The falcon does not peck at abandoned grains. Like him, a samurai is obliged to pretend that he is full, even if he is dying of hunger.
Perfection of spirit and moderation in everything - this is the path of a real warrior (bushido). Therefore, it is so easy to believe that contempt for everyday amenities was the tradition of the Japanese navy. The highest combat characteristics of "Mogami", "Tone" or "Nagato" were bought due to the "terrible" conditions of the crew.
Why would you?
The myth of poor habitability is written entirely from the words of the Americans. And their notions of comfort were not modest. The Yankees had the right to believe that the lack of 24-hour buffets and a choice of three types of juices was an unbearable hardship for sailors. But this assessment can hardly be considered objective for the other fleets of the era.
If we evaluate the complex concept of "habitability" in comparison with the ships of European countries, then the following will suddenly become clear. The Japanese ships were the most comfortable and cozy!
With your permission, I will cite an excerpt from an article by Vladimir Sidorenko, in which the author conducts a logical analysis of the established myths about the habitability of the Japanese (in the form of quotes taken from V. Kofman's monograph).
Of course, it was impossible to play baseball and rugby in the cockpits of Japanese ships, but as for the rest …
1. "The crews ate and slept in the same cramped quarters." This is true, but such an organization was commonplace at that time. Suffice it to recall the domestic tank system.
2. "The team slept exclusively in hanging bunks." Large Japanese ships, starting with the cruisers of the project number C-37, prepared in the summer of 1931 (type "Mogami"), were equipped with three-tier stationary bunks for personnel.
3. "Galleys based on American standards could only qualify as primitive …" In the galleys of Japanese ships, in any case, there were stoves and pots for cooking and tea, refrigerators, not to mention cutting knives, boards and other utensils. This is enough to feed the crew, but if this is considered "primitive", then what else should be in the galley by "American standards"?
4. "… the sanitary facilities were not properly equipped." What is this ?! Maybe there was not enough bidet?
5. "Washing the crew on Japanese ships was reduced to pouring water on the open deck (which, perhaps, is not bad when serving in the tropics, but by no means in winter in the harsh northern waters)." That's exactly why even Japanese destroyers (not to mention cruisers and battleships) had baths for their personnel.
Great criticism!
American ships had ice cream machines, but they forget to add that Japanese ships had lemonade machines. Not to mention such "little things" for service in the tropics as drinking fountains and refrigerated storage rooms for food. For example, all heavy cruisers, depending on the type, were equipped with refrigerators with a volume of 67 to 96 cubic meters - almost a hundred liters for each crew member!
Japanese galleys and refrigerators cannot be compared to the conditions in which, for example, Italian sailors ate. Those did not have a galley in the traditional sense. And the diet consisted of "pasta, dry wine and olive oil." The captured "Cesare-Novorossiysk" initially caused a lot of criticism from Soviet sailors. The ship, designed for the conditions of eternal summer, turned out to be unsuitable for service in the cold Black Sea climate. It took a significant amount of work to bring the "Cesare" to Soviet standards.
Unlike most Europeans, who made such blunders, Japanese ships were adapted to any climatic zone - from the Bering Sea to the equator. The living quarters had steam heating and high-quality ventilation systems. For example, the heavy cruiser "Mogami" had 70 ventilation units with a total capacity of 194 liters. with.
As for the size of the cockpits and three-tiered bunks, this is commonplace at that time. Many depended on the class of the ship itself. The crew of a cruiser was usually accommodated in more comfortable conditions than the crew of a destroyer or submarine. Only the Germans really knew what tightness on large ships was. The real crew of the Admiral Hipper-class TKR was one and a half times higher than the standard value (because of hundreds of specialists and workers who made sure that this ship did not fall apart on the move).
In general, if someone believes that the designers could solve some issues of armament and booking due to the deterioration of habitability, then he is deeply mistaken.
Even if you sleep in the cabins while standing, then no increase in combat performance will happen. The design of the ship largely depends not on the size of the cockpits, but on the number of art. towers, diagrams of angles of fire of guns and radii of sweeping of barrels. Mechanisms incommensurate with human dimensions!
The introduction was unexpectedly delayed, but we talked about little-known and unexpected facts, about which it would not make sense to tell briefly.
Now let's move on to the main thing.
Japanese heavy cruisers outnumbered other countries' MRTs in offensive power, speed, autonomy, and seaworthiness
And, as it turns out now, they were even superior in habitability!
And they were in no way inferior in security. Providing a collection of the best performance achieved in the designs of their rivals.
