The number of subscribers to my Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel has now passed three hundred and I have just uploaded a short 'Thank You' video.
The next goal is to try to achieve five hundred subscribers. I wonder if I'll ever reach it.
I found some suitable escorts for my 1:122th-scale model of IJNS Fuso on eBay, placed my bid, and won. As a result, I am now the proud owner of some metal models of the light cruiser IJNS Yubari, and the destroyers IJNS Shimakaze, and IJNS Asagiri.
The IJNS Yubari was a one-off experimental light cruiser that was commissioned in July 1923. She weighed just over 3,500 tons and could reach a speed of just under 35 knots. When built, her armament consisted of two twin and two single-mounted 5.5-inch (14cms) guns, a single 3-inch (76mm) anti-aircraft gun, two twin 24-inch (61cm) torpedo tubes, and 48 mines.
Lieutenant Commander Kikuo Fujimoto designed Yūbari under the direction of the very influential and innovative naval architect Captain Yuzuru Hiraga. Fujimoto incorporated the armoured belt and deck into the ship's strength structure, thus removing the need for the hull to include structural members to support the armour. As a result, the Yubari was able to carry the same armament as the earlier Sendai-class light cruisers on a displacement that weighed 40% less. This design philosophy was later adopted for future Japanese cruiser designs.
The destroyer IJNS Shimakaze was also a one-off experimental vessel that was commissioned in May 1943. She was intended to be the lead ship for a new class of destroyers but none of these were ever built. Shimakaze was almost was heavy as Yubari (she weighed 3,300 tons) and had a maximum speed of just under 41 knots. When built, her armament comprised three twin 5-inch (127mm) guns, two triple 1-inch (25mm) automatic anti-aircraft guns, two single 0.52-inch (13.2mm) anti-aircraft machine guns, three quintuple 24-inch (61cm) torpedo tubes, and 8 depth charges.
The IJN Asagiri was one of the twenty-four-strong Fubuki-class destroyers that entered service between 1928 and 1933. She was a member of the second batch that was built (the Type II [Ayanami]), was commissioned in June 1930, and weighed just over 2,000 tons. Her top speed was 38 knots and her armament comprised (when built) three twin 5-inch (127mm) guns, a number of 1-inch (25mm) and 0.52-inch (13.2mm) anti-aircraft guns, three triple 24-inch torpedo tubes, and 36 depth charges.
As a follow-up to my recent YouTube video about United States' War Plan Orange, I have created a further video about the battleships and battlecruisers that were designed during and after World War I but never built or completed as designed.
The ships that I have included are:
The video can be found here on the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel.
Regular blog reader Ed M pointed out that I called MS PAINT (!!!) MS Draw in yesterday's blog post.
Mea culpa! My only excuse is that I was so excited by the results of the visit by the Occupational Therapists that I managed to get myself well and truly mixed up when it came to the name of the drawing program I was using.
The downside of this mistake is that I now have to go back and revise some elements of the video I have been working on as I used the wrong name several times during it. However, this will give me the opportunity to make some improvements ... so it's not all bad news.
'What a mistake-a to make-a!' is the catchphrase of Capitano Alberto Bertorelli, one of the characters in the long-running BBC TV comedy programme 'ALLO 'ALLO! I have used it before as the title of a blog post back in October 2009 and it struck me as being rather appropriate for yesterday's blunder on my part.
Capitano Alberto Bertorelli (seen above wearing the uniform of an officer in the Bersaglieri) with Private Helga Geerhart (Kim Hartman), Lieutenant Hubert Gruber, (Guy Siner) and General Leopold von Flockenstuffen (Ken Morley). In this photograph he is being played by Gavin Richards. In later episodes the character was portrayed by the later Roger Kitter.
The last few days have been rather busy, hence my lack of blog posts.
Firstly, I have begun work on a YouTube video that will explain how I create my maps using MS Draw. (Other drawing programs are available ... but I'm a bit of a dinosaur who prefers to use a program that I have been utilising for years.) This is actually taking me more time that I expected as it will be a step-by-step guide ... but with a bit of luck, the methodology that I use will be understandable and transferable.
Secondly – and probably more importantly – I have been visited by a pair of Occupational Therapists who have assessed my current mobility situation and who are going to produce a plan that should help me to increase my mobility. They were very encouraging, and left me feeling that there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Until the middle of 2009 I had a website devoted to Colonial Wargaming, but at the time trying to blog and keep the website updated proved a bit too demanding and so, with great reluctance, I wound it up. I did try to replace it with a Colonial Wargaming blog ... but time pressure led to that becoming moribund as well.
