Warship 2017

CONTENTS

Editorial

Feature Articles

The Japanese Battleships Kawachi and Settsu

Kathrin Milanovich investigates the circumstances which dictated the unusual design of Japan’s first all-big-gun ships, in particular the lack of uniformity in the length in calibres of the 12in main guns.

The British Armour Plate Pool Agreement of 1903

David Boursnell explores the records of Britain’s armour plate makers to look for evidence of price fixing, cartels and other collaborations designed to protect profits.

From Danton to Courbet

John Jordan describes how France’s first dreadnoughts evolved from the six-ship Danton class, featured in Warship 2013, and in particular at the extent of British influence on the design.

DDL: The Australian Light Destroyer Project of the early 1970s

Mark Briggs looks at the failed project to design and build a ‘patrol frigate’ to Australian specifications in the early 1970s.

From Elba to Europa

Michele Cosentino looks at the early steps of the Regia Marina towards creating a naval aviation capability, and describes the conversion and operation of its first seaplane carrier.

Modern Mine Countermeasures

Conrad Waters examines the history of mine warfare at sea from its earliest beginnings to the present day.

The Light Aircraft Carrier Ibuki

Hans Lengerer looks at the conversion of the IJN heavy cruiser Ibuki as a light aircraft carrier following the Battle of Midway.

HACS: Debacle or Just in Time?

Peter Marland provides a history of the development of the Royal Navy’s controversial prewar High Angle Control System (HACS), together with an informed analysis of its strengths and weaknesses.

HMS Surrey: Britain’s Last Treaty Cruiser

David Murfin has turned up many of the pieces previously missing from the jigsaw depicting what would have been the last of the Royal Navy’s 10,000-ton ‘treaty cruisers’.

After the Kaiser: The Imperial German Navy’s Light Cruisers after 1918

Aidan Dodson reviews the careers and ultimate fates of the Imperial German Navy’s small force of modern light cruisers after the end of the Great War.

The US Navy’s Last Monitors

A D Baker III tells the story of the last series of monitors to be built for the US Navy.

Warship Notes

Reviews

Warship Gallery

Stephen Dent and Ian Johnston present a series of photographs of British battleships during the 1920s.

EDITORIAL

Warship was first published as a quarterly in January 1977, so the current edition effectively marks 40 years of publication. The passage has not been entirely smooth, with a slightly awkward changeover from a quarterly to an annual – the Editor still receives the occasional letter or email asking what happened to the second part of two articles begun in Warship 49. There were also occasional missed volumes during the late 1990s, when Conway Maritime Press was taken over by Chrysalis and Warship did not have a settled editorial team. However, in the past twelve years things have stabilised and the annual has grown from strength to strength. Many new contributors have been introduced and new readers acquired.

This year’s annual sees the first contribution by David Boursnell, who has been conducting research in the archives of the great British armaments manufacturers of the early 20th century. Ian Johnston and Ian Buxton, in their seminal book The Battleship Builders (Seaforth 2013), hinted at a conspiracy on the part of the major companies to keep armour prices high in order to maximise their profits. In his own article, David presents evidence of wide-ranging formal agreements and of financial structures put in place to provide mutual support and ensure that no one company lost out in the tendering process.

The same period saw the changeover from the standard ‘pre-dreadnought’ battleship, with its slow-firing heavy guns in turrets fore and aft and a secondary battery of quick-firing (QF) guns in casemates amidships, to the ‘all-big-gun’ battleship. This new development was not met with universal acclaim at the time, and the implications for fire control of mixed batteries of heavy and medium guns were imperfectly understood. Two of this year’s articles focus on battleships designed during this period of technological change. The Editor’s article ‘From Danton to Courbet’ looks at the evolution of French thinking between 1906 and 1909, and the influence of the Royal Navy on the Marine Nationale, not just in terms of the concept of the ‘all-big-gun’ warship exemplified by HMS Dreadnought, but of associated technological aspects such as turret design and propulsion. This is complemented by Kathrin Milanovich’s article on the IJN battleships Kawachi and Settsu, which had a main battery of twelve 12-inch guns and were considered by the Japanese to be ‘dreadnoughts’, but which featured guns of two different calibre lengths (45-calibre and 50-calibre). Again, British influence was paramount, but the Japanese failed to grasp fully the fire control implications of having 12-inch guns with different characteristics when engaging at longer ranges. Kathrin explains the financial and technical reasons behind this unusual decision.

