Kongo Class Battlecruisers

By Steve Wiper

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sister-ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic gallery of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references—books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites. The subject of this volume is the Japanese Kongo class, four ships built during the First World War as battlecruisers, but extensively modified and reconstructed between the wars as fast battleships, so that each ship presented a different appearance. They were the chosen escorts for the elite IJN carrier forces, and saw much action during the Pacific War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 30, 2008
• ISBN: 9781783469895

Book preview

Design and History

The design of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) Kongo class battle-cruisers originated from Great Britain. At first the new warships were to follow the Royal Navy (RN) Invincible class, but, impressed with the new RN Lion class, the IJN opted for an improved version of that design.

The lead ship of this then new class of battlecruiser, Kongo, was built at the Vickers & Sons Shipyard in Great Britain. However, at that time Japan was quickly expanding its ship building capabilities, and set out to construct the remaining three vessels of the class in Japan. For the Hiei, approximately 30% of construction material was supplied from England, but Kirishima and Haruna were constructed entirely with material from Japan. All machinery and armament for Hiei, Kirishima and Haruna was fabricated in Japan under licence.

As originally designed, the Kongos were battlecruisers, requiring high speeds, necessitating a massive steam plant of 36 coal fired boilers. On trial, Kongo attained nearly 28 knots. Kongo also had the feature of oil spaying, which meant that oil could be sprayed onto the coal fires for a small increase in range and power.

Soon after the completion of all four of the Kongo class battlecruisers, they each had minor up-grades to the bridge structures. During the ‘Great War’ life for the Kongo class was largely uneventful, except for Haruna. She hit what was believed to be a German mine in the summer of 1917. She nearly sank from the extensive flooding, but just managed to make port for repairs. By 1918, the 3in AA mounts were removed from atop the main gun turrets. In the early 1920s, an odd shaped cowling was added to the fore funnel to keep smoke away from the back of the bridge structure on all vessels of the class.

KONGO CLASS BATTLECRUISERS: GENERAL STATISTICS AS BUILT, 1913-15

Kongo on sea trials off the coast of England, shortly after her fitting out period was completed at the Vickers & Sons Shipyard, Barrow.

A view of the bow of Kongo just prior to her launching. Note the unique shape of her forefoot.

By the late 1920s, a major reconstruction of the four Kongos was planned, as Japan was still adhering to the Washington Naval Treaty. Haruna was first to enter Yokosuka dockyard in March 1924, Kirishima at Kure in March 1927, both Kongo at Yokosuka and Hiei at Kure in September 1929. Kongo, Kirishima and Haruna would each receive additional armour protection, more efficient oil fired boilers, reduction to two funnels, main gun elevation raised to 43°, aircraft facilities between main gun turrets 3 and 4, and anti-torpedo bulges on the hull. Hiei was demilitarised at this time, with removal of side armour, No 4 main gun turret, all 6in broadside guns removed and a reduction of boilers to reduce her top speed to 18kts. Haruna completed this major reconstruction in July 1928, Kirishima in March 1930, Kongo in March 1931 and Hiei completed her demilitarisation in December 1932. Due to the increase in both weight and beam, the top speed of the first three fell 2.5kts. and