#Japanese Heavy Cruiser

[postcard-from-the-past]

Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi on a vintage postcard

[carbone14]

Croiseur lourd USS Augusta (CA-31) ancré au large du district de Pudong pendant les combats de la bataille de Shanghai – Guerre sino-japonaise – Shanghai – Chine – Août 1937

©United States Navy Naval History and Heritage Command - NH 78379

[captain-price-unofficially]

Japanese heavy cruiser Mikuma sinking during the Battle of Midway after being struck by multiple American aircraft, 6 June 1942

[judgemark45]

The Japanese battleship Haruna conducting trials following her major reconstruction in 1934.

During her reconstruction, Haruna took on enough additional weaponry, armor, and other equipment that it required adding blisters to her hull (improving her stability while also increasing her protection against underwater threats). This led to an increase in her displacement by roughly 5,000 long tons. Her standard displacement grew from 27,500 long tons to 32,200 long tons. Her new full load displacement grew to roughly 36,600 long tons.

Despite the increase in tonnage and the widening of the beam from 92' (28m) to a new maximum of 101' 8" (31m), the speed of Haruna actually increased. This was due to a new powerplant, her sixteen coal-fired boilers (the result of a 1920s modernization that replaced her original thirty-six boilers) being replaced by eleven brand-new oil-fired models. This doubled her power from 64,000shp (her original output) to a new maximum of 136,000shp. The increase in power was also helped by grafting a new stern section to the hull, increasing her length by 26' (7.8m) and helping maintain her length-to-beam ratio even with the new blisters. This was enough to permit a new maximum speed of just over 30 knots.

Now, a lot of people would say this was all for naught, considering the armor was still relatively light by battleship standards. This certainly showed itself to be a problem when Kirishima was destroyed by American battleships. On the other hand, the Kongo class were far more likely to meet enemy destroyers or cruisers in combat. In this regard, the armor was sufficient.

I would go so far to say that the Kongo class were the most useful battleships in the Japanese Navy during World War 2. Their speed made them far more flexible and able to undertake a greater variety of roles.

The only major weakness of the rebuilt Kongo class was their lack of a truly modern anti-aircraft weapon system. Of course, this was a problem that affected Japan as a whole. Had the Kongo class had access to some improved anti-aircraft weapons, perhaps the 100mm heavy anti-aircraft weapons, they would have proved to be even better escorts in fleet actions.

[cursedalthoughts]

PR6 - Kearsarge

Ok, don't laugh.

I can't find any good 'accurate' angel iconography right now - at least nothing that matches what I see in Kearsarge, but her design is very angelic. In the literal sense, unlike Plymmouth and Brest; who have divine elements in their design, but are not angels. No, Kearsarge is something else. Not angelic, but a proper angel.

However, she is not a normal angel. No, far from it.

According to the lore (that I can remember right now, meaning I'm probably getting something wrong), Priority Research ships are pulled in their entirety from different realities. The process of building them is similar to 'blueprint ships'. A blueprint ship, according to Kirov in her debut event Northern Overture, is a ship that didn't quite exist in our reality, but still had enough planned components to qualify as being somewhat real - Brünhilde, Sovetsky Soyuz, Tosa, Prinz Heinrich, those ships that didn't exist but we can acquire through the gacha are blueprint ships.

Priority Research ships take this concept and run with it until the very end - by getting ships Wargaming has designed for World of Warships, but that's the meta out-of-universe explanation. In-universe, they are ships that, in some cases, weren't even planned to begin with. Roon is the best example, in my opinion - and by extension Hindenburg as well, I believe. Roon wasn't planned at any point during WW2. There were some designs, to the best of my knowledge, about a potential triple 203mm turret, but that's the whole extent.

On the opposite side, you have Ibuki. Ibuki was being built in real life, as a heavy cruiser in fact, but they started converting her to a seaplane tender before WW2 ended, and they never finished her.

