Japan's New Carrier

Never saw this on the news.
"Japan's navy today took delivery of its biggest warship since the Second World War as it continues expanding its military capability in an attempt to shed its post-war pacifism.
Today the Izumo, a helicopter carrier as big as the Imperial Navy aircraft carriers that battled the United States in the Pacific, was delivered to the navy in a crowning achievement for the nation's military forces.
With a crew of 470 sailors, it is a highly visible example of how Japan is expanding the capability of its military to operate overseas as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks lawmaker approval to loosen the restraints of Japan's pacifist post-war constitution.
The 248metre (813ft) long warship resembles U.S. Marine Corp amphibious assault carriers in size and design but it is designated as a helicopter destroyer - a label that allows Japan to keep within the bounds of a constitutional ban on owning the means to wage war.
Aircraft carriers, because of their ability to project force, are considered offensive weapons."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3010499/Japanese-navy-gets-biggest-flat-WWII-era-aircraft-carriers.html#ixzz3VS7zPL1K

 

Must have been a slow news day. All of this had been well covered when the Izumo was launched back in August, 2013.

The Daily Mail article from back then: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2385430/Japan-warship-Izumo-aircraft-carrier-flat-topped-destroyer.html

 

Takao's story is of the launching....Historian's of the delivery, acceptance,etc....I must say the DM has the best pictures and more information than a lot of sites...the flag does look a little eerie....? it says 'awesome might'....that's overblown, no? and they had to put a Hiroshima pic in....

 

Ahhh, Japan back to imperialism ? And what a pity, had they waited a year they could get some French ship for an apple and an egg.

Probably to keep the evil Chinese at bay...

 

They have had helicopter carriers since 2009 with the commissioning of Hyuga.





Or were the Japanese having helicopter carriers more palatable when they looked like the Haruna class


or the Shirane Class

 

They are sweet looking anyway...

 

No argument there.

 

Yup, and they still seem to have more guns still then other major western ships that only have a lonely 76mm or so And some MGs...not sure if it is so clever to rely so much on missiles. But now the lasers come, too....

 

You sure? We Americans ditched the 5-inch/54 Mark42(and went with the 5-inch/54 Mark 45 and the 5-inch/62 Mark 45) long ago and sold those ships off to other nations(if not sunk or scrapped outright). The British can't seem to get away from their 4.5-inch gun, the Russians have their dual 130mms, and the Chinese have their single 130mm.

Of course, 3 or the four old Japanese helicopter carriers have been decommissioned, and the fourth will go when the 2nd Izumo class(as of yet unnamed) commissions.

 

No not sure, maybe I was too influenced by weaker armed British and German ships.....like Amazon, Bremen etc. Mostly in eg. Harpoon simulation those do not live long Found that Uk and Germany seemed to be among the weakest, they rely(ied) too much on own air superiority imo.

 

Germany had the 5-inch/54 Mark 42 up until 2003 when the remaining two Lutjens class DDGs were decommissioned


I would agree, the German Navy would be unable to stand alone. But, would likely have been used as support in a multi-national task force.

That being said, most ships nowadays are "one hit wonders."

 

Larry Bond's Harpoon? Boy, does that take me back many years...
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5928/harpoon-1st-3rd-edition

 

Harpoon Gold or 2000 for PC (their is now some kind of final edition from Matrixgames):http://www.harpoonpages.com/h2002.htm


Yup, I made a scenario for it In this one it´s mostly so that the German and Danish baltics fleets die Guess I made it too challenging....even seasoned guys had trouble with it . It´s called "Red Lightning 2" theme: cold war gone hot (which was some of my hobbies for quite a while.....

The Lutjens class is mod. US C.F. Adams, and was indeed the most powerful. Except the small subs. Their main asset was the standard missile launcher with up to 40 missiles in mag. While Bremen has only 8 Sea Sparrow & 76mm gun & Exocet & torps & 1 heli iirc.


Edit: Here is Harpoon final it seems: http://www.matrixgames.com/products/392/details/Larry.Bond%27s.Harpoon.-.Ultimate.Edition

 

These days few if any ships can shrug off a hit. The amount of armor that would be needed to shrug off a missile strike would most definitely make the ships uneconomical and seriously affect their operating abilities.

All they can do and as they do do is just add extra armor around vital systems.

 

Generally without AEGIS or similar systems ur dead in heavy air attacks, or of course heavy own air cover. Or sometimes good close in defense might save you (which the British lacked at Falklands).....

but of course the hardest to crack are Slava and Kirow classes...except US aegis...

For Harpooners here is info & links for scen:

http://www.harplonkhq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=190&start=15

The post is from the guy who converted my scen to Harp3 (the 40th new scen!)

 

That´s amazing lol, just discovered Matrixgames used a screenshot of my scen on their game page: (or someone made an update of it for the final version...cool)

 

Harpoon on the PC. I only ever played the "old school" table top game. I still have all the old manuals and data annexes stashed somewhere.

 

Does it happen to have the latest in military tech/hardware?

 

I believe that Matrix has continued to update the series with new hardware.

Matrix also publishes "Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations" which is, from what I have read, superior to Harpoon. While Command covers much the same ground as Harpoon, it is a "new" game, and not related to Harpoon in any way.
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/483/details/Command:.Modern.Air.Naval.Operations.Wargame.of.the.Year.Edition

 

Those ships are from the 1970s, and as Takao mentioned they're being phased out. Current Japanese destroyers have a single 76mm or 5".

The 5" does seem to be having a bit of a revival lately, even on relatively small frigates. For a while it seemed like everything outside Russia, China, and their clients was using the Oto Melara 76mm.

The Japanese DDHs were good-looking ships, but they only carried one more helo than a lot of "normal" DDs, and they appear to have only one flight deck spot.

The Japanese keep a very modern navy - excuse me, self defense force - which means they retire ships that still have a reasonable amount of life in them. To date their ban on arms exports has precluded selling any of them to foreign navies, but I wonder if that might change under Abe's more active defense policy. It would be a way for some of the local navies like Vietnam or the Philippines to get some reasonably capable ships; the PI are currently acquiring ex-US Coast Guard cutters dating from the 1960s.