I'm not sure how we're tagging "fictional" KanColle girls but since it's tagged under KanColle on the artist's Pixiv page I tagged it as such and as an original since USS Missouri is not in the game (as of right now; she might be introduced later or not.)
Aha~ I can't help but imagine what would happen if the US Navy Ships were turned into ship girls. Specifically Missouri here, aside from being the longest surviving WW2 ship (struck in 1995), she held the dubious honor of being (along with her fellow Iowa-class sister ships) the fastest Capital Ship(s) to ever be constructed (yet), at 32kn+ (~32.4, if I remember correctly). This is compared to the German 'Scharnhorst'-class fast-battleship's 32kn (flat) and the Bismark's 30.8kn. The closest Japan had was actually the Kongou-class at 30.5kn (a whole 2mph slower than the Iowa-class...).
Now, according to Navy legend, in pure U.S. tradition the girls had 'limit-breaks' (if you will) built into them that could exceptionally increase their performance, if not at dire costs. When 'running very hot' (another way to say 'overheating the boilers', which was clearly not allowed... there was, of course, no such rule against 'running very hot') the girls could get to speeds upwards of 40kn (~40.3, just slower than super-destroyer Shimakaze at 40.9kn... only twice as large and 13 times as heavy), but the resulting strain would permanently destroy the ship's boilers after only a few hours mandating that they be towed back to safety for emergency repairs... but, the thing was, once they'd successfully overheated the boilers (past a certain point) they couldn't stop them, meaning it was do or die. All of this for a whopping 10mph speed boost... (seriously, they're not outrunning anything much with only that type of speed increase).
Now, there's actually a story to this involving the Missouri and the [cannons of the otherwise uncompleted] Super Yamato if you care to sit there and read it, although it may well not amount to anything much more than an old naval yarn (useful for creative thinking, if nothing else). But, unless someone asks for it, I'll spare you the details.
Yet, even if the story is just a yarn (tall tale/rumor/etc), I don't have sufficient reason to doubt the plausibility itself of the ships having some kind of hidden speed boost (even if not to that extent), seeing as American everything else from diesel submarines to infantry units (yes, infantry units) to the M1 Abrams MBT have them. Seriously, has any one else here ever seen an Abrams fly over a hill at what must have been over a hundred mph with flames shooting out its rear? Lunatic driver acted like he was riding a bucking bronc... some cowboys are just that crazy I guess... (meanwhile the tank commander was yelling every obscenity in the English language at the guy)
Regardless of the whole speed thing, imagine the modernization upgrades... I mean, seriously themodernizationupgrades !
On a darker note: imagine the inter-personnel problems between the IJN fleet girls and the USN girls... even just Missouri here, she was either directly or indirectly responsible/involved_with the sinking of several of their ranks, including the Yamato (in a reserve role).
Regarding what grand_zero put in the spoiler text, that makes me think of the SS Albacore personification pictures I saw the other day on here. I don't think mixing the fleet girls would be a very good idea considering someone would have sunk someone else at some point. Also, imagine trying to put some of both sides into a night battle. I think that might make some of the US girls a little....nervous?
The best and sounds reasonable speculation I heard is that Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine would likely get their ships added first. There's less of them and the whole US Navy can join when more ships are needed for expansion in the game. If KanColle actually last that long.
This is assuming the game admin would rather add one country after another.
I want hear about the encounter between Missouri and the Super Yamato
Okay, here you go. I do warn you... it's quite long.
Show
A while back me and an old naval buddy of mine (he was in the Navy, I was not) were shooting the breeze over a couple of drinks cross the table from each other in the dark corner of a club, talking about naval technologies, the new boats, and how things could be made better... yadda, yadda. I will refrain from boring you with the politics and ways of the defense industry (especially that of the lowly idea man). I, being my big-gun loving self, began lamenting about the demise of the battleship. Lamenting the loss of the iconic symbols of pride and the sheer intimidation factor that having one of those bad-girls sailing aside a naval battlefield (which is counting anywhere inland that naval guns can reach) brings to the table in and of itself. He sat there and listened to me ramble like the kind and somewhat soft-spoken gent that he is up until the point that I conceded that speed was what wound up killing the battleship, since that was the major weakness that I couldn't conceivably negate with some technology angle. Since even the fastest of Battleships, the Missouri, I said off the top of my head, could be ran circles around by even the destroyers of her time, and now that modern destroyers have the firepower to render most armor moot, the whole concept was unfortunately basically moot as well. Here he set his cup down. Now, I've known this man for a rather long time, or at least long enough to know that he holds his drinks the whole time he's drinking it. When he puts down his cup it means that he is either done with the drink or he has something to say, and when he has something to say... well, it's best that you just shut up and let him say it. So I did. Though, what he would say would confuse me somewhat. If I remember correctly, it was something like:
“There was no ship in the war [WW2] that could outrun Big Mo [nickname of the Missouri] when she had a good fire to her heels.”
