Knowing that they could not match their strongest adversary (the United States), in terms of sheer numbers, the Japanese set out to be do what they could in terms of producing ships of superior quality. Thus, their ships tended to put offensive capabilities ahead of defense, especially when it came to armor. Japanese cruisers were considered to be very lightly protected when compared to the ships of other nations. Instead, that weight saved was put into additional guns and systems.

One system that the Japanese favored was the use of the torpedo. Their cruisers all had some sort of torpedo capabilities and their crews trained with them all the time. From fixed tubes amidships, they finally went to multiple tube mounts on swivel bases. However, like many weapons systems, more was expected from this that was actually achieved. And there was always the danger of an incoming shell hitting the torpedoes and causing great damage. To their dismay, this did happen in several instances during the Pacific War. Yet these ships were very successful, despite being almost totally destroyed during the length of the war.

This book in the New Vanguard series looks at the five major classes of Japanese heavy cruisers: the Furutaka and Aoba, Myoko, Aoba, Mogami, and Tone class of ships. Each class is provided a basic history of the ships as well as the design and modifications made to them as time progressed. There are a superb number of period photos of each type as well as cutaways and the excellent artwork of Paul Wright to help us visualize what these ships were like in action.

It is fortunate for the US that the Japanese missed several opportunities to put their heavy cruisers to good use as commerce raiders. Though there were minor attempts at this in the Indian Ocean, the Japanese would rather take on other warships and the opportunity to really cause havoc against cargo ships and transports was missed. It is probably no surprise that most of these ships were lost due to air power than any other cause, as against dedicated dive bombers and torpedo planes, they were no match.

An excellent book on a most interesting subject and one that I am positive you will find to be of interest. One that will be pulled from the shelves time after time and one I can highly recommend to you.

February 2011

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