I was recently going through my computer files and found that I had saved the whole website. This set me thinking about resurrecting it in some way as there were some resources on the original website that modern Colonial wargamers might find useful and I would like to be able to share them online; the question is, how?
I don't particularly want to rewrite all or most of the html code I used to create the original website, but I think that I might have to if I do create a new website. A better alternative would be to find some way of converting my existing files so that I can upload them simply, quickly, and easily to the new website, but I suspect that is not a realistic prospect.
A potential alternative might be to use my currently moribund Colonial Wargaming blog.
Whatever I decide to do, this will be no small task ... but I think that it will be worth doing, even if it takes me some time.
The IJNS Fuso was the name-ship of the two-ship Fuso-class battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. (The two ships were named IJNS Fuso and IJNS Yamashiro.) As such, they were the first dreadnought battleships with a homogenous main armament designed and built in Japan*, and were based on the British-designed Kongo-class battlecruisers.
The name-ship of the Kongo-class was built in Britain by Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness and her three sisterships were built in Japan with British assistance. As a result, the designers of the Fuso-class based their design on that of the Kongo-class, and this becomes very apparent when one compares the two designs.
A side view of a Kongo-class battlecruiser.
A side view of a Fuso-class battleship.
The similarity between the two designs becomes even more obvious when one lays a side view of each design over the over.
A side view of a Fuso-class battleship overlaid over a side view of a Kongo-class battlecruiser.
A side view of a Kongo-class battlecruiser over a side view of a Fuso-class battleship.
It immediately becomes apparent how closely the two designs are to each other. The positions of the forward two superimposed turrets, bridge and foremast are very similar, as is the position of the aft-most turret and superstructure around the mainmast. The third turret on the Kong-class is also almost in exactly the same position as the fourth turret on the Fuso-class.
The obvious conclusion one can draw is that the Japanese designers took the basic design of the Kongo-class battlecruisers, reduced the size of the space required for the boilers and engines, and filled that freed-up space with two extra twin 14-inch gun turrets.
The following is a comparison of the two classes' characteristics as built, with the Kongo-class data being first and the Fuso-class data being shown in italics:
The IJNS Yamashiro as built.
If the Washington Treaty had not been signed in 1922, it is likely that the Fuso-class would have been declared obsolete in the late 1920s and scrapped. However, it was decided to retain and modernise them, and this involved:
The IJNS Fuso after her modernisation.
Despite these improvements, by 1941 the two ships were no longer regarded as suitable for frontline service. Their short-range anti-aircraft armament was increased during the war, and by 1944 they carried ninety-six 25mm (1-inch) automatic anti-aircraft guns. They spent much of the early part of the war at anchor in Hiroshima Bay acting as training ships, although they were involved as distant support during the Pearl Harbour attack and then operations against the Aleutian Islands.
The Fuso-class battleships at anchor.
As Japanese losses mounted, the two ships took on more active roles. In September 1944 they took Japanese Army reinforcements to Brunei before being assigned to Operation Shō-Gō., the attack on the United States Navy ships supporting the landings at Leyte They formed part of Admiral Nishimura's Southern Force and took part in the Battle of the Surigao Strait.
After coming under attack by nearly thirty aircraft from the USS Enterprise, during which both ships were damaged, they saw off a night-time attack by United States Navy PT Boats.
At 3.09am on 25th October 1944 the IJNS Fuso was hit by one or two torpedoes that were probably fired by the US destroyer USS Melvin. She immediately began to sink, and by 03.50 she had gone down, surrounded by a field of burning oil. Only ten of her crew survived.
At 3.52 the IJNS Yamashiro came under fire from Admiral Oldendorf's Task Group 77.2. She was repeatedly hit by 6-inch, 8-ich, 14-inch, and 16-inch shells during an engagement that lasted only eighteen minutes. She was set ablaze and suffered from one or more internal explosions. She was also hit by a torpedo that damaged her close to her starboard engine room. She then suffered a further four to six torpedo hits, and between 4.09am and 4.21sm she turned over sank. Like her sister, only ten of her crew survived.
* Technically, the Kawachi-class battleships (IJNS Kawachi and IJNS Settsu) were the first dreadnought battleships designed and built in Japan, but their main armament was not uniform as they were armed with four 50-calibre 12-inch and eight 45-calibre 12-inch main guns in six turrets.