USS Kearsarge is the name Wargaming chose for an insane design by Gibbs & Cox - Project 1058.1, of a hybrid battleship commissioned by the USSR. As Kearsarge herself says in her introduction, let's refer to this as Hybrid Idealization X. Designed from the keel up to be a pure hybrid BB, unlike the Japanese hybrids. This design, however, was never properly built. A good read about this 'Project X' hybrid is this article by Wargaming themselves: Kearsarge — The Legacy of Ship “X”

USS Kearsarge

How does all of this relate to Azur Lane and why her design is so angel-like?

The way I interpret the game mechanics and lore we know, is that PRs are from another universe entirely. My interpretation is that we don't get the other universe's version of, say, Chkalov; but an interpretation of her.

This is my headcanon: Kearsarge, in her original reality, is an attempt at creating an angel. I suspect she comes from either Anchorage's reality (based on how similar their design philosophies are, as if Anchorage were a little cherub, explaining her infant-like personality), or the reality we visit in Yorktown's II event. Maybe they are the same. Maybe one of the realities is an alternate universe of the other one, making them related.

Kearsarge has a sort of halo device that acts as a sort of physical interface between her and her rigging. She is literally hooked up to her halo, and her halo is in turn connected to her own rigging.

Her rigging, while only having two 'wings', is designed in such a way to appear as if she has more than two wings. Like a seraph, she gives the impression of having six wings.

I don't really have a conclusion. This is reaching, but this is what brainrot does to you.

--

--

Anyway. I want Kearsarge right fucking now.

[mareislandfoundation]

A Legacy

It is in the heart of the first United States naval base on the Pacific Ocean and it stands on the same foundation as the original commandant’s mansion. The first mansion was the home of one of the most famous naval officers in US history, Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, and it was destroyed in the Mare Island earthquake of 1898. Today’s mansion still stands on that original foundation, but much has changed from the days when that first mansion was constructed in the 1850’s. The mansion has transitioned from outdoor to indoor plumbing, oil lamps to electric lighting, carriage houses to garages etc. Of course, most of those changes were the result of the labors of public works employees or contractors, but the 10,340 bricks that constitute the walkways that meander through the spacious gardens were the work of one man who happened to command the naval base.

Vice Admiral Lowry was a man of small stature, but he was also a highly decorated naval officer who saw service in both World Wars. He was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism and distinguished service as Commanding Officer of the Heavy Cruiser USS Minneapolis (CA-36), during operations at the battle of the Coral Sea only 5 months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Following that attack Japanese forces had been rolling nearly unopposed across the Pacific. Then on 7 and 8 May 1942 his ship inflicted considerable damage on the Japanese and rendered vital protection to the US aircraft carrier USS Lexington to which it was assigned. The Battle of the Coral Sea was important as it was the first pure carrier-versus-carrier battle in history as neither surface fleet sighted the other. Though a draw, it was an important turning point in the war in the Pacific because, for the first time, the Allies had stopped the Japanese advance and lines of communication to Australia and New Zealand were kept open.

Admiral Lowry later commanded the invasions on the other side of the world at Salerno and Anzio (Italy). Lowry's Task Force 81 contained over 250 combat-loaded vessels and amphibious assault craft of all sizes and descriptions. Admiral Lowry also commanded the 74 vessels of Task Force X-Ray, assigned to see American forces safely ashore and to support their beachhead operations at Anzio. With the war ended, Admiral Lowry was soon put in command of Mare Island Naval Shipyard where he indulged one of his great passions, gardening. Admiral Lowry commanded Mare Island for 2 ½ years from 1947 to 1950 and during that time he constructed all the brick pathways that interlace the gardens behind the mansion.

Dennis Kelly

[ultrajaphunter]

Launched in 1923, the S-44 was one of few “old pigboats” that saw extensive service in WW2 when the US Navy was desperate for Submarines after the onset of Pearl Harbor.

Serving on such boats took extra courage! I find these boats unique in that they were not the more well-known modern Gato or Balao-class boats,

but already had 20 years of service behind them when asked again to serve their country in time of war!.

With the leaks and deficiencies in these older submarines

(e.g., limited depth, speed,

no rear tubes,

and range capability), these boats still nonetheless served with distinction in WW2. S-44 earned two battle stars and has the distinction of being the first US Submarine in WW2 to sink an enemy cruiser -

that of the IJN heavy cruiser Kako in 1942 during the Battle of Savo Island!

