Battleship Kii under attack!

Kii Battleship

Class overview

 

Operators: Imperial Japanese Navy

Preceded by: Ise class

Succeeded by: Iburi Class

Planned: 8

Completed: 8

General characteristics

Type: Fast battleship

Displacement: 51,500 tons (normal)

Length: 250.4 m

Beam: 34.8 m

Draft: 9.8 m

Installed power: 170,000 shp

Propulsion: 4 shafts

4 × geared steam turbines

Speed: 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)

Armament:

4 × twin 460 mm (18.1 in) guns;

12 155mm guns in four triple turrets;

6 double 127 mm AA guns;

102 47mm guns in 34 triple turrets;

Armor:

Waterline belt: 400 mm

Deck: 180 mm (5 in)

 

This is the second battleship class used by Japan during the “Alternate World” Second Russo-Japanese war, the Kii Battleship, in 1947.

More images here: www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=535949

 

And now a “little” of What if Story:

In 1919, shortly after the end of the First World War, the Americans invited the World Powers of the time to a conference in Boston to stop the “Battleships Race” in existence at the time between the US and the empires of Japan and the United Kingdom (in the real world, this appended in Washington in 1921). The US had an ambitious plan of building 50 battleships on the next 10 years; so costly that would make the United States almost bankrupt. Therefore, the Americans decided to reduce their battleship fleet to only 15 battleships and stop all new ships under construction. Therefore, the Colorado Battleships were sunk as targets, together with many other older battleships. However, things were even worst for Japan; after the conference, Japan was only allowed to have 8 ships-of-line and one of them needed to be converted into a training vessel. The two almost complete battleships of the Nagato class were cancelled and their hulls used for target practice and numerous testings. The Amagi battlecruisers, the Tosa and Kii battleships, which were just starting to be built, were immediately cancelled. With only 7 operational battleships, Japan virtually lost any chance of ever winning a war against the US.

Therefore, attempts were made to transform the US into a new ally, especially after Britain refused to continue the defensive treaty with Japan after 1921. To achieve this, Japan supported all interests of the United States on the Pacific region, while Japan could advance and expand to China. This was only possible because the dangerous and charismatic Mao Tze Tung achieved power in China in 1926, transforming China into a huge and dangerous enemy for both Japan and the US. American and British relations also became worst, after the Americans demanded the payment of every guns, ammo and food sent to England during the war, with very high Taxes…

With this, Japan could effectively expand into China… but things got a little different in 1928. In 1928, the Kzarin of Russia decided to revenge the Romanov family and above all else, the loss of the First Russo-Japanese war. To achieve this, she started a huge naval program (52 battleships and battlecruisers, 10 huge aircraft carriers, almost 80 cruisers and 400 other ships!). Amongst other things, the Kzarin wanted to conquer both China and Japan (and maybe prepare a massive invasion of the United States in 1950)…

With such a large fleet, Japan was simply doomed. Since Russia wasn’t at the Boston Conference (and since the Kzarin did everything she wanted), Russia was free to start its huge naval program. First, the Russians decided to build their new ships with the help of the British, which supported Russia, starting with 16 battleships of the Sevastopol class, armed with nine 406mm (16,0”) guns, 28knots of speed and 320mm of armour, faster and better protected than any battleship in the world at the time (only Hood, Renown and Repulse were faster).

If Japan wanted to survive, new ships needed to be built as a response immediately; but how? At the time, the Japanese industry represented just 3% of the world Industrial Power while Russia (after the so called Russian Miracle) represented 31% (4% more than the US). It was just a matter of time before the 50 Russian battleships were completed and ready to destroy Japan. So if quantity wasn’t the solution, quality was.

Japan therefore decided to build their new battleships with more armour, speed and guns than any other nation in the world. Since the United States were at the time crossing the crash of the Wall Street in 1929, Japan was free to start the construction of the new ships.

Still, during that period, the Japanese never stopped developing and testing new things, for example the construction of a series of aircraft carriers for training and extensive tests on the hulls of the two Nagatos to develop new techniques to improve the defence of their battleships. Much was also learn with the help of many American designers who started working for Japan during the Wall Street chaos.