These turrets were arranged in a hexagonal layout, with a pair of 50-calibre 12-inch guns in fore and aft turrets and a pair of 45-calibre 12-inc guns in each of two turrets on both side of the ship.
A general arrangement drawing of the Kawachi-class battleships.
Interestingly, they were originally designed to have a uniform armament of twelve 45-calibre 12-inch guns, but when it was announced that the Royal Navy had introduced 50-calibre 12-inch guns into service, the Japanese Navy decided to do the same ... but were unable to afford to fit more that four per ship, hence the mixture of guns on these ships.
The Japanese battleship Fuso has a special place in my wargaming heart, and when I saw a 1:1200th-scale model made by Superior was on sale on eBay I just had to make a bid.
Amazingly, my bid won … and I am now the proud owner of the model.
So, why is the Fuso so important to me?
The answer is very simple. Whilst taking part in Eric Knowles’ famous Madasahatta Campaign, I commanded her during a battle with a force of German pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers … and my shooting was incredible. We were using a cut down version of Fletcher Pratt’s Naval War Game rules and my range estimation was phenomenal … and very deadly!
After the battle, I wrote a report about it in the campaign’s newspaper (THE BUNGLER) and I have reproduced it below.
FURIOUS FUSO!
by Our Correspondent
The Japanese Squadron, which is commanded by Vice Admiral Iama Quitageza, has already made its mark upon the course of the War in this area. The Squadron, which consists of the dreadnought battleship FUSO, the cruisers NISSHIN and SOYA, and two destroyers, was on its way to the Island when it intercepted the combined might of the German and Turkish Navies in this area.
The Enemy fleet consisted of the battleships KAISER FREDERICK III (which had only recently arrived in this area), HEIREDDIN BARBAROSSA, TORGUD REIS, and MUIN-I-ZAFFAR, the cruisers REGENSBERG and DRESDEN, the gunboat MUCHE, and the patrolship ILTIS, and is thought to have been commanded by the German Admiral Hans Off.
As soon as both sides came into view of one another both fleets opened fire, and the Japanese opening salvoes caused considerable damage. This can be seen by the examination of the gunnery log of the Japanese flagship FUSO –
'1st Salvo – Enemy cruiser (later known to be the REGENSBERG) disabled.
2nd Salvo – German battleship KAISER FREDERICK III sunk (it is thought that at least one of the FUSO's shells penetrated the armour on the aft 12-inch magazine and this caused the KAISER FREDERICK III to blow up).
3rd Salvo – Near hits on enemy cruiser.
4th Salvo – Further near hits on enemy units.
5th Salvo – Enemy cruiser (known to be the DRESDEN) sunk as a result of 9 simultaneous hits.
6th Salvo – MUIN-I-ZAFFAR hit and sunk by several direct hits from 14-inch shells.
7th Salvo – Turkish battleship HEIREDDIN BARBAROSSA badly damaged by several direct hits and near misses.
8th Salvo – HEIREDDIN BARBAROSSA sunk by further hits by 14-inch shells.
9th Salvo – TORGUD REIS explodes as a result of several direct hits from the guns of the FUSO, NISSHIN and SOYA.'
As can be seen from the above extract the Japanese shooting during the battle was excellent, and this is a result of the training the Japanese Navy has had at the hands of a British Naval Mission, and we remind our readers that many of the Japanese ships in service at the moment are either British built or designed.
During this battle I managed to hit and sink a modern enemy light cruiser and four pre-dreadnoughts of dubious and variable quality, and to damage a further enemy light cruiser. Not a bad result from nine salvos (i.e. 108 rounds) of 14-inch shells!
The model of the Fuso is actually how she appeared after she was rebuilt during the 1930s, but owning a model of her was more important to me than not having one in my small collection of 1:1200th-scale model ships.
The final article for the next Portable Wargame Compendium has arrived and I spent yesterday adding it to the draft text. I will be sending off for proofreading later today and once any errors have been rectified, I start the publication process.,
The Third Compendium is going to include the following articles:
This looks as if it is going to be between 130 and 140 pages long ... and I hope that it will be published by the end of August.
The annual Conference of Wargamers (COW) took place last weekend, and I created a video for a session about the United States' War Plan Orange (i.e. its plan for a future war with Japan).
I have now uploaded it to the Wargaming Miscellany YouTube channel and it can be seen here.
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