But she was also tragically, the only S-Class boat to be lost to enemy action when she was sunk on 7 October 1943, as a result of surface gunfire with the Japanese Destroyer Escort Ishigaki off the Kuril Islands.

She was lost with only 2 survivors out of a complement of 38 crew (Lt.Cdr. Francis Elwood Brown went down with the ship).

Given this unique history, I wanted to build this boat!

I originally wanted to build the resin 1/350 S-Class model by Blue Water Navy but,

found it is very rare (if anyone has one, I am still interested as I collect 1/350 USN WW2 submarines).

With no luck in getting the 1/350 BWN model,

I decided to scratch-build one in 1/72. Given I had more time than usual with Covid19,

I started this project only in June 2020 and expect to finish in a month or so –

a record for my scratch-built projects which can last about a year minimum.

Here are pictures of the model in-progress thus far. It is not yet finished as I STILL have to add the many rivets found on these old boats!!!

The model was based on an old vacuform kit of a generic S-Class boat by the now defunct Combat Models.

However I found the old vacuform kit),

was not accurate in shape nor detailed enough as a start.

So far, the approach was to use the Combat Models as a guide to re vacuform the hull based on new plans I bought.

Methods included thermo forming,

along with styrene,

bass wood,

metal,

photo-etch,

resin casting,

and lots of gizmology parts from the spares box!

There is no major definitive book outlining the details of these old boats!

I relied solely on two grainy photos that exist of her as she exited Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in her last refit in summer 1943.

I also used photos of her near sisters (S-42 to S-46),

to guess at the rest of the details that could not be ascertained in those two old photos...

You will note that the boat had many details that are not symmetrical and aligned such as the flood holes (remember this boat was constructed in 1920!).

This is replicated on the model on purpose based on period photos of her flood hole arrangements.

While I thought a submarine would be relatively easy to scratch build,

I take that back as she has tons of little deck details.

The conning tower alone has about 150 parts itself.

In total, there will be about 400 parts to this “simple” sub.

It is not all scratch…the deck gun is from White Ensign Models

(but with more details added),

and the AA gun is from UM.

The S-44 was the only boat to mount this massive 4”/50 deck gun,

and her near sisters had the smaller 3” guns.

The paint scheme is of utmost challenge as she was simply “all black”.

I do not know how to go about it, but will tackle it one step at a time.

Thus the model represents S-44 after her final refit in June 1943,

and in what she might have looked at the time of her loss near Japan –

an old boat with a more modern conning tower!

This model is a tribute to all the crew on that boat, and those submariners still on “eternal patrol”.

I hope to contribute it and find a home for it one day at some naval museum.

More Pics on FB - Harvey Low

[manfrommars2049]

Japanese Navy Heavy Cruiser "Takao" by Vlad Averi via ImaginaryWarships

[c0rvid-19]

I have been playing Azur lane for a while and have been noticing a sad trend in the new ships. In recent events they have been creeping more and more into really obscure ships that really didn’t do anything major irl, while they are ignoring extremely interesting and important ships from WWII.

I have, for a long while now, been hoping that they add some of the members of Taffy 3. Most specifically USS Johnston and USS Samuel B. Roberts.

Johnston in port

USS Johnston, when IJN Yamato and her escorts first engaged the small task force, provided smoke cover for the retreating CVEs. The ship broke off from the force much earlier than any others, and faced the enemy head on, forcing one heavy crusader, IJN Kunamo, to be scuttled later on. Johnston would score a couple hundred hits with her 5 inch guns, before being sunk, (reported as a cruiser by the Japanese). She would receive 6 battle stars, her captain was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and Yukikaze saluted her as she sunk.

Samuel B. Roberts under way

Later in the engagement, the escort destroyer USS Samuel B. Roberts would earn herself one of the coolest titles ever. Once the carriers were somewhat safe in a rain squall, the rest of the destroyer escort was ordered to commence torpedo runs on their pursuers. The Roberts would assist in this task, and would end up expending the entirety of her ammunition before finally being sunk. She would receive a single battle star, with one of her gunners earning a posthumous silver star. She would also earn the title of “The escort destroyer that fought like a battleship” for her actions.

