And now, off to Yamashiro....
Six months is a pretty long time
Anyway, although obviously during the summer months I've focused on sometthing else, this is a testament of how much Fuso's sister is one of the most neglected ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
While at least 90% of the sources needed to work on Fuso can be obtained from a single book, the excellent "Anathomy of the ship: the Battleshio fuso" by Janusz Skulski , there is nothing even slighlty resembling such a text for Yamashiro.
Accurate linedrawings for her early years are hard to be found, and while the best overall drawn sources are those showing in late-war fits photographic documentations of her in 1943-1944 are almost non-exhistant (especially for 1944). So, to quote Erusia_Force when he was working on the Yamato class, its just a game of "staring endlessly at low-quality pics" to corroborate what's shown on drawings.
Still, the fist step is finally achieved, and now, IJN Yamashiro finally makes her appearance on the board for the first time.
Yamashiro as of 1944:
As a sister ship of Fuso, she could have not been more different. Already in 1917, when commisisoned, she sported a different forward superstructure, with larger deckhouses, improved conning tower (more similar to that of the Ise class) and the foremast shifted towards the funnel.
After her main modernization her pagoda tower ended up looking even more distinctive and different. Another striking difference was the rest position of turret 3, wich was left facing aft, while on Fuso it was reversed. From 1935 to 1937 (until Nagato left the yards) Yamashiro was the flagship of the Combined Fleet.
In 1944, after the battle of the Philippine Sea, Yamashiro entered the yards for her last refit. In her final guise she sported a Type 21 air search radar on top of the pagoda tower, two Type 22 surface search radars on both sides of it and two type 13 air search radar on the aft superstructure. Her pagoda tower had been lowered by a deck to create the space for an anti-aircraft command post and the main gun director had been replaced. Final AA suite was composed of 8 triple, 17 twin and 34 single 25mm machine guns for a total of 92 barrels. Those were further argumented by 3 twin and 10 single 13mm machine guns.
flying the ensing of Vice-Admiral Shoji Nishimura, Yamashiro led the Southern Force for operation Sho-Go, ultimately beign sunk (along her sister Fuso) with only 10 survivors in the Battle of Surigao Strait.
I am currently planning to draw her in 1941, 1935 and 1917 fit.