The High-Angle Control System (HACS) was the Royal’s Navy’s key ‘big-ship’ anti-aircraft fire control system of the Second World War. Developed during the early/mid-1920s, it aimed to resolve the problem of hitting a fast-moving aerial target operating in three dimensions with time-fused ammunition from a 4-inch gun mounted on a moving platform which was subject to roll and pitch. Following widespread installation in battleships and cruisers, HACS was found wanting against the faster and more manoeuvrable monoplanes which began to enter service in the late 1930s, and has since been compared unfavourably with its more mature US counterpart, the Mk 37. Peter Marland’s article looks at the key staging posts of the HACS programme, at the disadvantages incurred by the Navy in committing itself to a major investment at a relatively early stage, and at the patchwork of later modifications made to the system in the light of wartime experience.

Naval procurement policy also comes under the spotlight in Mark Briggs’ article on the Australian DDL project. Second-line navies with limited budgets are often faced with a difficult decision between costly local design and construction, and cheaper ‘off-the-shelf’ designs purchased abroad, providing ‘more bang per buck’. (Even the once-mighty Royal Navy recently opted to purchase a new class of replenishment oilers from South Korean shipyards.) The Australian DDL was eventually cancelled on the grounds of escalating costs in favour of the US Navy’s ‘patrol frigate’ (FFG-52). Two of the four ships were built in Australia, but an embryonic indigenous design capability was lost and, in an ironic twist, the patrol frigate programme ended up costing more than the original DDL project.

The aversion of the Italian military establishment, including the Regia Marina, to commit to aircraft carriers between the wars has been well documented in this annual (see Michele Cosentino in Warship 2015 and Vincent O’Hara & Enrico Cernuschi in Warship 2007) and in other publications. However, as Michele Cosentino points out in his article ‘From Elba to Europa’, Italian developments in naval aviation during the First World War were on a par with those of other European navies. Michele’s present study focuses on the seaplane carrier Europa, converted from a merchantman, which had a number of interesting and innovative features.

Of the major navies, only the Royal Navy and the Imperial German Navy fully committed to the development of light fleet cruisers to scout for the battle fleet prior to and during the First World War. The German ships were much admired, and were coveted by navies such as the French Marine Nationale, which ended the war without a single ship of this type in service. Aidan Dodson, whose book on the Imperial German Navy has recently been published by Seaforth, recounts the scramble to acquire these ships by other European powers in the wake of Germany’s defeat, and Germany’s desperate efforts to retain what it could. Many of these ships, including some quite elderly vessels, had extensive careers between the wars, with some even surviving into the Second World War, and Aidan gives a full account of their service and the modifications they underwent.

The German Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee in 1936, shortly after her completion. A tactical analysis of the Battle of the River Plate will be one of our major features in the 2018 edition. (Leo van Ginderen collection)

Moving on to the interwar period, David Murfin looks in detail at the British ‘Treaty’ cruisers completed during the mid-/late 1920s and at the ‘paper’ projects which followed. After briefly considering a lightly-armoured 10-gun ship which would have matched the latest US and Japanese construction in firepower, the Royal Navy was forced into a series of compromise designs in which offensive power (guns and high speed) had to be traded off against the need for greater protection. Protection won in the end, and the projected Surrey and Northumberland could have stood toe-to-toe with any of the ships being built abroad, but by this time funding for the Navy was in crisis and political sentiment was turning against the 10,000-ton, 8in-gun cruiser.

This year’s annual is rounded off by three very different feature articles: Hans Lengerer’s article on the IJN cruiser/carrier conversion Ibuki, a short feature by A D Baker III on the US Navy’s last monitors of the Arkansas (later renamed Ozark) class which showcases the author’s superlative line drawings of the ships, and an article by Conrad Waters on modern mine countermeasures developments which brings us up to the present.