As I pointed out, this had confused me somewhat since it struck me as odd, a point that I was sure to make clear. I remember retaliating something along the lines of:
“The Iowa-class topped out at just over 35 knots in perfect conditions. In the war alone the Japanese had their 'Shimakaze' which clocked in at 40.9 knots, according to their speed trials. There's no way that a gal as big as Mo could beat that!”
Of course, I had resorted to cheat cheats to recall those numbers.
“No, I can't really say that she can, for sure anyway. However...” he leaned in and lowered his voice “What if I told you that Big Mo once 'was not' clocked at over 40 knots?”
The important thing to note was that 'was not' was accompanied by air-quotation marks, like dangling meat over the cage of a hungry timber wolf. Needless to say, he had my interest.
He would begin by expressing that it was at best an old Navy legend, passed around among a certain bunch in order to inspire awe and admiration, which leaves us with a lot of holes and questions. Of course, as I mentioned, the validity of this story is also at best questionable, as either of us would tell you.
To spare you from having to read the rest of our back and forth (oh, I could give you that, honest), I will pseudo-summarize the story.
-----------------------
What I'm about to tell you never happened, at least not officially. This story takes place during World War 2, supposedly sometime immediately preceding or following the doomed Operation Ten-Go [if you don't know what that is, I suggest learning a little more about your Kancolle ship-girls], therefore sometime around April of 1945, a few months before the end of the war.
One night there was a detachment of Marines investigating what was either an island or a series of islands, depending on who you ask ('island' from here on out for sake of simplicity), where somebody thought they'd seen something that they'd equated to troop movement. Since there were no reports of friendlies being in that particular area, that could only mean one thing: enemies. Therefore, not taking any chances, Command sent in the Marines to recon the area; find out what was actually there; and, should it actually turn out to be an IJA camp, to either make them surrender or to 'give them a taste of hell before they die', either way (it was to be the Japanese's choice). What they found however wasn't an IJA camp, as a matter of fact the Marines initially had no idea exactly what it was that they had found, since their initial impression seemed so out of place... a super bunker with massive coastal defense gun batteries on a 'tiny' seemingly worthless island. Of course, they were wrong (no fault of their own).
What we [the US] would later find is that the Marines had actually uncovered what we assumed at the time was just a piece [as compared to the entirety] of Japan's would-be 'super-secret' Battleship, Design A-150 – a.k.a: the Super-Yamato. Specifically, the 510mm 'dual-gun' turret system. Apparently, the guns had been moved from their original construction site at the Kure Naval Arsenal (where the Yamato-class ships were built, for those who don't know) by an extremist faction of the Japanese military to a concealed base on that island.
Of course, calling a part of the Imperial Japanese military extremist really meant something considering the lengths that the common foot-soldier of the time was willing/forced to go... but I digress.
The faction, it would seem, was intent on outlasting us [the US and by extension our allies] in much the same manner that those straggler soldiers that you used to hear so much about would do later... except on a much grander scale. They intended on building their (pipe)dream battleship, sink shipping, bombard the mainland [that would be the US mainland], and eventually crash the ship into the US Capitol [Washington, D.C.]. An entirely delusional ambition, considering their near entire lack of resources at that point in the war, I assure you.
Somehow, that ambition led them to this island base. A minor but laughable point here is that they seemed to have referred to it as a 'secret shipbuilding facility'... since it apparently wasn't even qualified to be called a shipyard by their standards either, it most certainly wasn't by ours. However, while it may not have been worthy of being called a shipyard, what it was worthy of being called was 'fortress', thanks to the natural defenses of the island, as the Marines would find out the hard way as they began to engage the base. Which partially justified and fuel their initial impression that they had found a super-bunker, until they realized that the guns they had noticed were naval guns turret systems haphazardly fastened to temporary housing units in the island's mountainside while awaiting their more permanent shipborne homes.
Fortunately, the Marines were able to make headway against their dug-in foes on their own, even if only at a snails pace. Which was all well and fine under normal circumstances, unfortunately this situation was anything but normal. One of the Marines found out that at least one of the turrets was not only operational but was in fact at that moment attempting to take aim at Task Force 58, including the Missouri, which was apparently passing by some 25-26 knots away.
The Marines realized that, with their light weaponry, they wouldn't be able to disable the gun in time (or even reach the gun for that matter), so they made contact with the fleet in order to give them heads up on what was going down. On top of this they reported a massive AA grid (apparently around half of the Super-Yamato's would have been AA systems had been moved to the island and installed into the mountainside they would later find), making air attack impossible until the grid could be brought down.
