Comparisons, of course, will be. They are in the front as they go through materials on British and American (especially) ships. But you can't do without this point, you need it like a cup of sake before a fight.
More than once he expressed his opinion that the Japanese heavy cruisers were … controversial. But they are not devoid of charm and fighting power.
You can talk a lot about their advantages and disadvantages, from my point of view, there were more advantages. And they were not so cramped and uncomfortable for the crew, and they fed there not only rice with cuttlefish. It was normal there in terms of living conditions, a cruiser is in any case not a destroyer or a submarine, you must understand.
And in terms of combat and running, they were very, very remarkable ships. With good artillery deployed, really … in Japanese, well, it happens. And torpedoes …
If we turn the wheel of history back a little, then we can remember that until a certain time Japan had no fleet of its own in our understanding at all. The Japanese fleet traces its history only from 1894, before that ships, of course, were, but what …
It is clear that with the arrival of representatives of European states on the islands, everything more or less began to spin. And steamers began to appear in Japan, primarily made in Great Britain.
In general, of course, the Japanese navy has always been exotic, and by the time of the Second World War it reached the highest point of its development.
The Japanese should be given their due: having learned from the British allies-partners, they quickly began to create themselves. And create very unexpected, original ships that stand out among their "classmates" in other countries of the world.
A huge leap forward in this regard was made after the end of the First World War, it was then that the Japanese shipbuilders who went into a rage began to create real masterpieces.
How is Yamato and Musashi? They were just crazy ships in terms of their performance. "Mogami" and "Tone" are not supercruisers, but very, very worthy representatives of their class. The destroyers "Fubuki", "Akitsuki" and "Kagero" were unique, but they were definitely very sophisticated combat vehicles.
However, we'll talk a lot about destroyers.
Now I just wanted to highlight that part of the story, about which it is not so often customary to write. About those people, whose labor these ships were born.
I must say that in Japan it was a very interesting process, not that bureaucratic, but with its own sea cockroaches.
Orders for the design of ships were issued by the Naval General Staff (MGSh), and the design and construction itself was under the jurisdiction of the Naval Ministry. But the ministry transferred projects to the work of the Marine Technical Department (MTD).
And already in the bowels of MTD, the so-called sections worked. For example, section 4 was engaged in the construction of ships, and section 6 - submarines. The rest of the sections dealt with weapons, armor, power plants, and so on. Under the guidance of the leading sections.
But besides all this apparatus, there was also the ITC - the Marine Technical Committee. MTC came into action if certain problems arose during the development of the project. For example, it was not possible to fit into the set parameters. It was then that the MTC was assembled, which was not a permanent body, but which instantly "resolved" problems as they arose.
The ITC consisted of three key figures: the deputy minister of the sea, the deputy head of the MGSH and the head of the 4th (or 6th) section. In addition to them, the committee included the heads of other specialized departments and directorates of the MGSH and one or two reputable shipbuilding engineers.
This collegial structure was flexible enough to best balance the desires of some departments with the capabilities of others. Of course, MGSH had more than enough desires, and the capabilities of the designers were precisely that limiting factor.
The project, created in the MTD and, if something happens, polished at the MTK, was then approved by the heads of both interested departments - the head of the MGSH and the Minister of the Navy, after which the latter gave appropriate orders to the MTD.
And then the real work began.
Now we are interested in the 4th section, in the depths of which the very cruisers that were discussed in the previous articles were created.
In essence, the section was in no way inferior to the ministry. It was subdivided into two departments: basic and detailed design. The head of the basic design department was usually the head of the section.
OBP was the headquarters of the section, where all plans were developed and all processes in other departments were coordinated. In addition, OBP was engaged in interaction with other sections of the ministry and with MGSH.
The Detailed Design Department (PDD) was responsible for the finalization of the designs, while its head was responsible for the "horizontal communications" and management of the internal design.
Each department had its own groups according to the types of ships. Dominated, of course, was a group of battleships, which was also headed by the section chief in both departments.
A rather cumbersome scheme, but it turned out to be very workable. The Japanese hierarchical structure was also not an easy thing, but it made it possible to raise very remarkable personalities to the top.
Rear Admiral Yuzuru Hiraga should definitely be considered the first such person.