The centenary of the Battle of Jutland drew the attention of the press to the rusted remains of two former German destroyers which still project above the sea bed in Portsmouth Harbour at low tide. Stephen Fisher of the Maritime Archaeology Trust and Dr Julian Whitewright of the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton had been investigating and mapping these wrecks for some time as part of The Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War project, and have provided a full account of the history of the ships and their own investigatory work in this year’s Warship Notes. Other significant Notes this year include Ian Johnston’s piece on a projected Canadian Super Yard (ca 1911), based on plans unearthed in the archives of the former Fairfield Shipbuilding yard, a Note by Robert Dumas and the Editor on early designs for the French fast battleships of the Dunkerque class, based on sketches recently discovered in the archives of Lorient naval dockyard, an unusual statistical analysis of the naval surface actions of the First World War by Leonard R Heinz and Vincent P O’Hara, and a series of photos of the recently-refurbished Russian cruiser Aurora taken by Conrad Waters during a recent visit to the ship. This year’s Warship Gallery features a series of previously-unpublished photographs of Royal Navy battleships at anchor off Sheerness during the 1920s.

Next year’s Warship will feature a number of important, ground-breaking articles. These include a tactical analysis of the Battle of the River Plate by naval historian Alan Zimm and an analysis of the damage sustained by Graf Spee during that same battle by Bill Jurens. David Murfin will be looking at British cruiser design during the First World War, using previously unpublished sketches and documentation from the archives, and focusing on the ships which were never built. There will also be major features by Luc Feron on the fast French armoured cruiser Jeanne d’Arc and by Hans Lengerer on the IJN ‘command cruiser’ Oyodo.

John Jordan

April 2017

Please note that Warship now has a new email address: [email protected]

THE JAPANESE BATTLESHIPS KAWACHI AND SETTSU

The battleships Kawachi and Settsu were Japan’s first all-big-gun ships. However, the lack of uniformity in the length in calibres of the 12in main guns strictly precluded their inclusion in the ‘dreadnought’ category. Kathrin Milanovich investigates the circumstances which dictated their unusual design.

In the ten-year period from 1894 to 1904 Japan ordered eight battleships from British shipyards. These ships belonged to three different classes, and in each case a contemporary Royal Navy type was taken as the model: the battleships of the Fuji class (Fuji and Yashima) were modelled on the British Royal Sovereign class; those of the Shikishima class (Shikishima, Hatsuse, Asahi, Mikasa) on the Formidable class; and those of the Katori class (Katori, Kashima) on the King Edward VII class.

The Japanese tacticians and naval architects were not satisfied with merely imitating the British ships, but always attempted to improve on both the offensive and defensive qualities, even if these improvements were limited to a few more secondary guns, slightly thicker armour, or better-quality armour steel. The first six ships were of the standard ‘pre-dreadnought’ type introduced by Sir William White’s Royal Sovereign class and characterised by the arrangement of four 12in (30cm) main guns in twin centreline turrets fore and aft, and a battery of 6in (15cm) quick-firing (QF) guns placed in casemates evenly distributed on both broadsides.

Once improvements in armour quality made it possible to provide the same level of protection with plates of reduced thicknesses, the naval architect could choose either to extend the protected area, to use the weight saved to enhance the fighting qualities of the ship, or simply to reduce displacement. On the other hand, it was now expected that battle ranges would increase due to progress in weapon technology and the introduction of improved methods of fire control. The combination of better protection and longer engagement ranges led to questions regarding the ability of the 6in shell to penetrate medium armour, particularly when striking at an oblique angle, and serious consideration was given to the adoption of an intermediate gun calibre. Three different gun calibres were used in the British King Edward VII class: 12in for the main guns and 6in for the QF guns as before, and 9.2in (23cm) for four guns of intermediate calibre mounted in four single wing turrets. Their Japanese counterparts of the Katori class had the same number and arrangement of the guns, but the intermediate calibre was increased to 10in (25cm); there were also two additional 6in guns.