In light of this, the Captain of the Missouri [William Callaghan] made the difficult decision to play scapegoat with his boat and her crew, responding to the call. Knowing full well that, under conventional methods, they'd never reach their effective range before they were sunk, he (apparently) ordered a makeshift club haul [that is to drop anchor at high speeds, forcing a sharp (and dangerous) turn] and made as close to a beeline for the island as he could get Big Mo to go, giving it all she had. According to the legend, when telling the engine room what he needed he supposedly ordered them to 'melt it' ['it' being the boilers and the turbines]. Naturally, all of this made her the primary target of the Cannons. However, on stroke of good fortune, it seemed that the gun crew had been so startled by the 'bizarre' actions of the Missouri that they re-aimed with as much haste as they could muster and thus did so (horribly) wrong sending their first shot spiraling harmlessly into the ocean several thousand feet off the fore and starboard side (front right) of the Missouri, and the recoil of the shot was apparently too much for the turret's relatively weak housing unit as we would later find that it (the housing unit) had begun to come apart (or just outright fall apart, depending on who you're talking to) about that point, making any subsequent shot that much harder to aim, hit, or even reload. Due to this fact, and the diligent harassment of the Marines causing panic and general havoc among the Japanese troops, the next four shots also missed their marks (by varying degrees), allowing the Missouri to safely come into its range a little under 10 heart-pounding minutes later and, with some fire support from the Marines, landed a few choice hits against the cannon, rendering it useless (actually, if the legend's right, they kinda blew it up).
Immediately after entering range, apparently the Captain ordered that the engine room be flooded (after relocating the personnel and all water damageable equipment) in order to cool it down, preventing 'catastrophic meltdown'. For the rest of the battle, the Missouri served as a floating Gun Fire Support platform and continued providing support for the Marines until they had taken control of the base. ...Which didn't take too long after the shelling began, since it seemed to inspire a lot of either suicide or surrender on the part of the Japanese.
Since it had only been 10 minutes, roughly, they managed to 'safely' repair the Missouri's machinery; although, the legend goes, the Missouri never quite made it back to 'top speed' ever again. The legend continues that, upon investigation of the facility, US Intelligence came to possess certain documents pertaining to the Super Yamato's construction and other items of interest, including but not limited to the other completed gun turret (since it was not in operable condition at the time, it's location was not revealed during the engagement and the Japanese had not managed to destroy it). As it would come out, among the captured documents were, ironically, the blueprints... revealing that certain things about it were actually quite revolutionary (at the time) and would have potentially changed warfare forever. (For a laugh, apparently among the list was composite armor.) Naturally, it was deemed far too dangerous to let this type of information out and what exactly was found there was quickly labeled as 'secrets of the state' and later quietly disposed of (in much the same way and for the same reasons that I-401 was done away with... to prevent the Russians from getting a hold of it)... this also included the very existence of the cannons themselves, meaning that this entire battle officially never happened, since if it did, they'd have to admit to the cannons. Which would mean that they'd have to admit to something else, etc, leading up to what it is that they actually don't want to talk about (I'm not telling). The crew who would believe it were informed that this was 'just another bombardment run', those who wouldn't were silenced by other means (ironically, non-violent, non-villainous means... like hush money).
And that concludes the story of the very-short battle between the Missouri and the Super-Yamato's main cannons.
...
What'd I tell you? It's an old navel yarn. Let me be the first here to point out that the story is full of holes, but it did make for some mighty interesting chitchat with my aforementioned friend. After he got through with the story (more enveloped upon then what I'm telling you [I ain't got no death wish, thank you very much]), we both sat there for a moment before bursting out laughing.
...Of course, this was right before he showed me those plans that I mentioned in another post a few days back, intentionally implicating a few things...
---------------------
SindriAndBale said:
Regarding what grand_zero put in the spoiler text, that makes me think of the SS Albacore personification pictures I saw the other day on here. I don't think mixing the fleet girls would be a very good idea considering someone would have sunk someone else at some point. Also, imagine trying to put some of both sides into a night battle. I think that might make some of the US girls a little....nervous?
Yes, the USS Albacore (SS-218) did come to mind there when I asked that. ...But I don't want to drown. post #1533769
As for Night Battles... well, I don't know. We had more than just a share of success during night as well. ...As a matter of fact, later in the war our sensor arrays had gotten so far ahead of the IJN's that we saw them ahead of time, day or night. The Iowa-class battleships, for instance, were drug along with carrier groups not because they were battleships that could keep up with them, but because they had better eyes and ears than the nearest IJN equivalent. There was one point there that the Missouri detected a submarine's periscope. The New Jersey in particular earned its nickname, the 'Black Dragon' of the seas, by way of Night Battle. ... ...Although, coming at this from an entirely different angle... even in the early parts of the war though, thanks to the USN girls' stereotype of being boisterous bruisers... I don't think it would be the USN girls getting nervous, I think it'd be the one that knew what they were doing that would be getting nervous. In other words... If they were allied with each other: “Hey, watch it!!! That was my antenna you just shot off!!!” If they were opponents: “Between the Master and the Rookie, I fear the Rookie... since you never know what they're going to do.”
