Chidori class
 The Chidori in 1934, after refitting.
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The Chidori class ( Japanese 千 鳥 型 水雷 艇 , Chidori-gata suiraitei ) was a class of four torpedo boats of the Imperial Japanese Navy , which were used in World War II .
history
Development history and construction
The London Naval Treaty was signed on April 22, 1930, stipulating that the moratorium on the construction of capital ships, the Washington Naval Treaty , would be extended to 1936. As well as new or expanded qualitative and quantitative limits for capital ships (battleships or cruisers), aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines. The Imperial Japanese Navy was dissatisfied with the total tonnage allocated to it for destroyers of 105,500 ts (107,188 t ). As it was considered too low for operational requirements . Which means you couldn't build the number of ships the size you wanted. Therefore, the Navy decided to close the gap with a new type of warship ( torpedo boat ) which could serve as a guard ship for its own ports and naval bases and, due to its small size, would fall under the 600-ts (610-t) category, which was not contractually limited so that it could be built in considerable quantities. As usual with all Japanese warship designs of that time, the later Chidori class had received a maximum of combat power with a minimum of possible dimensions. So it represented a strong draft on paper and seemed to be superior to the French and Italian drafts drafted under the same conditions .
The first four units of a planned class of twenty boats were ordered as part of the 1st district building program (Maru 1 Keikaku) from 1931 from a private and state shipyard and put into service between November 1933 and November 1934.
The Tomozuru Incident
The attempt of the Japanese designers to accommodate a comparatively strong armament on the basis of a relatively low water displacement (after all, 22.7 percent of the total weight was only accounted for by the armament) later had a fatal effect, as the two units built first were strong were top heavy .
So it was that the Tomozuru during a practice shooting with torpedoes in the early hours of March 12 1934 Sasebo in stormy weather capsized . The drifting wreck could only be found ten hours later by a search plane. The overturned torpedo boat was brought into Sasebo by the light cruiser Tatsuta the following day (and later repaired), but 97 sailors were killed in the accident. After this so-called Tomozuru incident, an investigative commission of the Japanese Navy investigated the incident and came to the conclusion that all ships of the class had considerable stability problems.
All four units were subsequently rebuilt in Maizuru by December 1936 . Among other things, 98 tons of ballast came on board and the height of the bridge structure was reduced by one storey. In addition, the three 12.7 cm guns were replaced by three lighter 12 cm guns. In addition, one of the two sets of twin torpedo tubes came off board and the 4 cm automatic cannon was replaced by a machine gun . These modifications, especially the addition of ballast, increased the maximum water displacement to around 815 ts ; this increased the average draft to around 3.1 m. The top speed dropped to 28 knots . After the modifications, it turned out that the stability problems had largely been resolved, and the torpedo boats were later used, especially in the escort service, without further incidents.
Use in World War II
At the beginning of the war in the Pacific , the boats were used as security vehicles during the Japanese offensives in the direction of the Philippines and against Borneo . All four ships took part in the Battle of Tarakan in January 1942. In the later course of the war, the torpedo boats were mostly used as escort vehicles and escorted Japanese convoys carrying raw materials from the Philippines and Chinese ports to Japan. They turned out to be good anti-submarine units, which were respected by the American submarine commanders. Three of the ships of this class were lost to enemy action in the last two years of the war.
