warspite1
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The Japanese are asked if they want to swap the battleship Shinano for an aircraft carrier. There are two choices, an historical and an ahistorical version.
The historical version:
• Engine(s) output: 150,000 hp
• Top Speed: 27 knots
• Main armament: 16 x 5-inch (127mm), 145 x 25mm AA guns
• Aircraft: 47 (see below)
• Displacement (full load): 71,890 tons
• Thickest armour: 8.1-inch (belt)
This counter gives the Japanese player the historic option of building the third Yamato-class battleship as an aircraft carrier. World In Flames (WIF) actually allows the Japanese player three alternatives. The first option is to complete Shinano as a battleship as originally intended (see Counter 4371). The second option allows her construction as a more powerful aircraft carrier than was actually the case, and as befits the size of the vessel (see Counter 4339). The third option is represented by this counter and allows the completion of Shinano to her historic specification.
In her aircraft carrier guise, Shinano's role was that of a support ship for the Imperial Japanese Navy's fleet carriers. As such she was built to provide spare aircraft, aviation fuel and maintenance facilities to the frontline carrier fleet. For this role, the forward part of her hangar was given over to workshops and she could carry an impressive 158,000 Imperial Gallons of fuel. There was room for twenty-three "spare" aircraft in addition to forty-seven of her own.
A single hangar was served by two lifts and on deck she had fifteen arrester wires to assist the landing of aircraft. As per standard practice, no catapult was fitted to assist take-off. Compared to previous Japanese carrier designs, She featured a very large island structure.
Armour protection was greatly increased in Shinano compared to pre-war Japanese carriers and she was fitted with a 3-inch armoured flight deck between her two lifts. Although her belt armour was retained, at 8.1-inches, it was half the thickness envisaged in her battleship design. Her magazines and machinery spaces were covered by armour plate 7.5-inch thick. A major weakness, and one that proved her un-doing, was the anti-torpedo defence.
Shinano featured a strong anti-aircraft (AA) defence with eight twin 5-inch dual-purpose guns supported by no less than one hundred and forty-five 25mm guns and a further twelve, multi-barrelled rocket launchers for close-range defence.
Despite her size, she was capable of 27 knots as she retained the powerful machinery that she would have had as a battleship.
Shinano was commissioned in November 1944 and her life was to be one of the shortest among the fighting ships of World War II; lasting a mere 10 days in commission. On her way for final completion at the Kure Naval Yard, she was spotted and attacked by the American submarine USS Archerfish, which sank the carrier with four torpedoes.
However, the Japanese choose the latter!
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< Message edited by warspite1 -- 1/2/2014 12:22:23 PM >
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