Japan - Mogami Class Heavy (and Light) Cruiser

BB1987

Post subject: Japan - Mogami Class Heavy (and Light) Cruiser

Posted: October 22nd, 2012, 4:10 pm

Posts: 2818
Joined: May 23rd, 2012, 1:01 pm
Location: Rome - Italy

Mogami 1935:
Originally built as a light cruiser Mogami and Her sister Mikuma looked like that once commissioned in 1935, they where armed with 15 6.1-inch (155mm) guns in 5 triple turrets, anti-aircraft armament consisted of 8 5-inch (127mm) in twin mounts and 4 40mm machine guns platform positioned ahead of the bridge and aft of the funnel, abreast the aft searchlight platform.
However the recent capsizing of torpedo bat Tomozuru and the subsequent more serious fourth fleet incident (in wich almost all the ships involved in a typhoon where damaged) had called in question the stability of many IJN ships, and mogami Class cruisers where not dispensed by this problem, despite modifications had already been implemented during construction (no hangars for the seaplanes where fitted and the bridge structure was redesigned to make it lower) it becomes clear that the ships where still on marginal stability, thus requiring more modifications.
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Suzuya 1937:
Still under construction with her sister Kumano Suzuya suffered a more extensive modification to resolve the stability problem, maimast was lowered and superstructure reduced aft of the bridge, bulges where the same as Mogami/mikuma but boiler room setup was different and there was no vent intake between turret 3 and the bridge, sponsons at the sides of the bridge supporting directors and searchlight where more compact, another nearly negiglible difference was a slighty different profile near the chrysantemum crest at the bow.
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Mogami 1938:
To correct the stability issues Mogami was fitted with bulges, the catapult sponsons where moved inwards to reduce their overhang outside the beam and the tripod mainmast was cut down to amost half of its original size, also light AA armament was modified replacing the 40mm machine guns with 4 twin 25mm mount abreast the funnel and 2 twin 13mm forward of the bridge.
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Mikuma 1938:
Mikuma got basically the same modifications made to Mogami with the exception of the mainmast wich was cut higher than the one of her sister-ship in a more similar way to the ones on Suzuya and Kumano.
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Mogami 1940:
After Japan's withdrawing from treaty limitations in 1936 a plan emerged to rearm the Mogami Class with 8-inch guns, altough the time needed to manifacture the new guns and turrets means that those plans could be started only in 1939, but by 1940 works where completed and all four ships now sported 10 203mm guns in 5 twin turrets; beacuse the 6.1-inch gun barbette was 0,7 meters wider (5,7 to 5) a modified version of the standard mount was built to compensate for size differences, thus the turrets where slighty wider and longer than the standard Model-E wich equipped the Takao Class (and will arm the Tone Class), for all those reasons plus the fact that 8-inch barrels where longer the guns of turret B (2) could not be trained lower than 12° or they would have struck the roof of turret A (1).
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Mikuma 1942:
Mikuma underwent the same modifications as Mogami, but her higher mainmast differentiate her from her sister; by the time of her sinking at the Battle of Midway other differences consisted in a new airwing composed of Aichi E13A1 and Mitsubishi F1M2 and an extra director for the 25mm placed abreast of the funnel.
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Suzuya 1944:
By the start of the Philippine campaign in October 1944 Suzuya was fitted with a Type 13 air search radar on the mainmast, a type 21 air search and a type 22 surface search radars on the foremast; the AA armament was composed of 8 triple, 4 twins and 18 single 25mm machine guns.
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Kumano 1944:
In october 1944 she looked much like Suzuya, what distinguish them was the AA number and layout, Kumano sported 8 triple, 4 twins and 24 single 25mm machine guns.
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Mogami 1944:
During the Battle of Midway an erroneous manouver of Mikuma after the sighting of an US-submarine led Mogami to ram her sister damaging both ships in the process, the two cruisers where then attacked by planes coming from Yorktown, Hornet and Enterprise and severly damaged; Mikuma torpedoes where ignited by a bomb and detonated leading to the loss of the cruiser, Mogami instead despite suffering more bomb hits had jettisoned her reloads and thus survived the battle.
One returned to Japan Mogami was repaired and converted into a seaplane cruiser, the aft guns, damaged at Midway, where landed and replaced with a flight deck intended to accomodate 11 Aichi E16A floatplanes; when works where completed toug the Aichis where not avaliable, and would eventually see service only on board the Hibryd Ise Class Battleship-Carriers, so three Mitsubishi F1M2 and four Aichi E13A1 where carried instead.
Like her sisters Air and Surface search radars where fitted, and anti-airrcraft armaments where argumented to a maximum of 14 triple and 18 singles 25mm machine guns by october 1944.
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Last edited by BB1987 on August 30th, 2016, 7:26 pm, edited 14 times in total.

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