This port broadside view shows the brand-new Kawachi, name-ship of a class of two battleships, off Tateyama on 24 February 1912. On that day she made a full speed trial run between the pylons marking the measured mile. The bow and stern waves are substantial; the smoke from the funnels is moderate in comparison. (Author’s collection)

After the Katori class the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) began to build battleships in domestic shipyards, and for Satsuma and Aki the number of guns of intermediate calibre was tripled, with twelve 10in guns in wing turrets. The calibre of the QF guns was reduced to 4.7in (12cm) in Satsuma but Aki reverted to the 6in gun, mounting eight in place of the twelve 4.7in guns of her sister. In the next two ships, Kawachi and Settsu, the intermediate guns were suppressed altogether and replaced by eight 12in guns, for a total of twelve main guns. The uniform main armament reflected that of the contemporary British Dreadnought. However, the barrels of the guns mounted in the two centreline turrets had a length of 50 calibres, while those mounted in the wing turrets, two per side, were of 45-calibre length. This meant that while they were technically ‘all-big-gun’ ships, the lack of uniformity in the length of the guns meant that they could not be considered true ‘dreadnoughts’: the trajectories of shells fired from barrels of different length are not identical, and this rendered fire control more difficult. Kawachi and Settsu also differed from HMS Dreadnought in their retention of a secondary battery of 6in guns, and in the division of the light guns into the 4.7in and 3in (12cm/8cm) calibres.

Even when laid down in early 1909 the two IJN battleships had been overtaken by developments abroad. The US Navy was completing its first two 12in-gun dreadnoughts of the Michigan class, with superimposed turrets on the centreline, and the British ‘super-dreadnoughts’ of the Orion class, laid down in the same year, not only had their ten main guns on the centreline but the calibre had been increased to 13.5in (34cm). Whereas the centreline turrets of the latest British and American ships enabled all guns to be trained on either broadside, Kawachi and Settsu had only eight out of twelve guns available. The only compensation was that bow and stern fire was superior in the Japanese ships, which could bring six guns into action in a stern chase compared with only four for the British and American ships.

Given the importance placed by the IJN on the qualitative superiority of its individual ships, even if this was simply a matter of an extra pair of QF guns, the retention of this outdated arrangement of the main artillery is perhaps surprising. There is no single compelling reason for this backward-looking stance, but an overview of the state of the IJN around the turn of the century may help to explain these decisions.

The Capital Ship Programmes Before and After the Russo-Japanese War

Following the successful Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, Japan used the larger part of the Chinese war reparations¹ to finance the First and Second Period Expansion Programmes of 1896 and 1897, which featured orders for the four ships of the Shikishima class from Britain.

Subsequently, the Third Period Extension Programme of 1903, which included the construction of three battleships (to be named Katori, Kashima and Fusô) and three armoured cruisers (to be named Ibuki, Haruna and Kirishima), was authorised. This was followed by the Urgent Replenishment of Warships and the acceleration of the Third Period Extension Programmes under which two battleships under construction in Britain for Chile (Libertad and Constitución) were to be purchased – two armoured cruisers being built in Italy for Argentina were purchased instead, becoming Kasuga and Nisshin² – and the construction of Katori was to be accelerated (the construction of her sister Kashima would also be accelerated following the collapse of the deal for the Chilean battleships).

By the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (RJW) in February 1904, Extraordinary Armament Expenditures (Rinji Gunji Hi) were established and the Wartime Warship Construction Programme was passed, authorising the construction of two battleships (Satsuma and Aki) and four armoured cruisers (to be named Tsukuba, Ikoma, Kurama and Hiei). When the war ended the Extraordinary Armament Expenditures funding arrangement was halted, and construction of these ships had to be continued under other budgetary procedures.

Following the end of the RJW, the IJN needed to respond to developments abroad, to refit her existing battleships and to repair the Russian war prizes. It aimed to build three new battleships of 20,000 tons and four armoured cruisers of 18,000 tons, with one of the battleships and three of the armoured cruisers to be laid down straight away. However, in the 1907 Post-RJW Warship Supplement Programme funding was authorised for only two battleships (Kawachi and Settsu) and one armoured cruiser (Kongô). This programme was to be funded from various sources: Warship and Torpedo Boat Replenishment Expenses (Kantei Hosoku Hi), and Equipment and Adjustment Expenses (Seibi Hi),³ Warship Construction and Building Expenses (Gunkan Seizô Hi oyobi Kenchiku Hi), and Expenses for the Supplement of Warships and Torpedo Boats (Hoju Kantei Hi). The funding was to be used: for the construction of the armoured cruisers (subsequently ‘battle cruisers’) Tsukuba, Ikoma, Kurama and the battleships Satsuma and Aki; for the repair of the Japanese and ex-Russian ships and upgrades to their equipment; and for the construction of the battleships Kawachi and Settsu.

