Ok. Let's turn this stupid useless thread into something more interesting
Today I wanted to make an interesting comparision between IJN Battleship, focusing about their most disctintive feature:
Their pagoda towers.
We all know (pretty much) that IJN Fuso with her Frankeinstein-like tower had the highest bridge structure of the whole IJN (and pretty much of any other navy around, but that's another story..). The point is, by how much? and how the other Battleships fared in this field?
Mirror mirror on the wall.... who had the highest of them all?
The answer might be suprising for some of them, but here it is.
I've mantained credits and adjusted the waterlines to the correct level (for Kongo and Ise) after having checked that proportions and height were correct (and they were, or it would have negated the purpose of this post), and recolored the UW hull shown to the standard IJN red if needed. Except that, I've not done other changes to Ace and Erusia's drawings. All ships have been positioned with their waterlines at the same level. All ships are shown in their 1944 fit (except Yamato as of 1945, but with no height changes over 1944).
Fuso is the (already known) winner for the highest structural point, the top of her Type-21 Radar casing, edging Nagato's by 1 feet and Yamashiro by 3
Nagato wins for the absolute highest point, her Type-21 Radar, 3 to 4 feet higher than Yamato and fuso's navigation lights.
Yamato or Nagato have the higest main gun director (depending if the sighting periscope above Yamato's one is counted or not), edging Fuso by 6 to 7 feet.
Fuso has the most levels, 13, edging Yamashiro, Ise, Nagato and Yamato, which all have 12. Kongou had "just" 10.
Surprisingly, Nagato wins out if the highest steppable deck is counted, edging fuso by 8 feet, Yamashiro by 9, Ise and Yamato by 12 and Kongou by 24.
Overall, Kongou's pagoda was pretty much outclassed by every other IJN battleship that followed her, while Yamato's is suprisingly smaller than what her massive size could have suggested.
Judging the Pagoda's height starting from the main deck instead of the waterline would have not changed things by much, with the sole exception of Yamato. Her deck was 4 full feet higher than Ise's, 5 higher than Nagato's and 8 feet than Fuso, Yamashiro and Kongo's. Ultimately it would have only made her pagoda tower look even smaller.
I hope you enjoyed this little brainstorming of mine, but i thought is might have been interesting.
Thanks for your attention, and happy new year from BB1987
Finally, someone might ultimately notice something related to the above useless message and one of the ships shown in this comparision (hint, it is one that features my "name", and that alone, in the credit line), but this too is another story.....