He worked in Section 4 since 1916, having completed his training in Britain and became the author of designs for the first Japanese heavy cruisers Furutaka, Aoba and Myoko.
It was Hiraga who introduced the use of armor as a force element of the hull into the practice of shipbuilding.
But there were also disadvantages to Hiraga's giftedness. In history, he remained as a very quarrelsome person. You can say a squabbler and brawler.
On the one hand, for an educated and gifted person who knows his own worth, this seems to be normal. On the other hand, not everyone in the MGSH liked such a leader who did not need to besiege the entire MGSH in terms of wishes and wishes.
Hiraga understood very clearly that there were opportunities for Japanese shipbuilding and therefore preferred to quarrel with admirals from MGSH at the project stage, rather than be responsible for what would turn out to be contrary to his ideas.
Because of this, the generals got tired of Hiraga very quickly. Using the postulate "there are no irreplaceable people", he was first sent to Europe for advanced training, then from the post of chief designer of the fleet he was transferred to the position of head of the shipbuilding department of the Research Institute of the Technical Management of the Fleet. And then he was completely sent to the very honorary position of deputy rector (and then himself) of the University of Tokyo, where Hiraga worked from 1931 until his death in 1943.
But they tried to keep them out of the ships. The admirals' nerves turned out to be more expensive than cruisers, and there was someone to replace the brawler.
After Hiraga, the head of the 4th section was Captain 1st Rank Kikuo Fujimoto, the creator of the projects of the destroyer "Fubuki" and the cruisers "Mogami" and "Takao".
Fujimoto was a less scandalous and more compliant person, and therefore he was completely satisfied with MGSH. His death in 1935 was a great loss for Japanese shipbuilding, but the ships, on the creation of which Fujimoto worked, became worthy representatives in their classes.
Fujimoto's technique was somewhat different from that of Hiraga, although they worked together for a long time. Fujimoto was more impressed by light, fast and well-armed ships, speed and striking power were more important to him than protection, and he preferred to cope with technical problems through unexpected layout decisions.
Although the phrase "unexpected layout solutions" performed by Fujimoto may well be replaced with "design madness." Although Fujimoto is mainly accused of being too led by the admirals from the MGSH, agreeing with the absolutely impossible requirements of the latter.
Something, but Fijimoto was a master of squeezing over the displacement "just a little bit". But in this, at the same time, there was harm, because the main problem of the ships he designed was the low stability caused by the efforts to lighten the hull as much as possible and the weighting of the surface section, on which too much equipment and weapons were located.
In the end, it all ended in disaster. On March 12, 1943, the destroyer Tomozuru capsized due to the loss of stability caused by these very reasons. Fujimoto was removed from his post. No scandals. But Fujimoto did not last long after retirement and died of a stroke in January 1935.
The next head of the 4th section was Keiji Fukuda, appointed immediately after the Tomozuru disaster.
It is said that he was specially trained to replace Fujimoto. In general, Fukuda had not made a career as a shipbuilder before, but was known academically and even was a member of the Japanese delegation at the London conference in 1930, when the next restrictions were signed.
However, Fukuda had a divine gift, which he clearly developed during his studies in the United States. He knew how to negotiate. And he did it so well that he was able to introduce the disgraced designer Hiragu into the project on the battleship Yamato, which clearly benefited the project.
The last head of Section 4 was Iwakichi Ezaki in 1943.
Another academic scientist and university lecturer who previously worked at MGSH. But Ezaki had experience with ships. Ezaki took part in the Fujimoto project for the Takao cruiser and worked on the A-140 project, from which the Yamato later emerged.
What can you say after carefully reviewing this list?
Strange, but the analogy of the present day suggests itself. At first, a galaxy of bright, talented and gifted designers gradually began to be replaced by people with good theoretical training, but virtually no practice.
The main advantage of the new appointees was, apparently, not the ability to build ships, but the ability to find compromises in everything. Fukuda and Ezaki clearly lacked the stars from the sky, were not brilliant designers, but they could quite normally take into account the interests of many parties.
If you do not argue for a long time, then in fact in 1943 effective managers began to replace the geniuses of shipbuilding. How it ended, history still remembers.
But the ships that were invented and built by quarrelsome brawler geniuses served, and served very well. The Japanese cruisers were very good ships.
