IJN Armed Merchant Cruisers

[ShindenKai]

Fontessa, are there any drawings that show the shape of the hull stations/bulkheads of any of the Armed Merchant cruisers? Potentially scratch-building one for R/C Warship Combat and I'd like to get the hull shape correct.

[fontessa]

Fontessa, are there any drawings that show the shape of the hull stations/bulkheads of any of the Armed Merchant cruisers? Potentially scratch-building one for R/C Warship Combat and I'd like to get the hull shape correct.

I don't think we can get a drawing showing the dimensions of each part. Some ships have outfits called 一般艤装図 but I don't know if there is an outfit for the auxiliary cruiser. Below is the first half of 鈴谷 Suzuya outfits. Maybe the outfits are big, so it's hard to copy them.

一般艤装図.jpg (116.19 KiB) Viewed 767 times

fontessa

[ShindenKai]

Fontessa, that's fantastic. Something more like this:

[fontessa]

Fontessa, that's fantastic. Something more like this:

Can you show the Kanji Title of your book? 船型図?

fontessa

[ShindenKai]

Well, there isn't any Kanji. Its Polish, and its not really a "book" its just 6 bi-fold pages of plans (11.75" x 16" folded out).
Showing the lay-outs with hull-stations/bulkheads/rib shapes of the Matsu and two other ships of the class.

Matsu 1944

Keyaki 1/1945 & 6/1945

Take 6/1945

Plan sizes are 1/700, 1/350 and 1/200.

I was using it to illustrate the hull drawings I'm looking for.

[fontessa]

Well, there isn't any Kanji. Its Polish, and its not really a "book" its just 6 bi-fold pages of plans (11.75" x 16" folded out).
Showing the lay-outs with hull-stations/bulkheads/rib shapes of the Matsu and two other ships of the class.

Matsu 1944

Keyaki 1/1945 & 6/1945

Take 6/1945

Plan sizes are 1/700, 1/350 and 1/200.

I was using it to illustrate the hull drawings I'm looking for.

The Kanji for the drawing in interest is 線図 Sen-zu and the front view is called 正面線図 Front Sen-zu or 船体線図 Hull Sen-zu. I checked various libraries, but couldn’t find auxiliary cruisers Sen-zu. For this reason, I think that auxiliary cruisers were built, and refurbished by civilian shipyards. So IJN didn’t have their Se-zu.

Aikoku Maru, Hokoku Maru, and Gokoku Maru were built by Tama shipyard, which was absorbed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry after the war. I inquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, "Are you taking over the drawings?" The drawings are probably not left, if there will be a preferable answer, I' will inform you.

fontessa

[ijnfleetadmiral]

Aikoku Maru, Hokoku Maru, and Gokoku Maru were built by Tama shipyard, which was absorbed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry after the war. I inquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, "Are you taking over the drawings?" The drawings are probably not left, if there will be a preferable answer, I' will inform you.

Be interesting if they had more photos of the trio as well. I've only ever seen one photo of GOKOKU MARU, and that was taken at her launching. Lack of photos was probably due to the war. What are your views on this, my friend?

[fontessa]

Aikoku Maru, Hokoku Maru, and Gokoku Maru were built by Tama shipyard, which was absorbed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry after the war. I inquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, "Are you taking over the drawings?" The drawings are probably not left, if there will be a preferable answer, I' will inform you.

Be interesting if they had more photos of the trio as well. I've only ever seen one photo of GOKOKU MARU, and that was taken at her launching. Lack of photos was probably due to the war. What are your views on this, my friend?

We can some photographs of 愛国丸 Aikokumaru, 報国丸 Hokoku Maru and 護国松 Gokoku Maru from Japanese Wiki. Hokoku Maru bow photo is interesting.

特設巡洋艦 愛国丸.jpg (47.71 KiB) Viewed 665 times

特設巡洋艦 報国丸 1.jpg (56.14 KiB) Viewed 665 times

特設巡洋艦 報国丸 2.jpg (65.97 KiB) Viewed 665 times

特設巡洋艦 護国丸.jpg (55.12 KiB) Viewed 665 times

fontessa

[ijnfleetadmiral]

Yes, that's the one photo of GOKOKU MARU I have.