List of ships
| Surname | Shipyard | Keel laying | Launch | Commissioning | Whereabouts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maru 1 Keikaku | ||||||
|
Chidori ( 千 鳥 ) |
Maizuru naval shipyard | October 13, 1931 | April 1, 1933 | November 20, 1933 | sunk on December 24, 1944 by americans Submarine USS Tilefish off Yokosuka . | |
|
Manazuru ( 真 鶴 ) |
Fujinagata Shipyard, Osaka |
December 22, 1931 | July 11, 1933 | November 30, 1934 | sunk on March 1, 1945 by americans Task Force 58 air strike off Okinawa . | |
|
Tomozuru ( 友 鶴 ) |
Maizuru naval shipyard | September 11, 1932 | October 1, 1933 | February 24, 1934 | sunk on March 24, 1945 by americans Task Force 58 air strike in the East China Sea . | |
|
Hatsukari ( 初 雁 ) |
Fujinagata Shipyard, Osaka |
April 6, 1933 | December 19, 1933 | July 15, 1934 | out of service August 1945; scrapped from 1946. | |
| Maru 2 Keikaku | ||||||
|
Otori Kasasagi Hiyodori Hayabusa Hato Sagi Kari Kiji Hatsutaka Aotaka Wakataka Kumataka yamadori Mizutori Umidori Komadori |
After design-related changes, managed as a separate class . | |||||
technical description
hull
When it was put into service, the hull of a Chidori- class torpedo boat was 82 meters long, 7.5 meters wide and had a draft of 2.5 meters with a displacement of 748 tons .
drive
It was driven by two oil-fired steam generators - Kampon boilers - and two geared turbine sets with which a total output of 11,000 PS (8,090 kW ) was achieved. The power was delivered to two shafts with one screw each . The top speed was 30 knots (56 km / h ). 152 tons of fuel could be bunkered, resulting in a maximum travel distance of 9,000 nautical miles (16,668 km) at 10 knots.
crew
The crew had a strength of 113 men.
Armament
When commissioned, the armament consisted of three 12.7 cm guns with a caliber length of 50 Type 3 in a single and a double turret, as also carried out by the destroyers of the Hatsuharu class . These were set up in the boat center line, one in front of the bridge structure (single tower) and one behind the aft deckhouse (double tower). A 4-cm automatic cannon type 91 was available for anti-aircraft defense . Furthermore, two torpedo tube sets with a caliber of 53.3 cm and a type 94 depth charge launcher are used as torpedo armament
After the Tomozuru incident, the 12.7 cm guns were replaced by 12 cm guns in 45 caliber type 3 in simple shields. One of them replaced the second torpedo tube set ashore. The 4-cm anti-aircraft gun was replaced by a Type 92 anti-aircraft machine gun with a 7.7 mm caliber .
Until 1944, the strong Allied forces led to a continuous increase in defensive armaments against aircraft and submarines. The aft 12 cm gun and the 7.7 mm machine gun were given ashore and replaced by ten 2.5 cm Type 96 guns in four single and three double mounts. The anti-submarine armament consisted of two Ablaugschienen and eight 81 Type launchers, for which 48 depth charges were carried on board.
radar
Like the Japanese destroyers, the torpedo boats were not equipped with radio measurement technology from the beginning of the Pacific War . It was not until the end of the war that some units received the Type 22 radar . This system, which is capable of surveillance of the sea and fire control , which consisted of a double horn - one for sending and one for receiving - was installed in the main mast behind the bridge. Due to the fact that early Japanese radar devices were unreliable and their operating personnel were poorly trained, commanders tended not to take any information from them seriously and to rely on classic reconnaissance methods such as lookouts with optical devices. This trust became more and more problematic as the Americans introduced better and better radar systems and used them primarily for fire control.
In 1944, the surviving torpedo boats were given Type 13 devices for air surveillance , which had a long ladder antenna that was usually mounted on the aft mast.
Remarks
- ↑ Whitley and Stille, give the name Tomozuru class.
literature
- Mike J. Whitley: Destroyer in World War II . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 , p. 202-203 .
- David C. Evans, Mark R. Peattie: Kaigun - Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2012, ISBN 978-1-59114-244-7 , pp. 240-242 .
- Hansgeorg Jentschura, Dieter Jung, Peter Mickel: Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945 . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1977, ISBN 0-87021-893-X , pp. 128-129 .
- Mark Stille: Imperial Japanese Navy Antisubmarine Escorts 1941–45 . Osprey Publishing , Oxford 2017, ISBN 978-1-4728-1816-4 , pp. 17-18 .