Thus there was a mismatch between the ships authorised in the building programmes and the actual ships built. The battleship Fusô and the battle cruisers Haruna and Kirishima were held over into the 1911 Fleet Replenishment Program and built utilising the budget of the Third Period Extension Program, while the pre-dreadnought-type battleships Satsuma and Aki and the ‘semi-dreadnoughts’ Kawachi and Settsu were built with funding authorised in the RJW Wartime and Post-RJW Programmes. In addition, the dreadnought battle cruisers Hiei and Kongô, whose construction was authorised under these programmes, were held over to the 1910 Replenishment Programme and built using various budget items.

Table 1: Battleship & Armoured Cruiser Programmes 1893-1927

Note: This table is considerably simplified.

Sources:

Kaigun Gunbi Enkaku Vol 1, 53ff and Table 1 of the Enclosure Volume.

Kinsei Teitoku Kaigun Shiyô, 199ff.

Kaigun Kansen Kakuchô Enkaku in Yamamoto Gonnohyôe to Kaigun, 269ff.

Kaigun Vols II and XIV.

This over-complex funding situation was resolved by merging all these accounts into a single account designated Armament Replenishment Expenses (Gunbi Hojû Hi), which was submitted to the 27th Diet in December 1910 and approved.

In summary, the IJN planned to build seven battleships and eight armoured cruisers spread over the Pre-RJW Third Period Extension Programme and the Post-RJW 1907 Warship Supplement Programme. By the end of 1910 three battleships had been completed and three more were under construction, while one had yet to be laid down. As for the armoured cruisers, three had been completed, one was under construction and four existed only on paper. As usual, funding was insufficient to build all the new ships, but the lessons of the RJW and studies of developments abroad revealed that the IJN warships laid down or fitting out were imperfect in many respects and less powerful than their foreign counterparts. There was a recognition that the advent of the British Dreadnought and Invincible had caused Japan to drop back in the naval race. Current plans were therefore discarded and replaced by a new programme in 1910 under which seven battleships and three armoured cruisers were to be built,⁴ the ships already designed would be modified, and shipyard and port facilities expanded. Table 1 gives a breakdown of the earlier and later programmes and the funding arrangements.

The Influence of the RJW on Warship Construction

The lessons of the Russo-Japanese War brought about numerous changes in warship design and construction as well as in engine and weapon production. Japanese thinking was also influenced by the appearance of the British Dreadnought, whose final configuration reflected the lessons the RN drew from the battles fought by her ally. The principal changes were as follows:

– increases in dimensions and displacement

– the adoption of multiple main guns of the same calibre

– structural changes due to the effect of mines (double bottom of considerable height below magazines, with additional protection for the latter)

– abolition of the ram bow, now considered of little value due to greater ranges of engagement

– improvements in fire control

– stronger vertical armour and greater attention given to horizontal protection

– the adoption of turbines in place of reciprocating engines to obtain (i) higher speed, (ii) less vibration, (iii) a reduction in smoke by burning heavy oil instead of coal.

Establishment of the Investigative Committee for Ship Configuration

In 1906–07 the Investigative Committee of Ship Configuration (Kankei Shosei Iinkai), chaired by Navy Minister Admiral Yamamoto Gonnohyôe, undertook a broad enquiry into the characteristics of future ships, the immediate result of which was the decision to build the battleships of the Kawachi class, the cruisers of the Chikuma class, and the destroyers of the Shikinami class. The strategic context for this investigation was the disappearance of the Russian fleet from Oriental waters and the rapid deterioration in relations between the United States and Japan in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War. The USA had begun to build a new navy in 1883 and had occupied the Philippines in 1898; the Americans also maintained rights in China, thereby becoming the greatest threat to Japan’s perceived interests despite the vast distances which separated the two countries. Naval policy had to provide security by maintaining Japan’s local superiority in the Western Pacific, using the military ports and repair bases of the homeland to make full use of her geographical advantages.

