MARE BELLUM - ADMIRAL'S EDITION EDITION

[DuckofTindalos]

As you can see by my land OOB, I'm trying for the same...

Anyhoo, just so everything doesn't turn all French and Thai, I give you the Chikugo, the sop to the hurt feelings of the IJN gun-club after the aviators won the battle for pre-war resources. There will be four of these, as replacements for the over-age Kongos:

[Q-Ball]

Is Chikugo based on an actual Design? I don't remember her in any Circle Plans, maybe it was considered and dropped.

I also LIKE the Kongos. Not the greatest ships, but they certainly aged pretty well.

[DuckofTindalos]

Not an actual design, no. The Kongos were due for replacement in the second half of the 1930s and new designs were made, but the Yamatos sucked up all the resources. In my mod, there are no Yamatos, so you get these instead (among other things).

As should be obvious, the art is a modification of AE's Yamato.

[DuckofTindalos]

And make no mistake, I like the Kongos too. Just want to try something else.

[DuckofTindalos]

An IJN ship class I've NEVER liked, however, is the Agano. I see this as a real missed opportunity for the Japs to design a good light cruiser to replace their older designs which were desperately overage in 1941.

The Agano was delayed for a long time by internal bickering over the design, and when she finally joined the fleet, she was too small and too lightly armed for her job.

In my mod, the Agano design is a much bigger cruiser, much more heavily armed and survivable. The name ship is in service on the outbreak of war, and there will be five others (Yahagi, Sakawa, Noshiro, Oyodo and Yubari). The last two will not appear in their historical guises (I know, a horrible loss...[:D]).

[Q-Ball]

Goody! Since we're playing IJN Naval Budget Fantasy Island, why don't we relegate a few more wasted projects to the scrap heap and replace with some real ships:

All the Cruiser-Minelayers
The CS units
The Katoris. YIKES!
The entire Midget sub program

That's alot of wasted metal, surely there are a couple more cruisers or CVs in there?

[Dili]

Katoris were a waste?

[DuckofTindalos]

As training vessels, probably not. It's just doubtful whether Japan could afford to spend the money on ships of such limited operational capability.

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Katoris were a waste?

Absolutely .. They had all those Armored Cruisers they could have used or even the refloated Chinese prices.

In terms of money instead of the 4 Yamatos they could have got 34 Takaos or in terms of steel 16 Soryus (and had armour plate to spare) ( assuming 30% spent on the #4) mmm good choice boys ...And that doesn't include the special 18" turret carrier , 18" ammunition development and manufacture etc.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

ORIGINAL: Dili

Katoris were a waste?

Absolutely .. They had all those Armored Cruisers they could have used or even the refloated Chinese prices.

In terms of money instead of the 4 Yamatos they could have got 34 Takaos or in terms of steel 16 Soryus (and had armour plate to spare) ( assuming 30% spent on the #4) mmm good choice boys ...And that doesn't include the special 18" turret carrier , 18" ammunition development and manufacture etc.

You have a point there. But in truth all those relics were used as training craft and they still built the Katori's. So perhaps they needed even more training capacity than the relics could provide?

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

Goody! Since we're playing IJN Naval Budget Fantasy Island, why don't we relegate a few more wasted projects to the scrap heap and replace with some real ships:

All the Cruiser-Minelayers
The CS units
The Katoris. YIKES!
The entire Midget sub program

That's alot of wasted metal, surely there are a couple more cruisers or CVs in there?

IJN Naval Budget Fantasy Island...lol.

The mod I'm working on is that on steriods...only the US, Britian and DEI get it as well. [X(]

Guess it may be time to start a mod thread of my own and quit trying to hijack Terminus's thread. [:D]

[Q-Ball]

It's fun to speculate what Japan could do with certain tonnage, etc. etc. Not building the Yamatos doesn't necessarily mean 140,000 tons of new CVs could have been built instead.

CVs were extremely expensive ships once you figured in the airgroups, and all the complex ships systems (aviation fuel, magazines, aircraft parts and shops, etc). In fact, I wonder if the Shokakus unit for unit were more than the Yamato, if you include the airgroups.

I guess in defense of the Katoris, the IJN had a serious shortage of Officers, because they belatedly realized they were going to need more to man all the ships they were building. Like everything else the IJN did, it had a cadre of really elite naval officers, but no effective reserve program, and too selective training program. I suppose the Katoris were part of an effort to address that.

[DuckofTindalos]

Aside from the fact that once the war started, the ships spent their time as submarine squadron flagships.

[DuckofTindalos]

As for "Fantasy Island", I'm playing with the thought of eventually making two versions of my mod, one kinda low-key and *almost* realistic, and one completely nutzo over-the-top. Thread, I love that editor.

[Dili]

As training vessels, probably not. It's just doubtful whether Japan could afford to spend the money on ships of such limited operational capability.

That is the question. With Katoris they could train many without wasting lots of fuel. It made their training much more economical and much more efficient. I don't know how much they cost but i suspect it wasn't more than twice a destroyer.

Aside from the fact that once the war started, the ships spent their time as submarine squadron flagships.

Well it was war and they were scrapping the barrel.

------------------------
What you will do about Japanese fad for Floatplanes and all CS's , AV's etc...

[DuckofTindalos]

Well, there's no submarine-launched floatplanes in my mod, but the others... The concept itself wasn't that flawed, especially in a pre-war context, so I probably won't change much about it.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Terminus
As training vessels, probably not. It's just doubtful whether Japan could afford to spend the money on ships of such limited operational capability.

Sorry I'm late to the ball. Oh, well.

I thought the Katoris were developmental ships, that incorporated a bunch of tweaks and twonks that went into the designs of the Mogamis and onwards. Yeah, they sucked, and once they were around, making them training cruisers wasn't a bad idea, but I think their design and construction had a certain degree of utility for follow-on designs, that might not be represented in their operational specifications.

Basically, I would keep them. Japan didn't have a good basis for CA designs, so they needed to do something. The Katori was a good interim test platform. So what do ya do with your test platforms? Maybe make them training cruisers and use them operationally, if necessary? Yeah, I would keep them.

Ciao. John

[DuckofTindalos]

The developmental ship you're thinking of was the Yubari, commissioned in 1923. The Katoris were constructed and commissioned from 1938 to 1941.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Terminus
The developmental ship you're thinking of was the Yubari, commissioned in 1923. The Katoris were constructed and commissioned from 1938 to 1941.

Absolutely right. Had a bottle of St. Estephe and did a major brain fart. Please forgive.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Terminus
The developmental ship you're thinking of was the Yubari, commissioned in 1923. The Katoris were constructed and commissioned from 1938 to 1941.

Absolutely right. Had a bottle of St. Estephe and did a major brain fart. Please forgive.

Penalty: one bottle of St. Estephe.