During the Christmas and New Year period I continued to trawl through eBay for more ships to add to my growing collection of 1/1200th-scale model ships and bought the following:
A second Kaba-class destroyer, …
(850 tons; 30 knots; 1 x 4.7-inch gun; 3 x 3-inch guns; 4 x 18-inch torpedo tubes
… and a further Chikuma-class light cruiser.
(5,000 tons; 26 knots; 8 x 6-inch guns; 4 x 3-inch guns; 3 x 18-inch torpedo tubes)
The Kaba-class destroyers were built during the World War I and were scrapped during the early 1930s whereas the three Chikuma-class light cruisers (they were actually protected cruisers) were built just before World War I and either scrapped before World War II or were retained in secondary roles and didn’t see active service. However, there’s no reason not to include them in my model IJN fleet … and with a bit of imagination, I can envisage using the destroyers and cruisers as convoy escorts in secondary theatres of operation or as decoys in major operations.
It is interesting to note that an export version of the Kaba-class destroyers was built during for the French Navy. They became the twelve ship of the Arabe-class (Algérien, Annamite, Arabe, Bambara, Hova, Kabyle, Marocain, Sakalave, Sénégalais, Somali, Tonkinois, and Touareg). They were all withdrawn from service and scrapped between 1933 and 1936.
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A number of the Kaba class destroyers served in the Mediterranean during World War One as part of a Japanese convoy escort squadron along with a couple of their light cruisers. It would make an interesting scenario to pit one of these convoys against a pair of marauding Austro-Hungarian cruisers along with their own destroyer escorts.
ReplyDeleteAndy Hussey,
DeleteThanks for the scenario suggestion. I don’t currently have any Austria-Hungarian ships in my collection, but I do have three Turkish and Greek pre-dreadnoughts and I might be able to devise a scenario that uses them.
All the best,
Bob
A couple of thoughts:
Delete[a] one of the unknowns arising from WW1 is that, while the Japanese both built some destroyers for France AND also sent a destroyer flotilla of their own to aid the Allied effort in the Mediterranean (a theatre of operations in which U-boats were particularly successful, mainly against Allied merchant ships), it doesn't appear that the IJN drew the lessons, from this Mediterranean experience, that we might have expected. Famously, they didn't take the Allied submarine threat to their own WW2 merchant marine seriously enough, until it was far too late...
[b] Having beaten the Ottoman Navy twice in the First Balkan War (their armoured crusier Georgios Averoff being superior to the old Ottoman battleships Barbaros Hayreddin, Turgut Reis and Mesudiye), in 1914 both the Greeks and the Turks were worried that another war between their countries might be imminent. The Ottomans had ordered two dreadnought battleships from Britain (though in the event, these ships were taken over by us in August 1914, becoming HMSs Erin and Agincourt), and in response the Greeks ordered a dreadnought from Germany (Salamis, work on which ceased once WW1 began; her 14-inch guns were made in the US, and were eventually sold to Britain and used in monitors) and another from France. Knowing that at least one of the British-built dreadnoughts was bound to be completed before Salamis would be delivered, the Greeks bought two surplus (quite modern) pre-dreadnoughts from the US, which became Lemnos and Kilkis. The Ottomans worried that, when their first dreadnought was being delivered, sailing via the Aegean, the Greeks might try to intercept her with their best ships. And
- while the dreadnought (with fourteen 12-inch/45 guns or ten 13.5-inch/45, depending on which ship sailed first) would on paper be superior to the best Greek warships (Averoff, Lemnos, Kilkis: combined armament eight 12-inch/45 guns, sixteen 8-inch/45s, sixteen 7-inch/45s on the two battleships; four 9.2-inch/46.7s and eight 7.5-inch/45s on Averoff)
- the Ottoman crews sent to man the first British-built dreadnought to be completed would be relatively inexperienced in working that ship, having only had a week or two to get used to her en route from Britain. The Ottomans sent the best sailors they had, and the captain sent to command one of the dreadnoughts was their only naval officer to distinguish himself in the First Balkan War (Rauf, later surnamed Orbay, who had commanded the small cruiser Hamidiye), but few Ottoman sailors (or officers) had had the sea time to become very practised, even on ships with which they were already familiar.
- An action between the two Greek pre-dreadnoughts and Averoff, against a 'green' Ottoman dreadnought assisted by the much-inferior Ottoman pre-dreadnoughts (e.g. the two ex-German ships had deteriorated in Ottoman hands, and lacked gunsights and some watertight doors), could make an interesting counterfactual...
Bob -
DeleteThe Austrian 'pre-dreadnought' Radetzky was a very fine battleship. In the service of Izumrud-Zeleniya, it carries the flag of Admiral Xavier Yevgenivitch Znosko-Borovski.
Your collection seems to be taking on epic proportions! methinks your Belle Epoch 'historiography' is going to be something to see!
Cheers,
Ion
Toby E,
DeleteThat’s a lot of very useful and thought-provoking information.
It’s interesting that the Japanese didn’t learn from their experience in the Mediterranean that escorted convoys was the best way to protect their merchant fleet/supply lines. Mind you, didn’t Admiral King (a notorious Anglophobe) reject the RN’s experience combating the U-boat menace, and this led to the second ‘happy time’ for the German submarine arm.
The mini arms race in the eastern Mediterranean is often overlooked … and did provide the Royal Navy with two ‘extra’ dreadnoughts in 1914 as well as some excellent guns with which to arm four monitors.
Seeing a mixed armoured cruiser/pre-dreadnought force vs. a modern dreadnought would be an interesting ‘what if …’ … almost a sort of early version of the Battle of the River Plate scenario! It would make an excellent hidden scenario for a wargame.
All the best,
Bob
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteI need to address the naval side of my Belle Epoque project over the next few months. I did build a number of suitable model warships some time ago, but I think that I’d like to start again from scratch.
All the best,
Bob
BOB,
ReplyDeleteWell done on listing the ships histories- where do you source your information? Cheers. KEV.
Kev Robertson (Kev),
DeleteCheers! I am a bit of an amateur naval historian and have several metres (about 5, I think) of naval reference and history books.
All the best,
Bob
Bob, at the rate you;re going, you'll soon have more ships than the actual IJN!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Dave