The Japanese therefore started the construction of a powerful class of 8 new battleships, based on the cancelled No. 13 design, which was extremely secret at the time. They called to this new ship class, the “Kii”s. The 8 old battleships and battlecruisers of the Japanese navy were slowly removed from service since they were considered by now obsolete; every time a Kii was completed, one old ship was removed. New tests were performed on those old ships and the new lessons learn were applied to the next battleship class, the “Iburi”s and some improvements were also performed on the “Kii”s.

Heavily armoured to survive 406mm shells and heavy weight torpedoes, the “Kii”s were designed to fight various enemy ships at the same time. The main belt of armor along the side of the vessel was 400mm (16 in) thick, with additional bulkheads 305mm (12.0 in) thick beyond the main-belt. Furthermore, the top hull shape was very advanced, the peculiar sideways curving effectively maximizing armor protection and structural rigidity while optimizing weight, a techninc recently developed in Japan. Armor plates in both the main belt and main turrets were made of Vickers Hardened, which was a face-hardened steel armor. Deck armour—180 millimetres thick—was composed of a nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy.

The ship was also heavily protected against Torpedoes; special bulges and a great number of counter flooding devices were installed. In total, the vessels of the kii class contained 970 watertight compartments to help control flooding. The most recent battleship completed by the United States at the time, the USS West Virginia (BB-48) had only maximum armour of 457mm (turret face) and 343mm on belt armor while the typical Russian battleship of time had a maximum belt armor of 320mm.

The primary armament of the Kii class was eight 45-caliber 460mm (18,1”) guns in four twin-gun turrets, two each fore and aft of the superstructure, firing a 1,550-kilogram (3,420 lb) shell at a muzzle velocity of 800 meters per second (2,600 ft/s). These huge guns, the largest in the world at the time, were kept in secret and special covers were put on the front of the barrels to deceive every body about their true size. The Russians only discovered the size of those guns during the Second battle of Tsushima, when 18,1” started to pierce the Russian battleships. The secondary battery consisted of 12 155mm guns mounted in triple turrets on the sides of the ship. The ships' anti-aircraft defenses consisted of twelve 127mm guns mounted in 6 double turrets.

In addition, the “Kii”s carried 24 47mm automatic anti-aircraft guns, primarily mounted amidships. When refitted in 1944 for the naval engagements against Russia, the number of 47 mm anti-aircraft guns was increased to 102.

To direct and control the main and secondary artillery against the enemy ships initially the ships had a very old and ineffective system with very high shell dispersion. The Americans therefore provided an advanced targeting radar to Japan in 1942 together with the latest (for the time at least) analogic targeting computers, providing unparallel precision for the Japanese warships at the time.

With the recent appearance of the Aircraft Carrier and the British Battlecruiser Hood (armed with eight 380mm guns and 30knots of maximum speed), the new Japanese battleship needed to be faster than the preceding class. To achieve this, 170 000 horsepower was provided through four huge steam turbines. Although all Japanese aircraft carriers were still faster, the Kiis were at the time the fastest battleships in the world, achieving 30,5knots during trials fully armed. That feature was also kept in secret until 1937, everybody thinking that they were only capable of achieving 25 knots.

 

Operational Story:

Once the new ships became operational during the 30´s, they were heavily used on naval games, trainings and occasionally strikes against the Communist China. A number of times these ships travelled to Pearl Harbor and even to the San Diego Naval Base, to perform courtesy visits. The American admirals became great friends of their Japanese equivalents, because Japan was in every way the shield of the United States on the Pacific against Russia and China.

 

When war was declared by Russia, all 8 “Kii”s were operational and ready to defend the nation. They formed two separate naval squadrons; each one with four “Kii” battleships (eight 460mm guns each), four “Nishi” Heavy Cruisers (fifteen 254mm guns each ship), 1 “Iwate” Aviation heavy cruiser (nine 254mm guns each ship), 4 “Osasa” Light cruisers (fifteen 155mm guns each ship), 2 Aso Anti-aircraft cruiser and 10/14 destroyers, therefore a very powerful battery of 32 460mm guns, 60 254mm guns, 108 155mm guns and around 300 torpedo tubes, plus reloads.

 

Hope you like it! Don´t forget to see my other MOCs at: www.flickr.com/photos/einon/

 

Eínon

 

Done