Seika said:
The best and sounds reasonable speculation I heard is that Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine would likely get their ships added first. There's less of them and the whole US Navy can join when more ships are needed for expansion in the game. If KanColle actually last that long.
This is assuming the game admin would rather add one country after another.
Considering that the Shinkaisei-kan are blatantly modeled off of USN ships? They're already in there in a sense.
But, for the USN, you'd have to have some way of limiting the number. The common idea would be to go for ships that have a story to them. This is what they seem to be doing with Kancolle official. Myself, I'm doing a [very tiny] series of Kancolle USA character mockups. I'm limiting myself to the ships that survived... and I mean till today. Not sunk, lost (I'm looking at you, Albacore), scrapped, or destroyed as a target. This still gives me plenty of ships to work with... and plenty of soul. Aside from the obvious Iowa-class battleships (all 4 survived and have lots of soul) Did you know the Aircraft Carrier judged 'most likely' responsible for sinking the Yamato is still afloat? USS Hornet (CV-12). She's also considered just about the most haunted warship in USN history. That ship's got plenty of soul. *shot for bad pun*
Okay, here you go. I do warn you... it's quite long.
Show
A while back me and an old naval buddy of mine (he was in the Navy, I was not) were shooting the breeze over a couple of drinks cross the table from each other in the dark corner of a club, talking about naval technologies, the new boats, and how things could be made better... yadda, yadda. I will refrain from boring you with the politics and ways of the defense industry (especially that of the lowly idea man). I, being my big-gun loving self, began lamenting about the demise of the battleship. Lamenting the loss of the iconic symbols of pride and the sheer intimidation factor that having one of those bad-girls sailing aside a naval battlefield (which is counting anywhere inland that naval guns can reach) brings to the table in and of itself. He sat there and listened to me ramble like the kind and somewhat soft-spoken gent that he is up until the point that I conceded that speed was what wound up killing the battleship, since that was the major weakness that I couldn't conceivably negate with some technology angle. Since even the fastest of Battleships, the Missouri, I said off the top of my head, could be ran circles around by even the destroyers of her time, and now that modern destroyers have the firepower to render most armor moot, the whole concept was unfortunately basically moot as well. Here he set his cup down. Now, I've known this man for a rather long time, or at least long enough to know that he holds his drinks the whole time he's drinking it. When he puts down his cup it means that he is either done with the drink or he has something to say, and when he has something to say... well, it's best that you just shut up and let him say it. So I did. Though, what he would say would confuse me somewhat. If I remember correctly, it was something like:
“There was no ship in the war [WW2] that could outrun Big Mo [nickname of the Missouri] when she had a good fire to her heels.”
As I pointed out, this had confused me somewhat since it struck me as odd, a point that I was sure to make clear. I remember retaliating something along the lines of:
“The Iowa-class topped out at just over 35 knots in perfect conditions. In the war alone the Japanese had their 'Shimakaze' which clocked in at 40.9 knots, according to their speed trials. There's no way that a gal as big as Mo could beat that!”
Of course, I had resorted to cheat cheats to recall those numbers.
“No, I can't really say that she can, for sure anyway. However...” he leaned in and lowered his voice “What if I told you that Big Mo once 'was not' clocked at over 40 knots?”
The important thing to note was that 'was not' was accompanied by air-quotation marks, like dangling meat over the cage of a hungry timber wolf. Needless to say, he had my interest.
He would begin by expressing that it was at best an old Navy legend, passed around among a certain bunch in order to inspire awe and admiration, which leaves us with a lot of holes and questions. Of course, as I mentioned, the validity of this story is also at best questionable, as either of us would tell you.
To spare you from having to read the rest of our back and forth (oh, I could give you that, honest), I will pseudo-summarize the story.
-----------------------
What I'm about to tell you never happened, at least not officially. This story takes place during World War 2, supposedly sometime immediately preceding or following the doomed Operation Ten-Go [if you don't know what that is, I suggest learning a little more about your Kancolle ship-girls], therefore sometime around April of 1945, a few months before the end of the war.
One night there was a detachment of Marines investigating what was either an island or a series of islands, depending on who you ask ('island' from here on out for sake of simplicity), where somebody thought they'd seen something that they'd equated to troop movement. Since there were no reports of friendlies being in that particular area, that could only mean one thing: enemies. Therefore, not taking any chances, Command sent in the Marines to recon the area; find out what was actually there; and, should it actually turn out to be an IJA camp, to either make them surrender or to 'give them a taste of hell before they die', either way (it was to be the Japanese's choice). What they found however wasn't an IJA camp, as a matter of fact the Marines initially had no idea exactly what it was that they had found, since their initial impression seemed so out of place... a super bunker with massive coastal defense gun batteries on a 'tiny' seemingly worthless island. Of course, they were wrong (no fault of their own).