Both of these ships are extremely cool, and they prevented the complete destruction of American landing points on Samar. But they are completely ignored for ships as far back as WWI.

[larathia]

There's a bizarre kind of sweetness to Girls und Panzer that makes me think someone started the project on a whim and then went "nonono I'm SERIOUS" only to find the concept wasn't lending itself to seriousness without a LOT of mental gymnastics.

Like. You can tell, up front, that basically this anime was written by somebody that just really, really loved tanks. All the tanks. Big tanks, little tanks. All the tanks. And they had the not-too-weird thought of "well, girls and guns is hot. And girls and motorbikes is hot. So, if I put cute teenage girls in tanks, that's gotta be hot too, right?"

And as far as that goes, he wasn't wrong. But then, poor ideas-guy, they started trying to make that make sense. So there's whole bits about how the WHOLE COUNTRY loves tankery. There's tankery shops, and tankery cafes, and whole naval cruisers set aside for tankery battles. And the advertisements are all about how tankery is a 'feminine art' and will make women more beautiful and desirable and so on.

At which point I started thinking "You're overthinking this, writer person. You prooobably should've just stuck with 'girls in tanks = hot'."

And then...the Traditional Japanese Girl mindset met 'tank' and you can just see the worldbuilding collapsing. The tanks are too loud! The seats are uncomfortable! The paint scheme is drab! Cleaning tanks gets you sweaty and dirty! ...All of which kinda flies in the face of Tankery being seen as a 'feminine art', because if this world as set up REALLY THOUGHT THAT, the girls wouldn't be having those reactions.

They certainly wouldn't be having the reactions of 'let's paint our tank red and reflective gold and cover it with flags', or 'paint it pink', or 'decorate it with delicate lacy curtains and soft cushions and cute stickers'.

Please note that I am not saying tanks can't be (or aren't) feminine. Or that 'driving a tank' is somehow not feminine. I am saying that the worldbuilding of the anime is trying to have it both ways, by saying tanks as we know them are inherently feminine while at the same time having every girl in the setting who isn't raised in the art finding it unpleasant and uncomfortable and in need of ...well, what Japanese culture tends to think of as 'feminine touches'. If Tankery in this setting really IS a 'feminine art', then the tanks would either ALREADY LOOK LIKE THAT, or the girls would be just fine with them as they are.

(Much like we don't bat an eye at 'horse girls', who are just fine with mucking out stalls and other 'heavy/unpleasant work' related to horses, yet they aren't seen as less 'girl' for this - on the contrary it's often seen as a perfectly normal thing.)

....I do love that they're making a distinction between 'tankery' and 'warfare'. It feels kind of like the distinction between 'fencing' and 'actually trying to kill an opponent with a sword' at times, but it's intriguing.

That said, I may have to rewatch this series a few times because the pieces don't mesh together quite right and that tends to make me want to write fanfic. (I mean Our Heroine STARTED THE SERIES WITH IDENTIFIABLE PTSD WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT IT.)

[nebris]

Operation Hailstone (Japanese: トラック島空襲, romanized: Torakku-tō Kūshū, lit. 'airstrike on Truk Island'), 17–18 February 1944, was a massive United States Navy air and surface attack on Truk Lagoon, conducted as part of the American offensive drive against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) through the Central Pacific Ocean during World War II.

Prior to Hailstone, the IJN had used Truk as an anchorage for its large Combined Fleet. The coral atoll surrounding Truk's islands created a safe harbor, where the few points of ingress and egress had been fortified by the Japanese with shore batteries, antiaircraft guns, and airfields.

American estimates of Truk's defenses and its role as a stronghold of the Japanese Navy led newspapers and military men to call it the "Gibraltar of the Pacific", or to compare it with Pearl Harbor. Truk's location in the Caroline Islands also made it an excellent shipping hub for armaments and aircraft moving from Japan's home islands down through the South Seas Mandate and into the Japanese "Southern Resources Area".

