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Anybody know why the designers gave this class name to small Japanese ships?

Don't know for sure but I suspect the Tosu as well as Ansyu, Ehime and Kiso classes were all instituted to help streamline the perplexing multitude of smaller Japanese merchant designs. One person to possibly ask would be Joe Wilkerson (jwilkerson) who was the AE project lead and did much of the Japanese naval OOB. Another would be John Eldrege (JWE) who was in the naval team.

Another option would be to look up some of the individual ships to see what they were and what their names meant.

When you go to the Combined Fleet site to check out Japanese small cargo ships converted to patrol/ASW boats (Tokusetsu Kokai Hokan--Converted High Seas Gunboats) it's a bewildering array of different and unfamiliar classes some of which have only one representative ship. I have a feeling it's an incomplete list too. Records on lowly cargo ships going from civilian control to the IJN and back again probably weren't a priority to archive after the war.

I've done all that has been suggested here and more. Despite extensive searching for the passed 4-5 days I can find nothing that refers to To'su class. I beleive it is a short name for the Japanese term Tokumu (auxiliary) and something else? All the sips in this class are converted trwawler/fishing boats.

Chris21wen wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2023 10:21 pm I've done all that has been suggested here and more. Despite extensive searching for the passed 4-5 days I can find nothing that refers to To'su class. I beleive it is a short name for the Japanese term Tokumu (auxiliary) and something else? All the sips in this class are converted trwawler/fishing boats.

Seems more likely to be short form for the Tokusetsu mentioned in Platoonist's post.

BBfanboy wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:48 am Seems more likely to be short form for the Tokusetsu mentioned in Platoonist's post.

Given the vagaries of the Japanese language it's always hard to be certain but the term "Tokusetsu" does seem analogous to auxiliary in English.

I found a Japanese site devoted to these types of ships. Unfortunately, the vessel specifics when you click on the thumbnail pictures are all in Japanese. A lot of the ship names are familiar though.
http://www.tokusetsukansen.jpn.org/E/index.html

Platoonist wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:13 am
I found a Japanese site devoted to these types of ships. Unfortunately, the vessel specifics when you click on the thumbnail pictures are all in Japanese. A lot of the ship names are familiar though.
http://www.tokusetsukansen.jpn.org/E/index.html

I must admit that before I purchased this game, I had no idea how much the Japanese leaned on their merchant fleet to do double-duty as substitutes for everything the IJN lacked. That site really confirms it.

Platoonist wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:13 am

BBfanboy wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:48 am Seems more likely to be short form for the Tokusetsu mentioned in Platoonist's post.

Given the vagaries of the Japanese language it's always hard to be certain but the term "Tokusetsu" does seem analogous to auxiliary in English.

I found a Japanese site devoted to these types of ships. Unfortunately, the vessel specifics when you click on the thumbnail pictures are all in Japanese. A lot of the ship names are familiar though.
http://www.tokusetsukansen.jpn.org/E/index.html

Yes, missed that in his post thank. But it's along the same thought lines.

Platoonist wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 2:13 am

BBfanboy wrote: Mon Oct 09, 2023 1:48 am Seems more likely to be short form for the Tokusetsu mentioned in Platoonist's post.

Given the vagaries of the Japanese language it's always hard to be certain but the term "Tokusetsu" does seem analogous to auxiliary in English.

I found a Japanese site devoted to these types of ships. Unfortunately, the vessel specifics when you click on the thumbnail pictures are all in Japanese. A lot of the ship names are familiar though.
http://www.tokusetsukansen.jpn.org/E/index.html

Great site, thanks for the link! FYI, you can use the "translate" function in Google Chrome to read the individual pages linked to the thumbnails.

I would also agree with BBfanboy that "To'su" is very likely a contraction of "To-kuset-su", although why they chose to do that in this case (but not others) is unclear.

This was one of the classes covered in the Japanese Camo thread, and the modeler Motoyuki indicates that all vessels of this shape were Japanese whalers (the hunter ships, not the carcass processers such as the Tonan class)
http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/~iwashige/whalecatchers.htm

Did those whale hunters retain their harpoon missiles when they were converted to auxiliaries?

I did some checking in my japanese dictionary:
Toku has numerous variations (tokubetsu, tokushu) but there are enough that translate to "Special" that I think perhaps that is what the reading of it could be.
Setsubi is translated to facilities or equipment.

So I think it is more or less "Special Equipment" or something in that ballpark. Context is important in Japanese so it is hard to know for sure.

A "domo arigato" for all of you who helped with this.