IJN Shinano (Yamato Class) by HatsuneR

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Shinano (信濃), was an aircraft carrier built by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during World War II, the largest such built up to that time. Laid down in May 1940 as the third of the Yamato-class battleships, Shinano's partially complete hull was ordered to be converted to a carrier following Japan's disastrous loss of four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway in mid-1942. Her conversion was still not finished in November 1944 when she was ordered to sail from the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal to Kure Naval Base to complete fitting out and transfer a load of 50 Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka rocket-propelled kamikaze flying bombs. Hastily dispatched, she had an inexperienced crew and serious design and construction flaws, lacked adequate pumps and fire-control systems, and did not carry a single aircraft. She was sunk en route, 10 days after commissioning, on 29 November 1944, by four torpedoes from the U.S. Navy submarine Archerfish. Over a thousand sailors and civilians were rescued and 1,435 were lost, including her captain. She remains the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine.[1]
Name: Shinano
Namesake: Shinano Province
Builder: Yokosuka Naval Arsenal
Laid down: 4 May 1940
Launched: 8 October 1944
Completed: 19 November 1944 (for trials)
Fate: Sunk by the submarine USS Archerfish, 29 November 1944
General characteristics
Type: Aircraft carrier
Displacement:
65,800 metric tons (64,800 long tons) (standard)
69,151 metric tons (68,059 long tons) (normal)
Length: 265.8 m (872 ft 2 in) (o/a)
Beam: 36.3 m (119 ft 1 in)
Draught: 10.3 m (33 ft 10 in)
Installed power:
150,000 shp (110,000 kW)
12 × Kampon water-tube boilers
Propulsion:
4 × shafts
4 × geared steam turbines
Speed: 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Range: 10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Complement: 2,400
Armament:
8 × twin 12.7 cm Type 89 dual-purpose guns
35 × triple 25 mm Type 96 AA guns
12 × 28 – 12 cm (4.7 in) AA rocket launchers
Armor:
Waterline belt: 160–400 mm (6.3–15.7 in)
Flight deck: 75 mm (3.0 in)
Aircraft carried: 47