IJN Kaga - Guide 255

[Music] the ship that would become the carrier karga began life as a completely different and initially doomed vessel a tosa class battleship laid down in july 1920 and launched towards the end of 1921 she was still at the fitting out stage when the washington naval treaty was signed which meant that she and her sister would need to be scrapped however before this could be done japan was hit by the great kanto earthquake of 1923 which caused irreparable damage the incomplete hull of the battle cruiser amagi which was in the process of being converted into a carrier in addition to her own sister ship akagi since japan still needed a couple of large carriers kaga the least complete of the two tosas was selected to replace amagi as a carrier as the earthquake damage to the shipyards needed to be repaired and new designs drafted since no one had actually thought about converting the battleships until necessity forced their hand kaga sat as a partly complete battleship until 1925. whereupon she was subjected to three years of conversion work emerging in 1928 as the second large carrier of the imperial japanese navy in this initial guy she possessed the unusual combination of three hangars and three flight decks the lower hangar opening onto the lower flight deck right over the bow the middle flight deck was incredibly short with aircraft having to start their takeoff run immediately in front of the bridge and in between a pair of twin 8-inch turrets with an almost postage stamp size take-off run even in the late 1920s only the very lightest one-man aircraft with a good headwind would be able to make it away the main flight deck that was above all of this meant that in theory you could either launch torpedo bombers fighters or scouts at the same time or send the heavier aircraft out from the lower flight deck lighter ones from the middle and recover aircraft on the main deck whilst other flight decks were flying aircraft off however the stepped nature of these flight decks ate into the overall hangar volume and even with the smaller aircraft for the time period the 34 000 ton carrier could only carry 60 of them this lack of hangar volume was further exacerbated by the long trunking for the ship's exhaust gases and the heavy gun battery that totaled ten eight inch guns four in the twin turrets in the middle flight deck as mentioned earlier and then six in single casements aft a dozen sponsor mounted 4.7 inch anti-aircraft guns in twin mounts were to deal with enemy airborne attackers and she did retain six inches of armor for protection from at least light cruiser guns her original 91 000 shaft horsepower power plant gave her a speed of between 27.5 and 28 knots the reduction in displacement allowing this to rise from the planned just over 26 knots in her original battleship design after a few years of active service it became clear that the middle flight deck had basically become useless and the lower flight deck soon followed as aircraft weights and takeoff speed began to increase and so in late 1933 she was brought in for another reconstruction this extended the upper flight deck to now run the full length of the ship with the lower two flight decks removed and the hangars extended in their place this increased the air group to a theoretical 90 aircraft despite the new designed aircraft being larger than those that she started service with the hull was modified and the entire propulsion system from boilers to turbines to propellers was replaced which granted the ship an additional 36 000 shaft horsepower the trunking for the exhaust gases was replaced by a small island with a single funnel pointed down and away from the ship along with the requisite bridge structure the twin eight inch turrets were replaced by four single casement mounted guns the 4.7 inch guns were replaced by 16 5-inch guns in eight twin mounts along with a number of twin 25 millimeter mounts all of these little additions cancelled out most of the speed that would otherwise been gained by the increase in horsepower and thus the ship's overall top speed only increased fractionally to a little over 28 knots back in service by 1935 karga gathered her new air group and in 1937 began to rack up xp in the latest version of the sino-japanese war this allowed combat evaluation of aircraft and developed imperial japanese navy carrier doctrine in particular the idea that instead of numerous small attack groups it was believed to be better to group multiple carriers and then quickly launch a mass airstrike composed of aircraft from multiple flight decks in her new guise cargo would sail with the rest of the imperial japanese navy carrier force in november 1941 on a long-range mission that ended with the attack on pearl harbor on december 7th 1941 in which cargo would contribute 70 individual sorties mostly strike aircraft losing 15 of those aircraft in the course of the two strike waves amounting to approximately half of all japanese navy losses that day returning home safely cargo would then support the initial japanese thrust south but ran into a reef whilst trying to intercept early us carrier raids on the [ __ ] on japanese-held islands and so while she remained in support of operations for a short time at reduced speed the departure of most of the keto battalion to the indian ocean for operation c saw her sent home for repairs instead as she couldn't keep up with the rest of the fleet these repairs would be completed by may 1942 which meant she also missed the battle of the coral sea and thus her next big engagement was to be the battle of midway the opening part of the battle actually went quite well with cargo's dive bombers and fighters attacking midway island for minimal loss whilst anti-aircraft guns and combat air patrol helped deal with the midway-based u.s aircraft that tried to counter-attack the fleet and then also helped wipe out the devastators of vt-8 and vt6 but her luck ran out as dauntless dive bombers appeared overhead and multiple bombs smashed into the ship setting fire to the fueled up aircraft in the hangars destroying the bridge and most of the command staff wiping out the fire suppression systems rupturing and setting ablaze the aviation fuel tanks and killing most of her dedicated elite damage control teams ablaze from stem to stern the stricken ship would burn for most of the afternoon before finally being sent to the bottom by a pair of torpedoes taking 811 men with her that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry dock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 185,715

Keywords: wows, world of warships, WW2, aircraft carrier, IJN, USN, Washington Naval Treaty, Kaga, Tosa, Midway, Pearl Harbour

Id: 7dEKRtmGDKs

Length: 7min 42sec (462 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021