IJN Mogami - Guide 133

[Music] [Music] the Megami class were Japanese cruisers of the early 1930s and would later become something of a case study in Japan's avoidance of various naval treaties at the time of their construction the Japan was still technically bound by the London Naval Treaty which specified that they were only allowed to have 12 heavy cruisers that is a cruiser with a main caliber armament greater than 155 millimetres or 6.1 inches and with the 2 foot attackers the 2 Albers for Miyoko 's and for two cowls in service the Imperial Japanese Navy had reached this limit and so for the in 1931 a fleet replenishment program the Japanese Navy ordered a design that technically fits the definition of a light cruiser with a main battery of 6.1 inch or 155 millimeter guns in five triple turrets and thus giving a total of fifteen guns a pair of turrets super fired aft and the other three turrets were placed forward with the third super firing over the second which in turn sat at the same level as the first in theory of the guns high maximum elevation gave them a dual purpose main battery but in practice this was more ambition than reality for twin five-inch mounts for a total of eight guns and for single forty millimeter cannon made up the ship's anti-aircraft armament whilst low by mid World War two standards at the time of construction it was actually a a relatively heavy anti-aircraft battery a total of twelve torpedo tubes in for triple launchers two per side completed the ship's weaponry belt armor was quite heavy for a light cruiser with five and a half inches over the magazines and three point nine inches elsewhere with the belt itself inclined at 20 degrees conversely the slightly less than one an inch of armour on the turrets was somewhat less than stellar for those who wished to be able to operate the ship's guns and also remain this side of becoming an honored ancestor compared to the rather monolithic superstructure of the tackles the Megumi's had a smaller bridge tower and overall a smaller superstructure above the main deck with welding and aluminium used cut down this weight still further most of this reduction was to allow more displacement to be allocated for the powerplant which generated about as much shaft horsepower as the powerplant on HMS hood another weight saving measure taken was trunking the funnels together which gave it a very distinctive broadside profile the engines generated 150 mm shaft horsepower driving four shafts for a theoretical top speed of 37 knots which was about as fast as the Japanese Navy's destroyer forces the reasons for this high speed were varied the idea of the Imperial Japanese Cruiser force was to attack an enemy battle fleet and screen ahead of the main decisive battle operating alongside the destroyers so the speed was needed to keep up with the smaller ships at the same time it was thought that an enemy would no doubt run away from the Imperial Japanese Navy since they were of course dishonorable gaijin so speed would be needed to overhaul the retreating foe and of course the higher speed would also allow them to dictate the course of an open ocean engagement if they happen to run into another cruiser all of these capabilities might sound somewhat ambitious since compared to the US response to the Megumi's which was the brooklyn class they carried the same firepower but could go 5 knots faster with a heavier anti-aircraft battery and thicker belt armor and the Brooklands would struggle to get under the treaty limit of 10,000 tons so would you believe the Japanese actually tried to pass off the Maga Me's as eight and a half thousand tons well I didn't think so internally the Japanese thought the displacement was more like nine and a half thousand tons but by the time they'd actually built one it turned out to be just over eleven thousand tons indeed when the Royal Navy's director of naval construction was told about these ships Barbara Schnabel intellij they quoted the public displacement figures of eight and a half thousand tons to which he replied that the capabilities listed could not be achieved on that displacement and that the Japanese must either be building their ships out of cardboard or lying as it turned out it was probably a bit of both even with an 11 thousand ton actual displacement it turned out the designers should have probably added a little bit more structure to the ship's as during the infamous 4th Fleet incident in which the aforementioned 4th Fleet was hit by and typhoon a number of ships but for our purposes specifically of amigami itself developed a rather worrying number of hull cracks under the strain of the wind as a result a retrofitting was needed and hull bulges strengthening in other works added to the dips displacement as well as cutting the speed by 2 knots shortly thereafter Japan decided it wasn't going to follow the later naval treaties and so plans were put in place with somewhat whirring speed almost like they planned for this and the four ships megami mikuma Camano and Suzuka had their triple 155 millimeter turrets lifted off and replaced like-for-like with twin 203 millimeter or 8-inch turrets which just happened to be lying around some of the 155 millimeter turrets that were taken off would later feature on the Yamato and Musashi original secondary battery incarnations from the start the Imperial Japanese Navy had in fact planned to be able to flip these ships over to heavy cruisers as soon as they reasonably could further refits as well as the rearmament increased displacement and dropped top speed to a fraction over 34 knots on a good day all four ships would have active and interesting careers during the Second World War initially being tasked to help seize the Dutch East Indies in this role Megami and mikuma helped to sink HMAS Perth and USS Houston at the Battle of the Sunda Strait although during this action Megami wood also launched a salvo six torpedoes and score one of the most successful torpedo salvo launches of the war hitting and sinking five ships it was just somewhat unfortunate that those ships happened to belong to their own side and were part of the Japanese invasion fleet nonetheless the class would go on to see a number of different actions before all forces stirrers would rejoin for the Battle of Midway the Battle of Midway went somewhat less than brilliantly for the Imperial Japanese Navy in general and for the class in particular with Megami and mikuma colliding whilst undertaking efforts to avoid a u.s. submarine and nobody had told them about the mark 14 torpedo so they still thought they actually hatched trying evade and Posche as a result of this collision mikuma was sunk by US Navy carrier aircraft shortly thereafter Megami made it home after having also been hit by dive bombers and her damage was repaired along with a program that included the removal of the aft turrets which replaced them with a flight deck and made her into a small hybrid carrier as the war progressed more and more anti-aircraft armament was added to the survivors which was good but it was mostly Imperial Japanese Navy standard issue 25 millimeter cannon which was not so good nevertheless in 1944 the three remaining ships were present at the Battle of Leyte Gulf where Megami managed to hit another friendly Cruiser this time the notch II and was then shot up by u.s. cruisers and aircraft before being scuttled as irrevocable by her own destroyers Camano lost a gunfight with USS Johnston and then later on also with some US carrier aircraft suzuha was crippled by a hit or near miss that detonated her torpedoes and she would later sink towards the end of the battle Camano would be taken out by further US Navy carrier strikes later in 1944 after having made it back to port 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: 203,411

Rating: 4.951848 out of 5

Keywords: wows, world of warships, London Naval Treaty, World War 2, Pacific War, Mogami, Mikuma, Kumano, Suzuya, light cruiser, heavy cruiser, Yamato, Battle of Midway, Battle of Leyte Gulf

Id: QDgCdw2mX0o

Length: 9min 12sec (552 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 27 2019