Well, as usual i should have been working on something else, but it seems i cannot keep myself focused on a single project for too long
The story of this drawing starts about two weeks ago, when i realized that, while looking for references for some other ships i'm planning to draw, i've ammassed quite a sizeable quantity of references for IJN oyodo, especially for her post-refit fittings, when she was converted into the Combined Fleet flagship.
I thus promptly asked WhyMe if it was ok for me to rework is ship (Oyodo was drawn by him before i even joined Shipbucket), and so i started my task after he gave me green light on it. The former plan was to update the original drawing, like i did with Colosseum's IJN Tone; yet shortly after i've started i realized the old Oyodo was out of scale: with an OA lenght of 192.1 meters she has to be 1261.8 pixels long in SB scale (i scaled it at 1262) while the old one was 1250, so a new Oyodo would have been a total redraw (like te Agano) instead of a simple update of an existing one.
I have some kind of bittersweet sensation about this, as WhyMe did an excellent job with many IJN ships (other than starting the official parts sheet thread) in the early days, and i feel like a nitpicking prick every time it happens to tell someone about eventual errors in their drawings (i always got the feeling of diminishing their otherwise good works).
So i had decided to make some proper efforts on this new drawing, in order to make it worth of a total redraw, and i so hope that WhyMe might be satisfied with the results.
They both came with a double: both port and starboard sides.
Why? well, there were some minor small differences between the two ship sides, but the most striking one is the set of hangar cranes. Oyodo had a longer and bigger one on the starboard side, while the one fitted ont he port side was shorter and smaller; i tought it might hae been interesting to see them both, obviously the starboard side shows the larger crane deployed while the other is at rest position, and thus obscured by the aircraft hangar itself (here in 1944 already converted into flagship space, hence the portholes). On the port side drawing, it's vice.versa, it's the smaller crane to be extended and the bigger one impaired by the hangar.
Oyodo as built (as of march 1943) with original hangar, bridge and catapult configuration:
![[ img ]](http://www.shipbucket.com/Real%20Designs/Japan/CL%20Oyodo%201943.png)
Built as a flagship for submarine squadrons it was equipped with a massive 44-meter Kure Type 2 Model 10 N°1 catapult in order to operate up to six Kawanishi E15K1 "shiun" reconaissance floatplanes (althougn no more than two were ever carried on board); the Type 21 Air Search radar (model 4 antenna) was fitted in front of the main gun director just after the cruiser was commissioned. The boat complement was larger if compared with the post-refit one, one more 12m motor launch and 11m motor boat were carried, with both the 11m boats beign carried on each side of the massive catapult; the searchlights above the hangar were three (two post-refit) and two more 25mm machine gun director were fitted abrest the bridge structure.
Oyodo as of 1944.
![[ img ]](http://www.shipbucket.com/Real%20Designs/Japan/CL%20Oyodo%201944.png)
The ship was refitted with a standard 19-m catapult and her aircraft hangar was converted into a large deckhouse housing flag facilities. Under this configuration Oyodo acted as the Flagship of the IJN Combinet Fleet for the rest of the Pacific War.
1945 pictures shows Oyodo sporting camo when she was sunk, in case i might ever find references about it (wich does not seems to be around as not even the "cruiser bible" mentioned the camouflage) a 1945 drawing will come too; an "as planned" version showing how the cruiser wold have loked if built like it was planned in 1939 will come at a later date in my never built IJN ships thread.
Now THAT is a beautiful ship! Excellent work, my friend!
![[ img ]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/4l1n.png/)