By early 1944, Truk was increasingly unsustainable as a forward base of operations for the Japanese. To the west, American and Australian forces under General Douglas MacArthur had moved up through the Southwest Pacific, isolating or overrunning many Japanese strong points as part of Operation Cartwheel. The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army, under the command of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, had overrun the most important islands in the nearby Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands, and then built numerous air bases there.

As a result, the Japanese Navy had to relocate the Combined Fleet's forward base to the Palau Islands, and eventually to Indonesia, and the fleet had begun clearing its major warships – carriers, battleships, and heavy cruisers – out of Truk before the Hailstone attack struck.

Nevertheless, the Hailstone attack on Truk caught a good number of Japanese auxiliary ships and cargo ships in the harbor, as well as some smaller warships. Between the air attacks and surface-ship attacks over the two days of Hailstone, the worst blow against the Japanese was about 250 warplanes destroyed, with the concurrent loss of irreplaceable experienced pilots, and 17,000 tons of stored fuel.  Also, about 40 ships – two light cruisers, four destroyers, nine auxiliary ships, and about two dozen cargo vessels – were sunk.

Considerable damage was inflicted on the various island bases, including dockyards, communications centers, supply dumps, and its submarine base. Truk remained effectively isolated for the remainder of the war, cut off and surrounded by the American island-hopping campaign in the Central Pacific, which also bypassed important Japanese garrisons and airfields in the Bismarck Archipelago, the Caroline Islands, the Marshalls, and the Palaus. Meanwhile, the Americans built new bases from scratch at places including the Admiralty Islands, Majuro, and Ulithi Atoll, and took over the major port at Guam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hailstone

[petermorwood]

I like this a lot, especially the inclusion of Tolkien as translator! :->

However, IMO it shouldn't be set during the Blitz but at the height of the Battle of Britain, and a good day for it might be September 15th 1940.

That was the day when Churchill, visiting a fighter control station during the height of massive raids, was told that every single RAF aircraft from 11 Group (defending London and the south-east) was in action. Churchill asked, "What about reserves?" and got a simple answer:

"We have none..."

*****

The 1969 film "Battle of Britain" did it like this. No CGI here, just practical effects, model aircraft and real ones (enough real ones to be the 35th largest air force in the world...)

*****

To enlarge a bit, the Blitz - while protracted and unpleasant - wasn't Britain's darkest hour.

That more likely came in 1942 with a string of retreats and defeats, including a couple where superior British forces surrendered to a much smaller enemy and one piece of amazing audacity.

Japanese victories in Asia, including the fall of Singapore;

Axis victories in North Africa, including the fall of Tobruk,

Operation Cerberus, the "Channel Dash", when two German battleships, a heavy cruiser and all their escort vessels sailed from France to Germany in broad daylight through the Straits of Dover.

An extraordinary sequence of misfortunes (bad weather, faulty radar) and cock-ups (over-strict radio silence, wrong ammunition) meant British Channel defences were - in a period phrase - "caught with both pairs of trousers at the cleaners", and caused virtually no damage to the enemy ships despite them being right on Britain's doorstep.

(Both German battleships were damaged by mines before they got home, but that wasn't a result of deliberate attacks. All of those were failures. Lots more information here.)

Cerberus wasn't as strategically damaging as Dunkirk, Singapore, Tobruk and too many others, but the impudence and success of it left a lot of egg on a lot of faces.

I have a very rough idea in my head that I don't think I can clearly articulate beyond "And that concludes tonight's reports on German air forc—WHAT'S THIS? IT'S KING ARTHUR WITH A STEEL CHAIR"

[captain-price-unofficially]

Japanese heavy cruiser Atago on full-power trials. Sukumo Bay, 13 February 1932.

[ciamun25-hcc]

Japanese ships bombarding Vladivostok Port!!

25,000 Troops, 20 Destroyers, 10 cruisers, 2 battleships, 1 kongo class battleship, 2 takao class heavy cruisers were sent by Japan to annex the port! Major changes on the way?