What we [the US] would later find is that the Marines had actually uncovered what we assumed at the time was just a piece [as compared to the entirety] of Japan's would-be 'super-secret' Battleship, Design A-150 – a.k.a: the Super-Yamato. Specifically, the 510mm 'dual-gun' turret system. Apparently, the guns had been moved from their original construction site at the Kure Naval Arsenal (where the Yamato-class ships were built, for those who don't know) by an extremist faction of the Japanese military to a concealed base on that island.
Of course, calling a part of the Imperial Japanese military extremist really meant something considering the lengths that the common foot-soldier of the time was willing/forced to go... but I digress.
The faction, it would seem, was intent on outlasting us [the US and by extension our allies] in much the same manner that those straggler soldiers that you used to hear so much about would do later... except on a much grander scale. They intended on building their (pipe)dream battleship, sink shipping, bombard the mainland [that would be the US mainland], and eventually crash the ship into the US Capitol [Washington, D.C.]. An entirely delusional ambition, considering their near entire lack of resources at that point in the war, I assure you.
Somehow, that ambition led them to this island base. A minor but laughable point here is that they seemed to have referred to it as a 'secret shipbuilding facility'... since it apparently wasn't even qualified to be called a shipyard by their standards either, it most certainly wasn't by ours. However, while it may not have been worthy of being called a shipyard, what it was worthy of being called was 'fortress', thanks to the natural defenses of the island, as the Marines would find out the hard way as they began to engage the base. Which partially justified and fuel their initial impression that they had found a super-bunker, until they realized that the guns they had noticed were naval guns turret systems haphazardly fastened to temporary housing units in the island's mountainside while awaiting their more permanent shipborne homes.
Fortunately, the Marines were able to make headway against their dug-in foes on their own, even if only at a snails pace. Which was all well and fine under normal circumstances, unfortunately this situation was anything but normal. One of the Marines found out that at least one of the turrets was not only operational but was in fact at that moment attempting to take aim at Task Force 58, including the Missouri, which was apparently passing by some 25-26 knots away.
The Marines realized that, with their light weaponry, they wouldn't be able to disable the gun in time (or even reach the gun for that matter), so they made contact with the fleet in order to give them heads up on what was going down. On top of this they reported a massive AA grid (apparently around half of the Super-Yamato's would have been AA systems had been moved to the island and installed into the mountainside they would later find), making air attack impossible until the grid could be brought down.
In light of this, the Captain of the Missouri [William Callaghan] made the difficult decision to play scapegoat with his boat and her crew, responding to the call. Knowing full well that, under conventional methods, they'd never reach their effective range before they were sunk, he (apparently) ordered a makeshift club haul [that is to drop anchor at high speeds, forcing a sharp (and dangerous) turn] and made as close to a beeline for the island as he could get Big Mo to go, giving it all she had. According to the legend, when telling the engine room what he needed he supposedly ordered them to 'melt it' ['it' being the boilers and the turbines]. Naturally, all of this made her the primary target of the Cannons. However, on stroke of good fortune, it seemed that the gun crew had been so startled by the 'bizarre' actions of the Missouri that they re-aimed with as much haste as they could muster and thus did so (horribly) wrong sending their first shot spiraling harmlessly into the ocean several thousand feet off the fore and starboard side (front right) of the Missouri, and the recoil of the shot was apparently too much for the turret's relatively weak housing unit as we would later find that it (the housing unit) had begun to come apart (or just outright fall apart, depending on who you're talking to) about that point, making any subsequent shot that much harder to aim, hit, or even reload. Due to this fact, and the diligent harassment of the Marines causing panic and general havoc among the Japanese troops, the next four shots also missed their marks (by varying degrees), allowing the Missouri to safely come into its range a little under 10 heart-pounding minutes later and, with some fire support from the Marines, landed a few choice hits against the cannon, rendering it useless (actually, if the legend's right, they kinda blew it up).
Immediately after entering range, apparently the Captain ordered that the engine room be flooded (after relocating the personnel and all water damageable equipment) in order to cool it down, preventing 'catastrophic meltdown'. For the rest of the battle, the Missouri served as a floating Gun Fire Support platform and continued providing support for the Marines until they had taken control of the base. ...Which didn't take too long after the shelling began, since it seemed to inspire a lot of either suicide or surrender on the part of the Japanese.
Since it had only been 10 minutes, roughly, they managed to 'safely' repair the Missouri's machinery; although, the legend goes, the Missouri never quite made it back to 'top speed' ever again. The legend continues that, upon investigation of the facility, US Intelligence came to possess certain documents pertaining to the Super Yamato's construction and other items of interest, including but not limited to the other completed gun turret (since it was not in operable condition at the time, it's location was not revealed during the engagement and the Japanese had not managed to destroy it). As it would come out, among the captured documents were, ironically, the blueprints... revealing that certain things about it were actually quite revolutionary (at the time) and would have potentially changed warfare forever. (For a laugh, apparently among the list was composite armor.) Naturally, it was deemed far too dangerous to let this type of information out and what exactly was found there was quickly labeled as 'secrets of the state' and later quietly disposed of (in much the same way and for the same reasons that I-401 was done away with... to prevent the Russians from getting a hold of it)... this also included the very existence of the cannons themselves, meaning that this entire battle officially never happened, since if it did, they'd have to admit to the cannons. Which would mean that they'd have to admit to something else, etc, leading up to what it is that they actually don't want to talk about (I'm not telling). The crew who would believe it were informed that this was 'just another bombardment run', those who wouldn't were silenced by other means (ironically, non-violent, non-villainous means... like hush money).
