Answer of Strange Cruiser
In the manner of a young boy, I still like fighting ships. And, like many a kid, I have had various favorite ships: Victory, Bismarck, or Yamato. However, my current favorite is the cruiser Tone (WWII Japan):
What captured my interest was the unusual layout of all gun turrets forward of the bridge:
I kept wonder why did they do this? At first I thought it was to allow a full on broadside by eight of her guns, as the theory (at that time) was that cruisers while having smaller guns than battleships could still have great effect by 'smothering' a target in shells.
However, while reading a book on the battle of Midway Island (WWII), I found my answer. The Tone was built with the primary mission of escorting aircraft carriers. To allow the carrier to have the maximize the number of attack aircraft the Tone was designed to have four to five scout planes operate off its stern.
An interesting and ingenious design to carry out a support mission.
Tip of the hat to the Steel Navy web site for their great closeups of the Tone model: http://www.steelnavy.com/
What captured my interest was the unusual layout of all gun turrets forward of the bridge:
I kept wonder why did they do this? At first I thought it was to allow a full on broadside by eight of her guns, as the theory (at that time) was that cruisers while having smaller guns than battleships could still have great effect by 'smothering' a target in shells.
However, while reading a book on the battle of Midway Island (WWII), I found my answer. The Tone was built with the primary mission of escorting aircraft carriers. To allow the carrier to have the maximize the number of attack aircraft the Tone was designed to have four to five scout planes operate off its stern.
An interesting and ingenious design to carry out a support mission.
Tip of the hat to the Steel Navy web site for their great closeups of the Tone model: http://www.steelnavy.com/
posted by Steve at 10:29 AM
1 Comments:
The US solution for the need for naval support planes was the jeep carrier. I notice there was a trend for the Japanese navy to adopt a Swiss Army knife approach towards their designs: aircraft carriers built like battleships and submarines with aircraft. The problem with the Swiss army knife is that it doesn't do anything very well.
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