In addition, the Japanese unexpectedly found a place for a bulky 10-storey superstructure, in which all the control posts of the ship and its weapons were grouped. This solution simplified interaction in battle and provided an excellent view of the posts.
All this was achieved with a standard displacement, only 15-20% higher than the established limit. Of course, this circumstance did not explain in any way the gap in the characteristics.
Almost all of the parties to the agreement violated the limit of 10,000 tons, but for some reason Mioko and Takao never succeeded. Those who decided to follow the rules received an MRT with six main guns ("York") or unsatisfactory seaworthiness and critical stability (American "Wichita").
An illustrative example is Germany, whose project of a heavy cruiser was created in the absence of control and severe restrictions, mandatory for the rest of the "contract" cruisers. The Hipper's standard displacement exceeded 14,000 tons (!), But this did not help the Germans. The result is a mediocre ship in all respects.
The Japanese have surpassed everyone, having built the most powerful cruisers without flaws within the established displacement
The obvious is hard to deny. "Mioko", "Takao", "Mogami" carried five towers with 10 main guns.
"Tone" - only four towers and 8 guns, but all - in the bow! The "Tone" stern was completely given over for the deployment of aviation.
Unlike American or Italian TKRs, completely devoid of torpedo armament, Japanese cruisers have always been armed with 610 mm long-lances.
Four protected installations for launching torpedoes weighing tens of tons. And a whole compartment, similar to a factory workshop, in which the assembly / disassembly / refueling and maintenance of oxygen torpedoes was carried out. In terms of mass, all this is like the sixth tower of the Main Command!
The Kanpon-type boiler-turbine power plant developed twice as much power as the power plant of modern nuclear icebreakers.
Japanese power plants had no analogues among the power plants of other "contractual" cruisers, surpassing them in power by 1, 3 … 1, 5 times.
The cruisers of the sons of Amaterasu carried armored shells weighing from 2,000 to 2,400 tons. This is less than that of the Italian "Zara" (2700 tons) or the German "Hipper" (2500 tons), but much more than for all other TCRs of the era under consideration.
The mass of the protection elements of the French "Algeria" is 1723 tons. The values for the "Wichita" and "New Orleans" are 1473 tons and 1508 tons, respectively (shown without taking into account their deck armor).
Where did the Japanese find displacement reserves?
Above, we have touched on all the important load items, except for one element, the most massive: the corpus
The hull of Japanese cruisers weighed significantly less than that of the rest of this class. The Takao and Mogami had hull weights less than 30% of their standard displacement. Mioko has only 30.8%.
For comparison: the mass of the Zara's hull was 42% of its standard displacement. Algeria has 38%. The British "York" has over 40%.
The Hipper, despite its large size, had a traditional load distribution. Its hull (5750 tons) also accounted for more than 40% of its standard displacement.
The lightening of the Japanese TKR housings was achieved due to the widespread use of 48-T titanium alloys with a yield point of 720 MPa. Funny joke?
Dr. Yuzuru Hiraga did not have titanium or modern high-strength steels with a yield strength of 700-800 MPa. But his design team did the impossible.
The heavy cruisers of the Imperial Navy had two hull features. One of them is visible even to the naked eye.
This is the absence of a forecastle and the undulating curves of the upper deck. The hull, being high in the area of the stem, gradually "sagged" in the area of the towers - and again gained height in the middle part. Behind the aft towers, where nothing depended on the height of the side, the deck curved - and rushed down to the water.
Walking the top deck of a Japanese ship was like climbing Mount Fuji.
The British arrogantly declared that such design techniques are characteristic of amateurs. But what did their opinion matter? You've seen the numbers and facts!
The American Navy had a different concept: all decks should be parallel to the structural waterline. This approach simplified serial construction.
But the Japanese did not have the opportunity to build cruisers in large series. In ten years they had only twelve "10,000-ton" cruisers of four projects.
The masters put their soul into each of them.
The second difference between the Japanese cruisers (true for the Mioko and Takao types) was the partial absence of plating
The role of the plating and shirstrek was performed by the armor plates included directly in the power set of the hull.
But the Japanese didn't stop there.
Where powerful slabs were fastened into a single monolith, the spacing was 1200 mm (spacing is the distance between adjacent frames).
For the middle part of the hull over 80-90 meters, this meant about 1.5 times less power elements than on cruisers from other countries. Saving mass again!
Of course, Yuzuru Hiraga was no more stupid than you and me. In the bow, which is subject to significant loads on the move, the spacing was reduced to 600 mm. The frequency of installing the frames (and with it the strength) in this place was higher than on European and American cruisers.
Thus, Hiraga created an amazingly lightweight and equally strong "sword"!