[cursedalthoughts]

Analyzing PRs and their WoWs gimmicks - PR1

Very long title for a new kind of post I am going to make. In this smaller series of posts I will look at a PR ship in World of Warships, and then Azur Lane, and try to see if Azur Lane properly portrays their gimmicks or not.

In this first post I will look at PR1 shipgirls, all 6 of them:

HMS Monarch

Starting with my babygirl Monarch, my first ever PR research.

The thing that makes the entire British battleship line stand up from the rest is two-fold: First, from very early tiers, they get an insane fire-starting chane with their high explosive shells (Monarch sits at 35% per shell for 9 shells). This paired with their short-fused AP shells means they are very dangerous to an ample range of ships. Secondly, from Tier 9 upwards, these battleships get a "Specialized Repair Teams" consumable. Normal repair teams heal around 345 HP per second, HMS Lion's repair team heals 1358 HP per second. This is also called a "superheal".

Monarch, sitting at Tier 8, does not get access to this Super Heal. This is very important, as Azur Lane's Monarch does have a skill that mimics a superheal ('Against the Currents+') which heals her 3% of her max HP every 2 seconds for 11 seconds when she falls below 30% HP.

And, ironically, the best way to mimic her absurd High-Explosive performance in WoWs is only possible with Odin's main guns.

My score for Monarch is 4/10: They got a tech tree line gimmick right but it doesn't even apply to Monarch in WoWs, only to her older cousins.

HMS Neptune

Just to finish off the HMS girls in one go, HMS Neptune.

The main features of the British light cruiser line in WoWs are as follows: They can only shoot AP and get no access to HE ammo, they have smoke screen generators (from T9 onwards they can swap it with a radar tho), and are very prone to exploding. Their armor is a joke, from T1 to T11, and no premium British CL is spared from this fate. Well, CAs are the same (which we'll get to in the PR3 post). Their saving grace is their concealment and maneuverability, as their acceleration speed is impressive, meaning they can kite away (run away while playing with your throttle) fairly easily. On top of that, they get access to a heal from very early on (a lot of other cruiser lines have to wait until T8 to get a heal, while the T5 HMS Emerald already has one).

Oh, and their armor piercing shells have what's called "improved penetration angles". This simply means their shells will deal damage to angled enemies, as a compensation for them having only AP ammo.

In Azur Lane, this is perfectly encapsulated with the 'MKV-Class AP Shells' skill (and her FS5 upgraded variant), which makes her AP do more damage. She also gets access to a heal too, in her 'Goddess of the Sea' skill.

Overall, I give Neptune an 8/10. Not a bad representation of her WoWs counterpart.

IJN Ibuki

Ibuki is a fairly straight forward ship, both in AL and WoWs.

In WoWs, Ibuki is a stealthy assassin. Her 10km torpedoes deal a decent 17k damage hit each, having 8 of them per side. In AL, Ibuki feels like a much improved version of Takao and Atago, while not providing anything new in particular.

I have barely played Ibuki in WoWs, so I can't give an appropiate rundown of what makes the Japanese heavy cruiser line unique. Zao, at T10, is the sistership of IJN Unzen (our most recent IJN gacha UR), and is an overall scary ship in good hands; her high explosive deals a lot of damage and has a decent fire chance, and she is a very stealthy ship. The armor piercing of these cruisers is unremarkable from T3 to T10, Ibuki being no exception.

In Azur Lane, she has a skill ('Body and Soul') that augments the crit% and crit dmg% of her torpedoes, and the FS5 evolved version gives her an EVA boost right afterwards.

Overall, I think Ibuki is another solid 8/10.

IJN Izumo

I have bad things to say about WoWs' Izumo.

In 2018, when PR1 was added, Izumo was a mediocre ship in WoWs. Right now, she's much stronger; however, she's so poorly designed I can't handle her. The bad design is not the fault of Wargaming, as Izumo is a preliminary design of the Yamato-class with 410mm guns instead of 460mm guns.

