"Hiragi battleship" Topic

"The Washington Treaty stipulated that, in principle, existing battleships could be replaced by new ones 20 years after completion. In line with this principle, Japan planned to withdraw the Congo in 1933, Hiei in 1934, Kirishima, Haruna and Fuso in 1935, and Yamashiro in 1936.

The Japanese at least apparently respected the treaty by designing battleships officially within the limits allowed by the treaty. This is how the design of the ships that the oldest battleships were to arrive in the first half of the 1930s was created. The author was of course Yuzuru Hiraga. There were many preliminary variants, differing in size and armament:…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Scroll down the page for English. Interesting concept, glad the Japanese never replaced the Kongo class.

Very handsome design. I may have to scratch-build a couple.

Glad you like it boys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I'm no naval architect but based on where the smokestack is it does not seem like enough area for boilers. It seems they'd be aft of the rear turrets but that looks like too far away from the stack.

Wolfhag

My guess is that the boilers were situated between the forward and after main batteries, while the engine rooms were aft of the after main battery turrets.

Just a guess at this point (haven't delved into my reference books yet).

B

OK. Found an answer on the first try in Siegfried Breyer's "Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970":

"The solution envisaged for the propulsion plant was unusual and comparatively little space was available for this compartment between B and C turrets which was slightly more than 60m long. This space was divided into three longitudinal sections in which the propulsion plant was to be arranged as follows:

the two outer sections going forward from the stern –
two boilers / two boilers / one set of turbines;

the midships section going forward from the stern -
two boilers / two sets of turbines.

Unfortunately no plan view of compartmentation is provided. I'll look further, but my best SWAG at this point is -

BB / BB / Tu
BB / Tu / Tu
BB / BB / Tu

- with a total of nine compartments.

B

Many thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

between the forward and main battery

That looks as if it does not leave much room for the control center and associated areas that would be under the superstructure but probably the only place they could be.

three longitudinal sections

Were they divided in such a way that the chance of capsizing would increase?

Wolfhag

Alnavco offered these post Kongo designs in 1/1200

Dave G

Hi Wolfhag,
I'm no naval architect and a great deal of pertinent information is not immediately at hand. But my strictly semi-informed SWAG is that the layout probably would not have contributed to any unusual tendency to capsize. I'm basing that upon the assumption that the machinery spaces would have been well sub-divided transversally as well as longitudinally.

Those warships famously prone to capsize due to underwater damage were British pre-dreadnoughts, which had their boiler room spaces longitudinally divided into two huge compartments, and to lesser degree some of the IJN cruiser classes, whose longitudinally divided machinery spaces, sub-standard damage control training (and perhaps some degree of excessive topweight)combined to cause several losses due to capsize.

Strictly my opinion, however.

B

Casemate guns in the 1930s…?

- Ix