The committee established several sub-committees for the detailed investigation of ship configuration by specialists, and these were charged with comparative studies of the characteristics of the proposed new ship types and those designed or already under construction in other countries. The aim of this investigation was to obtain ships with a qualitative advantage over their foreign counterparts, primarily those of the US Navy.

The new fleet was to be capable of maintaining superiority in the Western Pacific against a US battle fleet advancing either directly across the Pacific via Hawaii, or based in the newly-occupied Philippines. A further consideration was the need to investigate the characteristics of future sea battles fought with new and improved weapons; these studies would have a determining influence upon the tactical requirements of the Navy General Staff. The specialists in the sub-committees were responsible for introducing the new weapons and securing the best use of their principal characteristics.

The depressed economic situation following the RJW resulted in tight budgets, and the IJN had to postpone its original plans and, in addition, take into account the rapid developments in battleship design, which included the introduction of the ‘super-dreadnought’ in some foreign navies. However, it is questionable whether the IJN gave sufficient consideration to the implications of these changes at a sufficiently early stage.

The Independence of the Preliminary Design Section

Up to the beginning of the 20th century Japanese naval architects had drawn up preliminary and detailed designs of only comparatively small ships, the largest being medium-sized cruisers. In order to import the newest technologies and to learn the most modern design and construction techniques, ships were frequently ordered from Britain and France, and Japanese naval architects and technicians were dispatched to study abroad. However, when the Sino-Japanese War (SJW) broke out the despatch boat Tatsuta, on her way from her British builder to Japan, was interned at Aden due to the British declaration of neutrality. And after the end of the war the so-called Triple Intervention caused the loss of part of Japan’s ‘fruits of victory’. These experiences accelerated the struggle for self-sufficiency, as the internment of Tatsuta made it clear that ships ordered from abroad could be embargoed at the precise moment they were needed, and the Triple Intervention demonstrated the need for a strong navy in order to forestall any third-party intervention in the forthcoming conflict with Japan’s most likely enemy, Russia.

This starboard broadside view of Kawachi was taken on 22 April 1912 and shows her departing Yokosuka naval port. Kawachi had been delivered on 31 March 1912 and assigned to the First Fleet on 1 April, and this was her first sortie since commissioning. The two heavy tripod masts and the unequal distances between the three funnels were characteristic features of these ships. Note that even though the wind is blowing from astern, the bridge structure is relatively unaffected by smoke. (Author’s collection)

This photo of Settsu was taken in the spring of 1912, the last year of the Meiji and the first of the Taishô era, and shows the ship running at high speed during her power trials. (Author’s collection)

In addition to secure funding for the construction of warships (mostly ordered from abroad, particularly Britain) the post-SJW extension programmes provided large budgets for the extension of land and port facilities, dockyards, weapons and engine factories, propellant production facilities and steel works to prepare the ground for the future self-sufficiency and independence of the IJN.

Japanese tacticians worked out the tactical requirements of the ships, and Japanese naval architects were actively involved in the process of drawing up the preliminary and sometimes also detailed plans of the ships built in British shipyards; many technicians and foremen were also sent to the builders as ‘supervisors’ with a view to acquiring the necessary expertise to build modern warships. Within a few years significant progress had been made, so that by 1900 the domestic construction of capital ships was being proposed. In November 1903 engine and weapon production facilities were united with the naval dockyards. Yokosuka Navy Yard (NY), founded during the Tokugawa shogunate of the mid-1860s, remained the largest and the most experienced of these new entities, but Kure NY had the largest and most advanced weapon production facilities and was about to take over the leading role among the four navy yards – the others were Sasebo NY and Maizuru NY, of which the latter was begun only after the SJW. This was one of the key steps in the preparation for war against Russia and the most important for the move to domestic battleship design and construction in 1903, which was led by Navy Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyôe, the chief of the Navy Technical Department (NTD) Vice-Admiral Arima Shinichi, and the chief of No 3 Division (Shipbuilding) of the NTD Rear-Admiral Sasô Sachu. Commander Kondô Motoki was the head of the preliminary design team under Sasô, and he had many able and outstanding engineers as subordinates to assist him in this difficult task.

