Suzuya (ship, 1937)
 The Suzuya 1937
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The Suzuya ( Japanese 鈴 谷 ) was a cruiser of the Imperial Japanese Navy .
Built as a light cruiser, the ship was converted to a heavy cruiser by replacing the main armament shortly before the Second World War . The Suzuya was the first ship of the second subassembly of the Mogami class , from which it differed with great external resemblance in particular in a changed hull shape, a modified ventilation and chimney system and other details, for example in the masting. It was followed by a sister ship, the Kumano . The Suzuya itself was named after a river in the former Japanese prefecture of Karafuto on the island of Sakhalin (literally: "Snowdrop Valley").
prehistory
During construction, the maximum tonnage number (10,000 ts) prescribed by the Washington fleet contracts was exceeded by the Japanese by around a quarter. A violation of the contracts was accepted; the true tonnage of the ships was disguised by embellished official information (8,000 ts). Nevertheless, there was no avoiding saving as much weight as possible. Most of the superstructures were made of an aluminum alloy, and the new but immature electric welding process was used to construct the hull . Since the sister ship Mogami showed various damage to the insufficiently fastened outer plating of the hull during testing due to sagging in the sea , which occurred repeatedly in a storm on September 26, 1935 on the Mogami and for the first time also on the sister ship Mikuma , the test voyages of the Suzuya became canceled in November 1935. The ship has been brought back to the Yokosuka dock for extensive improvements. Additional plates for reinforcement were subsequently installed in various areas, rivets replaced electrical welds, and the side bulges were considerably enlarged in order to strengthen the hull. In addition, the raised barbeds of towers C and X were decoupled from the load-bearing fuselage structure by redesigning them to prevent loads from affecting the ball bearings of the tower turntables. The hoped-for weight saving was partially canceled out. The rework was not completed until autumn 1937.
It was planned from the beginning to retrofit the main armament later in order to bring the ships up to the status of heavy cruisers, to which they corresponded in their dimensions, displacement values, armor and secondary armament from the beginning. All that was necessary was to replace the original triple turrets with their 15.5 cm L / 60-year-3 guns for heavy twin turrets with 20.3 cm caliber guns. This happened from 1939 to 1940. The freed towers of the Mogami class were installed in the battleships Yamato and Musashi , among others .
technology
Since 1943 it had a multi-purpose radar (type 21 on the foremast, antenna type 6), whereby in July 1944 an air search radar (type 13, at the front of the main mast) and two sea search systems (type 22 quay 4M, laterally below the foremast platform) were added, which were finally upgraded to fire control from September 1944 (quay 4S).
Armament
The main armament originally consisted of 15 cannons of the caliber 15.5 cm with the caliber length 60, model 3, which were installed in five triple turrets. The two front towers were both at the height of the main deck, so that tower A restricted the field of fire of tower B behind it. The alternatively considered pyramid-shaped setup would have resulted in even smaller fields of fire, and a triple height graduation was prohibited for reasons of stability . During the retrofitting in 1939, the 15.5 cm tubes were replaced by ten 20 cm cannons with a length of 50, Type 3 No. 2, replaced. These were built into five twin towers of the E1 model, but they did not fit into the (larger) barbeds of the previous 15.5 cm treble towers, so that specific modifications to the tower length (extension by 20 cm) and the substructure (widening the so-called E1-Mogami-Type) had to take place (incidentally, for other reasons, the drive for the pipe elevation was also reduced). Due to the fact that the distance between the barbeds of turrets A and B was too small because the barrel length of the 15.5 cm gun was aligned, the longer barrels of the 20 cm gun at turret B in the zero position ahead no longer fit behind turrets A and B had to be driven over its tower ceiling (ie raised by 12 ° from the horizontal).
As secondary armament there were eight guns of 12.7 cm caliber with the caliber length 40, Model 89 Type A1 Mod.1, in twin mounts with protective shields as heavy flak and secondary artillery on board.
The slight air defense consisted initially of a mixed battery of eight 25-mm and four 13 mm machine guns in double carriages. The latter were only carried until 1942. The anti-aircraft armament was considerably strengthened in several stages in 1943/1944 and finally comprised 4 twins, 8 triplets and 18 individual guns of the 25 mm cannons (together 50 tubes) as well as some removable 13 mm machine guns.
