they had thought "Maybe we ought not put all our eggs into the one "Decisive Victory" basket? Maybe we should build some ships that are a bit more capable, and less specialized?"

I understand they planned to use their CLs differently than did the USA, but those roles turned out to be kind of a fantasy.

What if they built CLs that were used for what everyone else used CLs for?

What sort of ship would they have built?

For instance, the Kuma, Nagara, and Sendai classes... What sort of weapons outfit would they have had, had he Japanese not planned on absolutely bringing BB to BB combat as their only goal?

My guess....

The beam is widened by 3' to 6', to give the ship a little more stability, and capability of carrying a little more topside.

They aim for 6,000t, instead of 5,500t.

The CLs they built would have had two or three double-5.5" turrets (the same guns), which might have been upgraded to 6" during the 30s.

They would still have put a paltry AA outfit on it, but would have started added maybe 2 4" High-Angle guns beside each middle stack. And with a catapult for the Aircraft to begin with.

Torpedoes? Hmmm.... Those are really heavy weapons for what they provide. Would they skip these, if the CLs were no longer Destroyer Leaders?

This begs the question of whether they would have left them on the CAs as well. Let's leave them on, since the ship has a broader beam.

And, during the 1930s, I am sure that upgrades would have been done, adding 25mms.

MB

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