Her deck was too weak compared to the modern day, meaning Izumo was the perfect target of light cruisers and destroyers, as they could and would burn her to death. In the modern day, her deck is 57mm and 32mm, meaning it is harder to farm with HE. Her rearmost turret angle is incredibly bad, having to expose an uncomfortable amount of her broadside to shoot. A good rule of thumb is that if you have to bring your rear turrets to bear for an enemy, that enemy can hit your citadel; and Izumo (and Yamato at T10) are no exceptions, as both ships have a massive weak spot right below their front turrets, the so-called 'cheek armor'. It is much more pronounced in the Yamato (as shown below), but Izumo has this weak spot where even 305mm guns can citadel you from the front.

This aforementioned weakness with her deck armor translates excellently into Azur Lane with her 'Specialized Armor' skill, which makes her more vulnerable to fires, but tankier against AP shells (due to her armor being prone to overpenetrations)

Izumo gets a 7/10 from me.

KMS Roon

Our original, favorite murder-hobo shipgirl, Roon.

In World of Warships she's a completely ficticious upscaled Nürnberg with utterly made-up triple 203mm gun turrets.

Roon's armor is a troll to both the Roon player and the player shooting at the Roon. Most German cruisres have a noteworthy strange aft armor, Hipper being able to take citadel hits when kiting away despite her extreme angle. Roon is much better in this regard, but she still has this flaw; alongside her small turtleback armor (a thing German battleships have as well, which we'll talk about on the PR2 post) means she's hard to citadel up-close but trivially easy to citadel at a certain distance.

German AP is acceptable, but their HE has always been anemic. Most German guns have access to an exceptional rule known as the "1/4 penetration" for their HE, meaning it deals more damage (more info here); but in most cases this hardly compensates for their ratehr bad HE.

In AL, Roon is an all-rounder heavy cruiser capable of tanking and dealing heavy damage. Her skill 'Expert Loader' - literally named after an old commander skill in WoWs that is now named 'Gun Feeder' - feels a bit odd, but makes sense; Expert Loader being a skill that allowed for the quick swapping of the main battery shells from HE to AP or AP to HE (in case, say, a British light cruiser presents her broadside at 10km, becoming a juicy target). I can see the logic behind that skill, same way with 'Well-Rounded Armor' as, well, Roon does have a well-rounded armor in WoWs.

Overall, Roon is a 9/10. Her problem is that she is Roon, the most uninteresting German cruiser of the game (in WoWs).

FFNF Saint Louis

Our favorite traumatized Catholic knight, Saint Louis is the last PR I will cover today

The main features of the French heavy cruisers are simple to understand. They are fast, and have boring guns. The T9 Saint Louis and T10 Henri IV are a bit better - and the relatively new T11 Condé is a ridiculous monster of a ship.

Saint Louis is an incredibly nimble ship, and her guns are at the very least very accurate. Her high explosive is remarkable, too, which is a feature common across the entire French navy in WoWs (Bourgogne being one of the best HE-spamming battleships in the game, for example).

I feel this translates excellently into Azur Lane, as Saint Louis is a fast and nimble heavy cruiser that hits hard, and is a well-rounded shipgirl overall. Her speed and EVA, proportioned by her 'Engine Boost' skill (which is literally the name of the consumable that allows her to go faster in WoWs), is incredible and seeing her dart around the screen at almost destroyer speeds is satisfying. Her skill 'Augmented HE Ammo' is yet another reference to a WoWs commander skill (Inertia Fused HE Shells), as her HE shells do more damage but have less fire chance than usual.

Overall, Saint Louis is the only 10/10 of PR1 in terms of accuracy to World of Warships.

[mareislandfoundation]

Friday the 13th

Head out to Lands’ End in San Francisco and you will encounter what appears to be an observation platform overlooking the mouth of the Golden Gate. It is a memorial built with the battle-scarred bridge wings removed from the Heavy Cruiser USS San Francisco (CA-38) following an epic night battle.