[Eugen Pinak]

Aikoku Maru, Hokoku Maru, and Gokoku Maru were built by Tama shipyard, which was absorbed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry after the war. I inquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, "Are you taking over the drawings?" The drawings are probably not left, if there will be a preferable answer, I' will inform you.

Fontessa-san, I'd like to know about those drawings and any other info about those ships too.
When I was working on my book about IJN seaplane carriers, I've tried to find out, if any drawings of "Kamikawa Maru" class survived in Kawasaki archives. Apparently none survived, even though they survived the war.

[ShindenKai]

Aikoku Maru, Hokoku Maru, and Gokoku Maru were built by Tama shipyard, which was absorbed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industry after the war. I inquired Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, "Are you taking over the drawings?" The drawings are probably not left, if there will be a preferable answer, I' will inform you.

fontessa

Wow! You're going above & beyond anything I could've imagined, Thank you very much Fontessa!

[ShindenKai]

When I was working on my book about IJN seaplane carriers, I've tried to find out, if any drawings of "Kamikawa Maru" class survived in Kawasaki archives. Apparently none survived, even though they survived the war.

Would those Seaplane carriers include the Nisshin and Chiyoda?? I have a very keen interest in their internal workings of their hangars, cranes, dollies or whatever was used to move the aircraft around and even keener interest of how they launched the Kō-hyōteki-class midget submarines!

[Eugen Pinak]

When I was working on my book about IJN seaplane carriers, I've tried to find out, if any drawings of "Kamikawa Maru" class survived in Kawasaki archives. Apparently none survived, even though they survived the war.

Would those Seaplane carriers include the Nisshin and Chiyoda?? I have a very keen interest in their internal workings of their hangars, cranes, dollies or whatever was used to move the aircraft around and even keener interest of how they launched the Kō-hyōteki-class midget submarines!

Yes, me and my co-author covered them too. As well as all other seaplane carriers, both converted and purpose-built.
Unfortunately the book is in Russian.
You can see cover and some pages here at my Dream: https://eugen-pinak.dreamwidth.org/39918.html

[ShindenKai]

Yes, me and my co-author covered them too. As well as all other seaplane carriers, both converted and purpose-built.
Unfortunately the book is in Russian.
You can see cover and some pages here at my Dream: https://eugen-pinak.dreamwidth.org/39918.html

Unfortunately, the images of the book itself aren't working on my end (maybe pc settings-I need to figure out). But the auto-translations of adjoining info is VERY interesting! I have much reading ahead me! Love your work! -I didn't see much on the midget subs, maybe I just haven't found the right link within the link, yet. Is your book drawing/illustration/picture heavy?? The other images in that thread link show up just fine, pics/drawings I haven't seen before. GREAT STUFF! Thank you!! I NEED TO GET YOUR BOOK.

I'm very curious about the "speedboats Ko & Otsu" any further info?

P.S.-It looks like the Japanese were far beyond everyone else in regards to amphibious assault ships, definitely the inspiration for modern ships.

[fontessa]

I'm very curious about the "speedboats Ko & Otsu" any further info?

You mean "small submarines Ko & Otsu (Ko-target)"?
IJN emphasized small submersibles. For example, Ko-Targets were used in the Pearl Harbor Attack and then used to Attack Sydney Bay. These Ko-Targets were carried by I-go submarines. The main purpose of KO-Targets was to use them secretly and miraculously during the Fleet decisive battle. Nisshin and her colleagues were built as Ko-Target Tenders but disguised as Seaplane Tenders for concealment. Each tender carried 12 Ko-Targets, and the slope of the stern allowed them to be launched quickly. Ko-Target gave birth to Koryu, a "Suicide Sub-boat" for Homeland Defense.
See;
viewtopic.php?f=65&t=230794&p=2400386#p2399229

fontessa