List of battlecruisers of Japan

The four Kongō-class ships were the first battlecruisers ordered by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The four ships were authorised in 1910 as part of the Emergency Naval Expansion Bill, in response to the construction of HMS Invincible by the British Royal Navy.^[11] Designed by British naval architect George Thurston, the first ship of the class (Kongō) was constructed in Britain by Vickers, with the remaining three built in Japan. They were armed with eight 14 in (356 mm) main guns, could sail at 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph), and were considered to "outclass all other [contemporary] ships".^[5] Kongō was completed in August 1913, Hiei in August 1914, and Haruna and Kirishima in April 1915. The vessels saw minor patrol duty during the First World War.

In the aftermath of the Washington Naval Treaty, all four ships underwent extensive modernisation in the 1920s and 1930s, which reconfigured them as fast battleships.^[12] The modernisations strengthened their armour, equipped them with seaplanes, overhauled their engine plant, and reconfigured their armament.^[13] With a top speed of 30 kn (35 mph) and efficient engine plants, all four were active in the Second World War; Hiei and Kirishima sailed with the carrier strikeforce to attack Pearl Harbor, while Kongō and Haruna sailed with the Southern Force to invade Malaya and Singapore. Hiei and Kirishima were lost during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal,^[14] Kongō was torpedoed on 21 November 1944 in the Formosa Strait,^[9] and Haruna was sunk during the Bombing of Kure on 28 July 1945.^[10]

As part of the Eight-Eight fleet, four Amagi-class battlecruisers were planned. The order for these ships and four battleships of the Kii class put an enormous strain on the Japanese government, which by that time was spending a full third of its budget on the navy.^[19] Akagi was the first ship to be laid down; construction began on 6 December 1920 at the naval yard in Kure. Amagi followed ten days later at the Yokosuka naval yard. Atago's keel was laid in Kobe at the Kawasaki shipyard on 22 November 1921, while Takao, the fourth and final ship of the class, was laid down at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki on 19 December 1921.^[6]

The terms of the February 1922 Washington Naval Treaty forced the class' cancellation, but the two closest to completion (Amagi and Akagi) were saved from the scrappers by a provision that allowed two capital ships to be converted to aircraft carriers. However, the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake caused significant stress damage to the hull of Amagi. The structure was too heavily damaged to be usable, and conversion work was abandoned.^{[20][N 1]} Amagi was struck from the navy list and sold for scrapping, which began on 14 April 1924. The other two ships, Atago and Takao, were officially cancelled two years later (31 July 1924) and were broken up for scrap in their slipways. Akagi went on as an aircraft carrier to fight in the Second World War, where it was sunk after air attack during the Battle of Midway.^[6]

Design B-64 was originally intended to be part of Japan's Night Battle Force, a force that would attack an enemy fleet's outer defence ring of cruisers and destroyers under the cover of darkness. After penetrating the ring, Japanese cruisers and destroyers would launch torpedo attacks on the enemy's battleships. The remainder of the enemy would be finished off by the main fleet on the following day. The B-64s were intended to support the lighter cruisers and destroyers in these nighttime strikes.^[21] This strategy was altered when the Japanese learned the specifications of the United States' Alaska-class large cruisers. The design was enlarged and redesignated B-65; their purpose would now be to screen the main battle fleet against the threat posed by the fast and heavily armed Alaskas.^[22][23] With war looming in 1940, the Japanese focused on more useful and versatile ship types such as aircraft carriers and cruisers; the Japanese defeat at the 1942 Battle of Midway meant that the ships were postponed indefinitely, and with more important strategic considerations to worry about, the ships were never built.^[24][25]

• List of battleships of Japan
• List of cruisers of Japan
• List of destroyers of Japan

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Evans, David C. & Peattie, Mark R. (1997). Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-192-7.
• Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-907-3.
• Garzke, William H.; Dulin, Robert O. (1985). Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-101-3.
• Jackson, Robert (2000). The World's Great Battleships. Brown Books. ISBN 1-897884-60-5
• Lacroix, Eric; Wells, Linton (1997). Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-311-3.
• McCurtie, Francis (1989) [1945]. Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II. London: Bracken Books. ISBN 1-85170-194-X
• Schom, Alan (2004). The Eagle and the Rising Sun; The Japanese-American War, 1941–1943. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393049248
• Stille, Mark (2008). Imperial Japanese Navy Battleship 1941–1945. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-280-6
• Wheeler, Keith (1980). War Under the Pacific. New York: Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-8094-3376-1.