Number 13-class battleship
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The ''Number 13''-class battleship was a planned
class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differentl ...
of four
fast battleship A fast battleship was a battleship which emphasised speed without – in concept – undue compromise of either armor or armament. Most of the early World War I-era dreadnought battleships were typically built with low design speeds, ...
s to be built for the
Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
(IJN) during the 1920s. The ships never received any names, being known only as ''Numbers 13–16''. They were intended to reinforce Japan's "
eight-eight fleet The was a Japanese naval strategy formulated for the development of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the first quarter of the 20th century, which stipulated that the navy should include eight first-class battleships and eight armoured cruisers or b ...
" of eight battleships and eight
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
s after the United States announced a major naval construction program in 1919. The ''Number 13'' class was designed to be superior to all other existing battleships, planned or building. After the signing of the
Washington Naval Treaty The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Nav ...
in 1922, they were cancelled in November 1923 before construction could begin.


Design and background

By 1918, the Navy had gained approval for an "eight-six" fleet, all ships under eight years old. However, having four large battleships and four battlecruisers on order put an enormous financial strain on Japan, which was spending about a third of its national budget on the Navy. Despite this, the IJN gained approval of the "eight-eight-eight" plan in 1920 after American President
Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
announced plans in 1919 to re-initiate the 1916 plan for ten additional battleships and six battlecruisers. The Japanese response required the construction of eight additional fast battleships in the ''Kii'' and the ''Number 13'' classes. When designing the latter class, the Japanese followed the doctrine that they had used since the
First Sino-Japanese War The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between China and Japan primarily over influence in Korea. After more than six months of unbroken successes by Japanese land and naval forces and the loss of the po ...
of 1894–1895 of compensating for quantitative inferiority with qualitative superiority. In the words of naval historian Siegfried Breyer, "had he shipsbeen completed, they would have been the world's largest and most powerful battleships. Their gun calibre alone would have caused a new and more intensive naval arms race. From an engineering aspect they were more than ten years ahead of their time because they anticipated the characteristics of the fully developed, fast battleship."
Naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture occupations Design occupations Architecture, Occupations ...
s William Garzke and Robert Dulin concur saying, "These ships would have completely outclassed any European battleship". The ''Number 13'' class was designed by
Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
Yuzuru Hiraga Vice Admiral Baron was a career naval officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Doctor of Engineering and head of the engineering school of Tokyo Imperial University and a leading Japanese naval architect in the 1910s and 1920s, responsible for desi ...
, the naval architect responsible for most of the previous Japanese capital ships. The ships were based on his previous ''Kii''-class battleship and designs, enlarged to take guns.Gardiner & Gray, p. 235


Description

The ships had a length of
between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ster ...
and
overall Overalls, also called bib-and-brace overalls or dungarees, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers". Overalls were ...
. They had a
beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of and a
draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
of . The normal
displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...
of the battleships was . The class was intended to be equipped with four Gijutsu-Hombu geared
steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
s, each of which drove one propeller shaft. The turbines were designed to produce a total of , using steam provided by 22 Kampon oil-fired
water-tube boiler A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-gene ...
s, to reach a maximum speed of . The primary armament of the ''Number 13'' class was eight 50-
caliber In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel Gauge (firearms) , bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the f ...
460-millimeter guns in four twin- gun turrets, two each
superfiring Superfiring armament is a naval military building technique in which two (or more) turrets are located in a line, one behind the other, with the second turret located above ("super") the one in front so that the second turret can fire over the ...
fore and aft of the
superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...
.Breyer, p. 356 No examples of this gun were ever built, but it was planned to fire a shell at a
muzzle velocity Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately to i ...
of . The secondary battery consisted of 16 single 50-caliber guns mounted in
casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which artillery, guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to Ancient history, antiquity, th ...
s in the superstructure. The manually operated guns had a maximum range of at an elevation of +35° and fired at a rate up to 10 rounds per minute. The ships' anti-aircraft defenses consisted of either four or eight single 45-caliber 10th Year Type
anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
s mounted around the single
funnel A funnel is a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening. Funnels are usually made of stainless steel, aluminium, glass, or plastic. The material used in its construct ...
. Each of these guns had a maximum
elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...
of +75° and a maximum rate of fire of 10–11 rounds per minute. They could fire a projectile with a muzzle velocity of to a maximum height of . The ''Number 13'' class was also designed with eight above-water
torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
s, four on each
broadside Broadside or broadsides may refer to: Naval * Broadside (naval), terminology for the side of a ship, the battery of cannon on one side of a warship, or their near simultaneous fire on naval warfare Printing and literature * Broadside (comic ...
. The
waterline The waterline is the line where the hull of a ship meets the surface of the water. Specifically, it is also the name of a special marking, also known as an international load line, Plimsoll line and water line (positioned amidships), that indi ...
armor belt Belt armor is a layer of heavy metal armor plated onto or within the outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers, and aircraft carriers. The belt armor is designed to prevent projectiles from penetrating ...
was intended have a maximum thickness of and, like the ''Kii'' class, it was angled 15° outwards at the top to increase its ability to resist penetration at short range. The deck armor would have had a total thickness of .


Construction

After the end of World War I, the United Kingdom, the United States and the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
all announced large capital ship building programs, incorporating design lessons from the war. These ships would have been much larger and more expensive than earlier vessels and President
Warren G. Harding Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
called a conference at Washington, D. C. in late 1921 to forestall a very expensive arms race. The attendees at the conference agreed to limit capital ship construction for the next decade and scrapped large numbers of existing ships as well as many ships still under construction. Japan suspended the ''Number 13'' class while the conference was in progress before any ship was laid down and formally cancelled them on 19 November 1923. As construction of the ships was scheduled to begin in 1922, and completed by 1927, they were already allocated to specific shipyards:Breyer, pp. 70–71, 356


Footnotes


References

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External links


World Battleships List: Japanese Dreadnoughts
{{Number 13 class battleship Battleship classes Battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy Proposed ships