Missing "cruisers"

[el cid again]

I cannot find any form of the Chinese (former ROCN) Ning Hai class -

two river cruisers/coast defense ships - they actually form two sub-classes as half sister Ping Hai has a different armament (single vice twin 3 inch AA mounts, 4 vice 8 AAMG, no aircraft), and 1/3 of engines missing.

These ships - usually listed at 22 knots - were neither! Ning Hai made 23 while Ping Hai made 21. Usually listed as 9500 nm endurance (or 9000 Watts) - they only had 5000 at 12 knots - on oil sprayed coal (110 tons oil, 600 tons coal).

They begin our game period in service of the Reformed ROC government at Nanking (that is, the Japanese "puppet" regime) and in 1943 are taken over and renamed Ioshima and Yasoshima (or were to be taken over - one was sunk before converting). Well - on paper: Both were patched at Shanghai and then towed to Sasebo for engineering repairs - and nominally put on the Reformed Navy lists - but in fact remained at Sasebo - Ping Hai serving as an accomodation ship by the base in fact.

They were taken over by IJN in 1943 - and sent to yards for conversion. Both served - and both were lost - as flagships of transport groups in 1944.

In 1944 they then become the largest DEs in the world - armed with 3 single 4.7 inch and hundreds of DC - although the plan was for three twin 5 inch 40 DP mounts. Except Ning Hai was sunk before the conversion was carried out. Classified as "escort vessels" in their CL form by IJN, they were reclassified as "light cruisers" in their later escort ship form: talk about ironic and confusing.

We need ship art for all these forms - for Isuzu rearmed as CLAA as well.


Line drawings and photographs aplenty in Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War (Lacroix, USNI).

There is considerable confusion and some contradiction about these ships. Many sources report they were identical - but they never were - although they were planned to be. Cost prevented the second ship being to the original design. Missing 1/3 of the machinery, she was never the same (the price was two knots at the top end). She also began with half the AA armament.

[el cid again]

From x.785 update (not sure if micro or not, nor when)

In CVO family scenarios (CVO & RAO) these ships appear in 1944 in DE form

In BBO family scenarios (BBO, RPO and PPO) these ships appear in 1941 in CL form and may convert to DE in 1944;

In EOS family scenarios (EOS, AIO and EEO) these ships appear in 1941 in a modified CL form and convert progressively to have radar, then becom escorts, then escorts with ASW projectors (in 1945).

[m10bob]

Ning Hai

http://warships.web4u.cz/tridy.php?lang ... CIN&typ=CR

[m10bob]

Same ship:

[Dili]

Ioshima (operational Jul44) 21kt 5000nm(12kt)710Fuel  Armor:25/19/25     1x1Front(4.7/45 10YT)   Rear 1x1rear(4.7/45 10YT)  1x3 25mm F 1x3 25mm L 1x3 25mm R   2x3 25mm rear    6x1 DC  Tp22 Type93    
          
 
 ( Upgrade Aug44)        added:7x1(13mm); 5x1R 5x1L  Rear(changed):4x2 1x3(13mm)   

[el cid again]

As I said, these ships are often reported with different data in different sources. Lacroix and his co author (one is a Dutch physician and the other a high US official who spent decades working on archival records - for fun I guess) report ONLY turret and deck armor of 25mm, but 5 triple 25mm (one forward), and still more added in at least one case later. Jentshura reports both ships identical as built, and has them in Nanking Government service - but Lacroix says they were laid up from 1938 (after repairs) to 1943 - when they entered a conversion process - the whole time at Sasebo. The greater detail and vastly greater data provided by Lacroix - based on documents which were in US archives - causes me to follow their scholarship. Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific war is gigantic - and I only wish we had companion volumes for other types of ship in this kind of detail.

[Dili]

My source is Lacroix.

[el cid again]

And my memory is not to be trusted. I see I also didn't get the DC correctly.

FYI RHS uses a DC convention of "pattern size" = mount size and "location" = rear (unless it is ahead throwing, when location = forward).

This means a ship with a bigger pattern is more effective - and there are fewer attacks for a ship with many DC.

Thus a ship with 140 DC and a pattern of 10 gets 14 shots.

Now pattern is a bit tricky. I use "number of throwers" plus "two times number of rails" usually - for a small pattern ship - so in this case - with two throwers and two rails the patern becomes 2 + (2 x 2) = 6. In 1944 the customary Japanese escort had 18 shots. A big ship might have twice that (as many as 300 individual DC were carried by some large ASW vessels - notably Katori - but as these ships are larger than the Ning Hai - I don't think that is a safe assumption here).