In early 1942 an Allied intelligence aircraft identified that the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had begun constructing a large airfield on an island nobody had ever heard of. Should this airfield become operational, Japanese long-range bombers would threaten the critical sea lanes from the United States to Australia and New Zealand. U.S. Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet, directed the invasion of Guadalcanal to deny the use of the airstrip by the Japanese. With that decision, the stage was set for a bloody battle on land sea and air. The battle began on 7 August 1942, when Allied (primarily U.S.) forces landed against light resistance on Guadalcanal, and the adjacent Tulagi, and Florida Islands in the Solomon Islands. Things rapidly escalated as the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters responded by assigning the Imperial Japanese Army's 17th Army, with the task of retaking Guadalcanal at all costs. In addition, consistent with IJN naval war plans the emerging Guadalcanal conflict was anticipated to provide the opportunity for a decisive naval engagement.  Accordingly, orders were issued to converge on the island. The Japanese General admonished his troops that this was going to be the decisive battle between Japan and the United States. A battle that would determine the rise or fall of the Japanese empire. He was right, and it would take six-months and tens of thousands of lives before the Guadalcanal campaign was decided.

Guadalcanal’s land and naval battles became one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war and it remains legendary in US naval and Marine history. The campaign ended in a US victory and, even though the Marines originally felt deserted by the Navy, the battle at sea was actually bloodier than that on land. Two Mare Island built heavy cruisers the USS Chicago (CA-29) and the San Francisco figured prominently in the ongoing struggle. After the Navy first left the Marines ashore to fend for themselves, it was decided to send available assets on what amounted to a suicide mission pitting US cruisers against the overwhelming superiority of IJN Battleships. The San Francisco, source of  those bridge wings on Lands’ End, played a significant role in that fight which would ultimately result in naval casualties that were three times higher than the losses of the Marines and Army combined. The sea battles mostly took place at night when the IJN would sail down the slot between Florida Island and Guadalcanal to attack US naval assets and bombard US land forces on Guadalcanal.

On March 9, 1933, San Francisco’s namesake, and the second heavy cruiser to be built at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, slid down the building ways. Champagne was not available due to the Prohibition, so she was christened with water from the famed Hetch-Hetchy water system. The christening fluid was even rarer than champagne at the time because after 19 years and many bond issues none of it had yet reached San Francisco (nor would any until another year and half had passed). Approximately 25,000 people gathered on both sides of the channel to see the launch during those early days of the Depression. Few could have envisioned that ten years later the heavily damaged cruiser would limp back to Mare Island for repairs following a night-time engagement in the campaign to capture Guadalcanal.

On the night of Friday, November 13, 1942, the San Francisco attacked a vastly superior Japanese force As part of Task Group 67.4 off the coast of Guadalcanal. It was the most brutal close-quarters naval engagement of World War II. The San Francisco took 45 direct hits and sustained heavy damage while sinking one Japanese ship and seriously damaging two others (including a battleship). With half her crew killed or wounded the remaining crew members performed valiantly as they tended to the casualties and performed damage control. Through their efforts the badly damaged San Francisco survived to fight another day. One hundred and six sailors, including Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan, were killed and 131 more wounded in what Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King called "…the most furious sea battle fought in history." The battle of Friday the 13th was an American strategic victory despite the loss of two cruisers and four destroyers. On that night the valiant actions of those ships prevented the IJN from shelling the Cactus Air Force on Guadalcanal. The next morning that air force decimated the IJN troopships attempting to reinforce and resupply Japanese forces on Guadalcanal. It was the beginning of the end for Japanese efforts to win back Guadalcanal and the San Francisco was a key part of that victory.

The San Francisco was sent back to Mare Island for repairs. Arriving in her namesake city she and her crew were celebrated in week long festivities before returning to Mare Island for repair of her extensive battle damage. By the end of the seven naval battles in the Guadalcanal campaign over 5,000 Americans were killed at sea, and the battleground would be become so littered with sunken combatants that it became known as “Iron Bottom Sound.” To this day you can visit the memorial featuring the battle-scarred bridge wings of the San Francisco at Lands’ End in the city of San Francisco. When you do, reflect on those men who stood watch and died on that bridge knowing they were on a suicide mission during a furious night battle against vastly superior forces.

Dennis Kelly