IJN Kongo - Guide 174

the Congo class were an important turning point for the Imperial Japanese Navy and would also become some of the most discussed Japanese capital ships outside of the Yamato class largely on account of them seeing the most active combats of any class capital ship that flew the flag of the Rising Sun then there will eventually be a much longer format video on them the origins of the class lay in the so-called eight eight plan which was conceived to achieve a balanced fleet and called for eight battleships and eight armored cruisers in when it was first put forward of course the British promptly ruined this plan by launching first HMS dreadnought and HMS invincible rendering both the pre dreadnought and the armored Cruiser obsolete faced with having to start over again the armored Cruiser element would now have to be made up of the new dreadnought armored cruisers and since Japan was still modernizing the decision was made to seek help from their allies ironically enough the British in the design and construction of their new class unsurprisingly asking the British guards to design a battle cruiser in the middle of the pre-world War one arms race with Germany resulted in a ship that shared a number of superficial similarities with the Royal Navy's splendid cats one ship was to be built in the UK the Congo and Vickers the shipyard would ensure enough knowledge was passed to the Japanese yards to allow the other three to be built in Japan which would make the Congo the last capital ship constructed for the Imperial Japanese Navy in a foreign yard originally designed with 12-inch guns Vickers did manage to slide their ever persistent 14-inch gun salesman into at least one meeting and persuaded the Japanese to select the larger weapon resulting in a number of a rapid changes to the design of a ship that actually already started physical construction thus the ship that took shape displaced a fraction under 28,000 tons mounted eight of the new 14-inch guns in four twin turrets with a pair super firing forward and two aft staggered along the centerline a secondary battery of 16 single casement mounted 6-inch guns ran at 8:00 per side along with an unusually heavy for the time anti-aircraft armament of four single 3-inch guns eight torpedo tubes rounded out the armament with four Pro broadside fitted in submerged positions four screws were driven by 65,000 shaft horsepower giving a top speed of somewhere between 27 and 28 knots depending on the ship in question armor was French tilly lighter than in British designs with a maximum belt thickness of 8 inches and a maximum 2.75 inches thickness on the deck the conning tower was notable for being massively protected with a 14-inch thick plate reflecting a definite idea to actually use it the four ships were laid down in 1911 and 1912 launched in 1912 and 1913 and would start to enter service between 1913 and 1915 the first to Congo and he a were built in yards that were experienced in warship construction and thus were faster from Kiehl's commission compared to Kirishima and Harouna which were built in Japanese commercial yards due to lack of space in in naval docks all four would actually see a relatively quiet patrol duty during the First World War even though the British did kind of want them to come back but the Japanese said no but the class was seemed to be destined to whittle away in the interwar period with he a stripped of armor and weapons to become a training ship and later the equivalent of the Emperor's royal yacht to avoid being scrapped under the Washington Naval Treaty and Harouna spending much of the 1920s in reserve after suffering from an explosion in one of its turrets however in a potential sign of things to come the Hijaz armor plate and guns were carefully preserved in a warehouse just in case the class and a whole would see two major refit or reconstructions during this period the first was started in the late 1920s which increased the elevation and rate of fire of the main armament fitted new engines which allowed a funnel to be removed although the addition of torpedo bulges meant that the overall speed actually dropped to 20 six knots some improvements to the layout of the armor also made although maximum thickness was not increased and the ability to carry and launch aircraft was added the second round of modernization started in the mid 1930s and was far more extensive during this process Japan withdrew from the naval treaties and so he a was brought back into service with its carefully preserved equipment brought out of storage and so all four ships would receive what amounted to a near full rebuild although details varied on ship to ship basis this added still more armor although again this was bringing up various parts to pre-existing maximum thicknesses rather than increasing it with the exception of deck armor which did have an overall increase in thickness the main guns received the type 3 anti-aircraft shell the secondary battery was cut down by two guns but the elevation was increased the 3-inch anti-aircraft battery was replaced by eight dual-purpose 5-inch guns in four twin mounts and heavy machine gun positions were added these were subsequently replaced by ever-increasing numbers of the infamous 25 millimeter cannon which during wartime would in some cases grow to over a hundred weapons scattered across the ship's decks the boilers were completely replaced by modern units and this ramped the power up massively to one hundred and thirty six thousand shaft horsepower which sent the ship's north of 30 knots and thus allowing them to operate with the carrier's the superstructure was also significantly overhauled giving the ships the full a distinctive pagoda mast which supported numerous new fire control systems searchlights radio and anti-aircraft positions although again the superstructure did vary on a case-by-case basis with one of the ships being used to prototype the kind of superstructure planned for the Yamato class to top it all off the ships were lengthened by 26 feet which altered their length to a beam ratio in favor of even more speed although classified by some as fast battleships they were in most respects still battle cruisers much like the modernizing of HMS renown which was all most of us the scale did not in fact make a battleship even though renown was actually better protected than the Congo class once both classes had been through their refits during World War two the class could be mostly found escorting invasion convoys and carrier units in the opening stages of the conflict and as the American forces began their counter-attack these roles would diversify to include raiding and Shore bombardment it was in this role that two of the class would be lost in the Guadalcanal campaign Hiei ended up in a close-range knife fight with a US cruiser and destroyer force and despite inflicting severe damage on her opponents her lack of battleship grade armor meant that she was heavily damaged by short-range eight-inch shell fire in return and was subsequently scuttled following air attacks of the following morning in the same campaign Kirishima engaged the USS south dakota in a night action and stood a chance of destroying the newest u.s. battleship as its electrical system suddenly failed only in turn to be ambushed by USS washington and sunk by his salvos of close range at sixteen inch shells Congo and Haruna would see action at the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the Battle of Samar with Congo being sunk later in 1944 by US submarine Haruna would survive to almost the end of the war and being bombed and sunk in Keir a port by US carrier aircraft and then subsequently scrapped post-war 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 drydock questions

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 183,719

Rating: 4.9639077 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, WW2, WW1, Vickers, battlecruisers, Kongo, Kirishima, Hiei, Haruna, USS Washing, USS South Dakota, Pacific Campaign

Id: pVh_BmXtfrM

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/EmmetJD]

Praise be unto the favoured son of the seas

[u/optimal_909]

So it seems that not all of them had identical pagoda, while in WOWs the Arp ships are carbon copies of Kongo. Way to go WG with not being accurate of real ships, but painstakingly designing paper ones.

[u/Listen_up_AWACS_here]

Haruna as a premium when