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In all the yrs ive read and studied naval history, I never knew the Furutaka and Kako were built with single gun turrets!!

I had always assumed they had twin turrets... Are we sure the picture is labeled correctly?

They started with singles.

If you take a good look at the spacing of the twins that were eventually mounted on this class, it becomes pretty obvious that the original construction was with singles. Otherwise you would have to assume that the designer was simply in love with wasted deck space. [:D]

IIRC the singles were also approx 7.9" instead of 8".

(Still don't think metric [:D])

The singles were 20cm (7.9") 3rd Year Type No.1 as opposed to 20.3cm (8") 3rd Year Type No.2; the same No.1 guns were mounted on the Aoba and Myoko classes in twins, as well as on the Akagi and Kaga. The twin turrets saw them replaced with the newer No.2 guns, some of which were converted from No.1 guns. The Furutaka's were rebuilt from six singles to 3 twins like Aoba. Akagi and Kaga lost their twin mounts, but retained the casemate guns until their sinking.

They are, after being refit. That pic prob around late 1920's after it was launched.

I have read that the Furutaka class was originally considered a counter to the Omaha class of light cruisers. This arrangement of armament strikes me as more similar to the Omahas then what it ended up being. Of course the ships still were a bit light to be real heavy cruisers, but they served their purpose.