And that concludes the story of the very-short battle between the Missouri and the Super-Yamato's main cannons.
...
What'd I tell you? It's an old navel yarn. Let me be the first here to point out that the story is full of holes, but it did make for some mighty interesting chitchat with my aforementioned friend. After he got through with the story (more enveloped upon then what I'm telling you [I ain't got no death wish, thank you very much]), we both sat there for a moment before bursting out laughing.
...Of course, this was right before he showed me those plans that I mentioned in another post a few days back, intentionally implicating a few things...
---------------------
Yes, the USS Albacore (SS-218) did come to mind there when I asked that. ...But I don't want to drown. post #1533769
As for Night Battles... well, I don't know. We had more than just a share of success during night as well. ...As a matter of fact, later in the war our sensor arrays had gotten so far ahead of the IJN's that we saw them ahead of time, day or night. The Iowa-class battleships, for instance, were drug along with carrier groups not because they were battleships that could keep up with them, but because they had better eyes and ears than the nearest IJN equivalent. There was one point there that the Missouri detected a submarine's periscope. The New Jersey in particular earned its nickname, the 'Black Dragon' of the seas, by way of Night Battle. ... ...Although, coming at this from an entirely different angle... even in the early parts of the war though, thanks to the USN girls' stereotype of being boisterous bruisers... I don't think it would be the USN girls getting nervous, I think it'd be the one that knew what they were doing that would be getting nervous. In other words... If they were allied with each other: “Hey, watch it!!! That was my antenna you just shot off!!!” If they were opponents: “Between the Master and the Rookie, I fear the Rookie... since you never know what they're going to do.”
Considering that the Shinkaisei-kan are blatantly modeled off of USN ships? They're already in there in a sense.
But, for the USN, you'd have to have some way of limiting the number. The common idea would be to go for ships that have a story to them. This is what they seem to be doing with Kancolle official. Myself, I'm doing a [very tiny] series of Kancolle USA character mockups. I'm limiting myself to the ships that survived... and I mean till today. Not sunk, lost (I'm looking at you, Albacore), scrapped, or destroyed as a target. This still gives me plenty of ships to work with... and plenty of soul. Aside from the obvious Iowa-class battleships (all 4 survived and have lots of soul) Did you know the Aircraft Carrier judged 'most likely' responsible for sinking the Yamato is still afloat? USS Hornet (CV-12). She's also considered just about the most haunted warship in USN history. That ship's got plenty of soul. *shot for bad pun*
grand_zero said:
Okay, here you go. I do warn you... it's quite long.
Show
A while back me and an old naval buddy of mine (he was in the Navy, I was not) were shooting the breeze over a couple of drinks cross the table from each other in the dark corner of a club, talking about naval technologies, the new boats, and how things could be made better... yadda, yadda. I will refrain from boring you with the politics and ways of the defense industry (especially that of the lowly idea man). I, being my big-gun loving self, began lamenting about the demise of the battleship. Lamenting the loss of the iconic symbols of pride and the sheer intimidation factor that having one of those bad-girls sailing aside a naval battlefield (which is counting anywhere inland that naval guns can reach) brings to the table in and of itself. He sat there and listened to me ramble like the kind and somewhat soft-spoken gent that he is up until the point that I conceded that speed was what wound up killing the battleship, since that was the major weakness that I couldn't conceivably negate with some technology angle. Since even the fastest of Battleships, the Missouri, I said off the top of my head, could be ran circles around by even the destroyers of her time, and now that modern destroyers have the firepower to render most armor moot, the whole concept was unfortunately basically moot as well. Here he set his cup down. Now, I've known this man for a rather long time, or at least long enough to know that he holds his drinks the whole time he's drinking it. When he puts down his cup it means that he is either done with the drink or he has something to say, and when he has something to say... well, it's best that you just shut up and let him say it. So I did. Though, what he would say would confuse me somewhat. If I remember correctly, it was something like:
“There was no ship in the war [WW2] that could outrun Big Mo [nickname of the Missouri] when she had a good fire to her heels.”
As I pointed out, this had confused me somewhat since it struck me as odd, a point that I was sure to make clear. I remember retaliating something along the lines of:
“The Iowa-class topped out at just over 35 knots in perfect conditions. In the war alone the Japanese had their 'Shimakaze' which clocked in at 40.9 knots, according to their speed trials. There's no way that a gal as big as Mo could beat that!”
