Post by sabratha on Sept 17, 2015 7:18:49 GMT -6
(The song is a 1897 Japanese naval march simply known as the "Gunkan māchi" - "Warship March"). The name for the AAr comes from the song's lyrics.
The settings are very large fleets, manual legacy fleet. *Historical* budgets.
At the turn of the century, Japan is still behind the great naval powers, with Russia or France posessing alost twice the resources at hand.
This fact would have a decisive effect on the naval doctrine of the country, which called for defenc eof the Home Islands by short-range battleships armed with a strong medium gun battery. The notion to fight an european battle fleet outside of teh colonies was decided to be unfeasible.
The offensive would be carried out only by fast Armored Crusiers.
The financial constraints caused two separate battleship class ships to be designed:
The S-type ships were inspired by the british "secondary battleship" concepts. The S-type was thus a 11 000 ton warship designed to carry 10 inch main guns and a respectable secondary battery of 20x1 6 inch guns. The 11 000 displacement while still outside of Japanese shipbuilding capabilities, would soon be possible to build domesticlaly. What was more important was the low cost of 37,348,000, which would be more feasible fom a inancial point of view.
While the armor and armament would remain decent, the shortcomings of the class were numerous - slow, short ranged, cramped and narrow-belted these ships were derided by the "big gun" faction as the "Sentakudara" class.
The R type was in some way deceptively just a larger cousin of the S-class. Slightly better armored, armed with 12 inch guns, the standard of the day and with a decent 18 knot speed, free of the engineering corner-cutting solutions of the S-type. The main problem was cost of 50,046,000.
With a total budget reserved for capital ship construction floating at around 112,100,000, the decision would need to be made if teh country needs 3 S class or 2 R class battleships. In the end, the "small gun" faction won the debate and the IJN ships "Iki", "oki" and "Sado" were built in Britain, Armstrong Whitworth being awarded the contract. The class, despite its shortcomings, would prove superior to some German or US designs of the era.
However the mood shifted and by 1900 the "big gun" faction took ower and Japan found itself ordering 3 R class ships from the Pembroke Dockyard. Thes ewould be the "Kai", "Kozuke" and "Hida"
Two fast crusiers of the Izumo class would provide the initial long range raider role. Unarmored decks were their main weakness.
The new doctrine envisoned a 25 knot tropedo-oriented force of crusiers and destroyers. Two ships of the Takachiho class would fill that role.
The destroyer force would be made of the Akikaze class. Firm believers in the torpedo, the Japanese designed this ship with just 2x1 2" guns, but with a set of 4 torepdo tubes. 12 such ships were built.
During teh coming months, Japan would invest heavily in torpedo training and new torpedo technologies.
