Heavy cruiser Maya is a Takao class : Takao, Atago, Chokai and Maya. 5 twin turrets of 203mm, able of 34 knots, they were the bests units of this category in the japanese navy. Maya has been modified as AA cruiser (as shown below) : "C" disapeared and his AA armament grew to 60 pieces. It was sunk by the submarine Darter during the attack of Palawan This drawing is a 3 weeks job
Nice art work ! Do you know of any good english books that tell about life abourd a Japanese ship other than on a submarine ? I have one book called I-boat Captain.
Is general details all you want TA? If so, here is a short commentary: The officers had roughly the equivalent cabins and amminities that European naval officers were accorded. Some of the larger ships did include a steam bath for officers as this was a culturial carryover pecuiliar to Japan. Food and the day-to-day life of officers was reasonably good by Japanese standards. On the whole they were not too bad off. The ships themselves were generally more cramped than in other navies. Overhead space was often less and sometimes even low by Japanese standards. Most ships had good compartmentation but the ability to bring the ship quickly to general quarters was made difficult by a general lack of quick acting doors and hatches, poor access via passageways that were very narrow, and the low overheads. It was not uncommon for larger Japanese ships to take as much as 30 minutes to get fully at general quarters. As for the crew, they were frequently called "Cattle" by their officers. Discipline could be brutal and there was little room for anything but obedience. This didn't mean that the crew were poorly trained. Quite the contrary. Most crews were very well trained in their jobs due to constant training and fear of failure. Amminities for the crew were few. On most ships the crew's bathing facilities were simple troughs on the weather decks using salt water. Bunking arrangements were almost universally hammocks. The crew's eating arrangements were equally spartan. Typically each division messed in their berthing compartment having a few men fetch their rations from the galley. Food was monotonus in nature with rice being the primary staple. Unlike officers, the crew got little liberty by comparison. Of course, given the small amount of their pay and the often lack of being in a port where liberty was worthwhile this was not a big issue. Physical conditioning was a frequent and central training regieme for the crew. Daily calestinics were the norm. That is a brief picture of life in the Japanese Imperial Navy.
Thank you TA ! Sounds like the lower ranks were treated as bad as the Japanese Army treated their non officers.