The torpedo armament of twelve tubes with the caliber 61 cm (24 inches) was divided into four sets of triple, which were installed laterally in niches in the lower superstructure deck. Analog rapid reloading sets were available for all tubes, so that up to 24 torpedoes could be fired in a battle.
Mission history
At the beginning of the Second World War , the ship was initially used in Chinese waters and took part in various smaller operations.
In December 1941 which was Suzuya with their board aircraft at the shading of the British task force Force Z participates. In April 1942, the Suzuya took part in operations against allied merchant shipping in the Bay of Bengal as part of a combat group under Admiral Ozawa . In early June 1942, the Suzuya was part of the Japanese armed forces that were to bombard the Midway Islands before a planned Japanese landing. The association got caught in American air strikes, in which their half-sisters Mikuma were sunk and Mogami were badly damaged. Suzuya remained undamaged.
After participating in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands , the Suzuya was part of Vice-Admiral Nishimura's combat group in November 1942, which bombarded Henderson Field on Guadalcanal ( Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ). In June 1944, the Suzuya took part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
On October 9, 1944, the Suzuya was assigned to a Japanese task force in the Bay of Brunei to prevent American landing operations in the Philippines. The Suzuya combat group was thus part of a large-scale operation known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf .
On October 25, 1944, the Suzuya marched with other cruisers and destroyers near Samar towards an enemy combat group. After heavy fighting , the commanding admiral of the cruiser group, Shiraishi, changed his flagship and switched from the badly damaged Kumano to the Suzuya . Shortly afterwards, several bombs were dropped on the cruiser during an attack by American carrier aircraft. A close hit that detonated on the starboard aft on impact with the water destroyed the cruiser's torpedo tube set there , which started a fire and caused a torpedo to explode. The then rapidly spreading fire ignited more torpedoes. Their explosions put a boiler room and an engine room out of order. After more torpedoes and other ammunition had exploded, the order was given around noon to leave the incapacitated ship. 620 officers and men survived the explosions and fire on the Suzuya and were picked up by the destroyer Okinami and later by American ships before the cruiser went down in the early afternoon.
wreck
The wreck of the Suzuya has not yet been found.
Models
Of the Suzuya there are, among other things, ready-made models in the international collector's scale 1/1250 from a Japanese and a German manufacturer as well as plastic model kits from a leading Japanese manufacturer in the scale 1/700 waterline (old edition built in 1944, new revised model edition with completely new shapes for construction state 1940 ) and 1/400 (full hull model, no longer in production). There is also a cardboard model from a Polish manufacturer on a scale of 1: 200 as a full hull model.
Evidence and references
literature
Only Japanese sources specific to the Suzuya or the cruisers of the Japanese Navy:
- Maru Special: Japanese Naval Vessels. (first series in 56 volumes), Volume 22: Suzuya / Kumano (Tokyo 1978) and second series Volume 122: History of the Mogami and Tone Classes, Tokyo 1987.
- Gakken Pictorial Series, Volume 38, Mogami Class, Tokyo 2002.
- Kaijinsha (publ.): The Imperial Japanese Navy. (in 14 volumes), Volume 7 (Heavy Cruiser 3: Mogami and Tone Class) 2nd edition, Tokyo 1990/1995.
- Fukui Shizuo: Japanese Naval Vessels Illustrated, 1869-1945. (in three volumes), Volume 2, Cruisers, Corvettes and Sloops, Tokyo 1980.
- Todaka Kazushige: Japanese Naval Warship. (so far in 6 volumes) Volume 4, Cruisers, Kure Maritime Museum, Kure 2005.
- T. Kizu: Japanese Cruisers, Ships of the World. Volume 441, Tokyo 1991.
- Model Art No. 7, Drawings of IJN Vessels Volume 2, Kreuzer (Tokyo 1995).
From the English-language literature:
- E. Lacroix: The Mogami B Class Cruisers. Warship International XXI, 1984, pp. 246-305.
Remarks
- ↑ for September 1939 after Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War , p. 452
Individual evidence
- ↑ Actually 8 inches; see: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_8-50_3ns.htm