FatR
Posts: 2522
Joined: 10/23/2009 From: St.Petersburg, Russia Status: offline
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I understand where you are coming from, JWE. I disagree, though, that discarding treaties can be beneficial to Japan in the long term. So the task of cheating one's way to a worthwhile combat ship remains on the table for post-Takaos cruiser building. Building a division of Mogamis with 155mm weapons is the way of doing it, likely to provoke the least response, so it will be done. Also, as you've noted yourself, Mogamis impacted USN's ship design - while it probably will be beneficial for Japs if USN sticks with its CAs designs, rather than Brooklyns and their successors, I'd prefer less sweeping deviations from reality (plus, taking Boise from AFBs is just too cruel). The question is - to change turrets or not, and if not, why the decision is different from RL? So, about the mission statement. It my, perhaps inaccurate, opinion, RL Japanese decisions regarding armament of their ships, were thoroughly dominated by the doctrinal expectations of a major daylight battle between IJN and USN. Despite heavy training for night fighting, it was not prioritized in armament design. Instead, torpedoes and main calibre guns on cruisers and destroyers were primarily optimized for long-range artillery duels. Even their RL 155/60 gun had ballistics quite similar to 203mm 3rd Year (at the expense of quite similar ROF). However, in this alternative, adherents of the Decisive Battle hold much lesser sway in upper circles of the fleet. By the time Mogamis' turrets were changed IRL, in particular, greater emphasis will be placed on night actions, as a result of greater influence of the carrier faction and approriately greater recognition of the aviation's role during the day. Moreover, possibilities of strike-and-retire night raids, aimed at gradual attrition of the enemy fleet, will be considered even earlier. Accordingly, priorities in picking armament will be different, which is already quite noticeable in what I'm proposing for destroyers. I'll write more on differences in the fleet armament tomorrow. To Juan: thanks. Let us know, if you redo the art, it will be much appreciated.
< Message edited by FatR -- 8/18/2011 12:03:30 AM >
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