Of course, I had resorted to cheat cheats to recall those numbers.
“No, I can't really say that she can, for sure anyway. However...” he leaned in and lowered his voice “What if I told you that Big Mo once 'was not' clocked at over 40 knots?”
The important thing to note was that 'was not' was accompanied by air-quotation marks, like dangling meat over the cage of a hungry timber wolf. Needless to say, he had my interest.
He would begin by expressing that it was at best an old Navy legend, passed around among a certain bunch in order to inspire awe and admiration, which leaves us with a lot of holes and questions. Of course, as I mentioned, the validity of this story is also at best questionable, as either of us would tell you.
To spare you from having to read the rest of our back and forth (oh, I could give you that, honest), I will pseudo-summarize the story.
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What I'm about to tell you never happened, at least not officially. This story takes place during World War 2, supposedly sometime immediately preceding or following the doomed Operation Ten-Go [if you don't know what that is, I suggest learning a little more about your Kancolle ship-girls], therefore sometime around April of 1945, a few months before the end of the war.
One night there was a detachment of Marines investigating what was either an island or a series of islands, depending on who you ask ('island' from here on out for sake of simplicity), where somebody thought they'd seen something that they'd equated to troop movement. Since there were no reports of friendlies being in that particular area, that could only mean one thing: enemies. Therefore, not taking any chances, Command sent in the Marines to recon the area; find out what was actually there; and, should it actually turn out to be an IJA camp, to either make them surrender or to 'give them a taste of hell before they die', either way (it was to be the Japanese's choice). What they found however wasn't an IJA camp, as a matter of fact the Marines initially had no idea exactly what it was that they had found, since their initial impression seemed so out of place... a super bunker with massive coastal defense gun batteries on a 'tiny' seemingly worthless island. Of course, they were wrong (no fault of their own).
What we [the US] would later find is that the Marines had actually uncovered what we assumed at the time was just a piece [as compared to the entirety] of Japan's would-be 'super-secret' Battleship, Design A-150 – a.k.a: the Super-Yamato. Specifically, the 510mm 'dual-gun' turret system. Apparently, the guns had been moved from their original construction site at the Kure Naval Arsenal (where the Yamato-class ships were built, for those who don't know) by an extremist faction of the Japanese military to a concealed base on that island.
Of course, calling a part of the Imperial Japanese military extremist really meant something considering the lengths that the common foot-soldier of the time was willing/forced to go... but I digress.
The faction, it would seem, was intent on outlasting us [the US and by extension our allies] in much the same manner that those straggler soldiers that you used to hear so much about would do later... except on a much grander scale. They intended on building their (pipe)dream battleship, sink shipping, bombard the mainland [that would be the US mainland], and eventually crash the ship into the US Capitol [Washington, D.C.]. An entirely delusional ambition, considering their near entire lack of resources at that point in the war, I assure you.
Somehow, that ambition led them to this island base. A minor but laughable point here is that they seemed to have referred to it as a 'secret shipbuilding facility'... since it apparently wasn't even qualified to be called a shipyard by their standards either, it most certainly wasn't by ours. However, while it may not have been worthy of being called a shipyard, what it was worthy of being called was 'fortress', thanks to the natural defenses of the island, as the Marines would find out the hard way as they began to engage the base. Which partially justified and fuel their initial impression that they had found a super-bunker, until they realized that the guns they had noticed were naval guns turret systems haphazardly fastened to temporary housing units in the island's mountainside while awaiting their more permanent shipborne homes.
Fortunately, the Marines were able to make headway against their dug-in foes on their own, even if only at a snails pace. Which was all well and fine under normal circumstances, unfortunately this situation was anything but normal. One of the Marines found out that at least one of the turrets was not only operational but was in fact at that moment attempting to take aim at Task Force 58, including the Missouri, which was apparently passing by some 25-26 knots away.
The Marines realized that, with their light weaponry, they wouldn't be able to disable the gun in time (or even reach the gun for that matter), so they made contact with the fleet in order to give them heads up on what was going down. On top of this they reported a massive AA grid (apparently around half of the Super-Yamato's would have been AA systems had been moved to the island and installed into the mountainside they would later find), making air attack impossible until the grid could be brought down.