When the Kure Navy Yard was founded Rear-Admiral Yamauchi Masuji,⁵ who was appointed as its head, gave the position of head of the shipbuilding division to Captain (later R-Ad and Dr Eng) Obata Bunsaburô,⁶ that of the head of the engine production division to Captain (Eng) Mizutani Toshihiko, while Captain Matsumi Tomokichi became the head of the weapons production division.⁷ These were the men responsible for the construction of the first IJN battleships built in Japan. It was Obata who took Navy Minister Yamamoto on one of his inspection tours in 1903 around the berths of Kure NY, and assured him that the yard was capable of building a battleship within four years.⁸

However, before they could begin work the plans for the ships had to be drawn up. The preliminary design of the new battleships began in late 1900 or early 1901 in order to gain experience of the process, and the design of Japan’s first battleship, Satsuma, was supervised by Kondô Motoki from late 1904 to April 1905. There were many draft sketches with more than ten different gun arrangements. One had a uniform main armament of eight 12in guns in twin superimposed turrets located on the centreline in a layout similar to that adopted by the US Navy for the Michigan class; this was derived from one of several draft designs submitted by Engineer Kaneda Wasaburo.⁹ However, at the time there was no comparable ship being built abroad, so studies would have been necessary to investigate the implications for the structure of the turrets and the barbettes, the arrangement of the magazines and the ammunition supply, the effect of blast on turrets and crews, and the influence of salvo firing on the trajectory of the shells, which would have delayed the design process and the completion of the ship. This precluded the adoption of more advanced designs, and Satsuma was modelled on the British Lord Nelson, which was considered by the tacticians to be the most powerful battleship at that time.

This was an understandable decision in view of the urgent war situation, the move to construction in Japanese shipyards, and the general trends of the day. However, Kawachi and Settsu were designed after the victory in the RJW. In Britain HMS Dreadnought had already been launched, while in the United States the US Navy’s first ‘all-big-gun’ battleship, Michigan, was under construction; the general characteristics of these ships and the layout of their main guns were known.¹⁰ These designs incorporated the lessons drawn from the sea battles of the RJW and it was obvious that they represented the battleship of the future. Yet for the Kawachi class the Navy General Staff required only an increase in armament and protection compared to Satsuma. Kondô submitted substantially the same proposals as before, but favoured a ship with six twin 12in turrets, of which two pairs were superimposed fore and aft and the other two were en echelon amidships.¹¹ However, this arrangement required an increase in displacement of 3,000 tons, making it impossible to build the new ships within the limit of 20,000 tons.¹² Therefore, in comparison to the preceding class, improvements were limited to a uniform calibre for the main battery, with eight instead of twelve guns on the broadside but a heavier weight of shell, and the suppression of the midship wing turrets.¹³ A later ‘improvement’, which was proposed by Admiral Tôgô Heihachirô, then Chief of the NGS, was an increase in the barrel length of the guns in the fore and after main gun turrets to 50 calibres; Tôgô was of the opinion that the guns fore and aft should be more powerful than the others, as in earlier battleships.

The design of Kawachi and Settsu incorporated a number of other retrograde features, and the delay in laying down the ships only served to emphasise the conservative aspects of the design. The dated layout of the main gun turrets and the lack of uniformity in the main gun calibres must be laid at the door of the NGS and the Naval Affairs Bureau of the Navy Ministry rather than the constructors of the NTD.

The Design

Kawachi and Settsu were designed as a modified Aki type by the design team under then-Captain (later V-Ad and Baron) Kondô Motoki under the design number A–30.¹⁴ The main differences were:

– standardisation of the main guns to 12in 45-cal (later combined with 50-cal guns)

– an increase in the thickness of the belt armour

– use of turbines of improved design

The ships were built by Yokosuka NY and Kure NY respectively. On 27 October 1908 changes were made in the number and location of the ships’ boats; a further modification on 9 October 1909 saw the bow of Settsu modified from the straight to the clipper type,¹⁵ increasing