I think it would even more enlightening to compare different navy’s styles..
Maye on the long term........
It would be interesting to compare the heavy cruiser superstructures too, though I feel Takao would easily win.
Have you been reading my mind?
Mirror mirror on the wall.... Heavy Cruiser's edition
All cruisers are shown in 1944 or 1945 fit, with the exception of Furutaka, shown as of 1942.
-Furutaka's mast was, with Chokai's, the highest of the lot. Still it's worth to be remembered that neither Furutaka herself or Kako lived long enough to reach 1943/1944, the year IJN cruisers started to recieve radars. Usually, CAs had their mast modified or shortened in order to hold the new Type-21 Radar (Aoba had hers completely rebuilt, this also because of the damage she suffered at Cape Esperance), so it's clear that Chokai would be the absolute winner here.
-Chokai and Maya had the highest radar, the highest radar platform and the highest rangefinder.
-Furutaka, suprisingly, had the highest main gun director (but, worth to be noted, she had both her rangefinder and main gun director combined into the same mount, if the rangefinder section is not taken into account, then Cohaki and Maya would win again).
-Mogami and Tone's bridges were definitely smaller that those of the earlier cruisers, a lesson in topweight learned during Mogami's construction and paid hard when torpedo boat Tomozoru capsized during trials.
So, while Tako and Atago's refit of their bridges put them nearly on the same size of the other cruisers, Chokai and Maya retained their massive bridge structure that make them win over the rest of the lot. Worth to be noted, is how Maya's bridgebecome even bigger after her conversion to an AA cruiser, because fo the extra dechouses and platforms added. truly,
her bridge structure would have not disgraced a Battleship