In light of this, the Captain of the Missouri [William Callaghan] made the difficult decision to play scapegoat with his boat and her crew, responding to the call. Knowing full well that, under conventional methods, they'd never reach their effective range before they were sunk, he (apparently) ordered a makeshift club haul [that is to drop anchor at high speeds, forcing a sharp (and dangerous) turn] and made as close to a beeline for the island as he could get Big Mo to go, giving it all she had. According to the legend, when telling the engine room what he needed he supposedly ordered them to 'melt it' ['it' being the boilers and the turbines]. Naturally, all of this made her the primary target of the Cannons. However, on stroke of good fortune, it seemed that the gun crew had been so startled by the 'bizarre' actions of the Missouri that they re-aimed with as much haste as they could muster and thus did so (horribly) wrong sending their first shot spiraling harmlessly into the ocean several thousand feet off the fore and starboard side (front right) of the Missouri, and the recoil of the shot was apparently too much for the turret's relatively weak housing unit as we would later find that it (the housing unit) had begun to come apart (or just outright fall apart, depending on who you're talking to) about that point, making any subsequent shot that much harder to aim, hit, or even reload. Due to this fact, and the diligent harassment of the Marines causing panic and general havoc among the Japanese troops, the next four shots also missed their marks (by varying degrees), allowing the Missouri to safely come into its range a little under 10 heart-pounding minutes later and, with some fire support from the Marines, landed a few choice hits against the cannon, rendering it useless (actually, if the legend's right, they kinda blew it up).
Immediately after entering range, apparently the Captain ordered that the engine room be flooded (after relocating the personnel and all water damageable equipment) in order to cool it down, preventing 'catastrophic meltdown'. For the rest of the battle, the Missouri served as a floating Gun Fire Support platform and continued providing support for the Marines until they had taken control of the base. ...Which didn't take too long after the shelling began, since it seemed to inspire a lot of either suicide or surrender on the part of the Japanese.
Since it had only been 10 minutes, roughly, they managed to 'safely' repair the Missouri's machinery; although, the legend goes, the Missouri never quite made it back to 'top speed' ever again. The legend continues that, upon investigation of the facility, US Intelligence came to possess certain documents pertaining to the Super Yamato's construction and other items of interest, including but not limited to the other completed gun turret (since it was not in operable condition at the time, it's location was not revealed during the engagement and the Japanese had not managed to destroy it). As it would come out, among the captured documents were, ironically, the blueprints... revealing that certain things about it were actually quite revolutionary (at the time) and would have potentially changed warfare forever. (For a laugh, apparently among the list was composite armor.) Naturally, it was deemed far too dangerous to let this type of information out and what exactly was found there was quickly labeled as 'secrets of the state' and later quietly disposed of (in much the same way and for the same reasons that I-401 was done away with... to prevent the Russians from getting a hold of it)... this also included the very existence of the cannons themselves, meaning that this entire battle officially never happened, since if it did, they'd have to admit to the cannons. Which would mean that they'd have to admit to something else, etc, leading up to what it is that they actually don't want to talk about (I'm not telling). The crew who would believe it were informed that this was 'just another bombardment run', those who wouldn't were silenced by other means (ironically, non-violent, non-villainous means... like hush money).
And that concludes the story of the very-short battle between the Missouri and the Super-Yamato's main cannons.
...
What'd I tell you? It's an old navel yarn. Let me be the first here to point out that the story is full of holes, but it did make for some mighty interesting chitchat with my aforementioned friend. After he got through with the story (more enveloped upon then what I'm telling you [I ain't got no death wish, thank you very much]), we both sat there for a moment before bursting out laughing.
...Of course, this was right before he showed me those plans that I mentioned in another post a few days back, intentionally implicating a few things...
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Yes, the USS Albacore (SS-218) did come to mind there when I asked that. ...But I don't want to drown. post #1533769
As for Night Battles... well, I don't know. We had more than just a share of success during night as well. ...As a matter of fact, later in the war our sensor arrays had gotten so far ahead of the IJN's that we saw them ahead of time, day or night. The Iowa-class battleships, for instance, were drug along with carrier groups not because they were battleships that could keep up with them, but because they had better eyes and ears than the nearest IJN equivalent. There was one point there that the Missouri detected a submarine's periscope. The New Jersey in particular earned its nickname, the 'Black Dragon' of the seas, by way of Night Battle. ... ...Although, coming at this from an entirely different angle... even in the early parts of the war though, thanks to the USN girls' stereotype of being boisterous bruisers... I don't think it would be the USN girls getting nervous, I think it'd be the one that knew what they were doing that would be getting nervous. In other words... If they were allied with each other: “Hey, watch it!!! That was my antenna you just shot off!!!” If they were opponents: “Between the Master and the Rookie, I fear the Rookie... since you never know what they're going to do.”
Considering that the Shinkaisei-kan are blatantly modeled off of USN ships? They're already in there in a sense.
But, for the USN, you'd have to have some way of limiting the number. The common idea would be to go for ships that have a story to them. This is what they seem to be doing with Kancolle official. Myself, I'm doing a [very tiny] series of Kancolle USA character mockups. I'm limiting myself to the ships that survived... and I mean till today. Not sunk, lost (I'm looking at you, Albacore), scrapped, or destroyed as a target. This still gives me plenty of ships to work with... and plenty of soul. Aside from the obvious Iowa-class battleships (all 4 survived and have lots of soul) Did you know the Aircraft Carrier judged 'most likely' responsible for sinking the Yamato is still afloat? USS Hornet (CV-12). She's also considered just about the most haunted warship in USN history. That ship's got plenty of soul. *shot for bad pun*