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Ships · Japan · 1913-1945

Kongo-class battlecruiser

fast battleship

Designed in Britain as battlecruisers before the First World War, the lead ship built at Barrow and her three sisters in Japan, the four Kongo-class ships were extensively rebuilt between the wars into fast battleships, their speed making them the only Japanese battleships able to keep pace with carrier task forces. Kongo and Haruna bombarded Henderson Field during the Guadalcanal campaign; Hiei and Kirishima were lost off Guadalcanal a month later, and of the two that fought at Leyte Gulf, Kongo was torpedoed by the submarine USS Sealion that November while Haruna was sunk at her moorings at Kure by carrier aircraft on 28 July 1945.

Wikipedia

crew~1,400
armament8x 36cm guns
displacement31,720 tons (standard, as rebuilt), 36,600 full load
speed30 knots

Pacific

Japanese battleship battlecruiser Kongō, prior to her refit and reclassification as a fast battleship, pre-1927. Photograph taken during full power trials on 8 May, 1913. Published in Scientific American, August 16, 1913
Japanese battleship battlecruiser Kongō, prior to her refit and reclassification as a fast battleship, pre-1927. Photograph taken during full power trials on 8 May, 1913. Published in Scientific American, August 16, 1913Scientific America · Public domain · source
14 inch gun being installed (in the turret at left) on Japanese battlecruiser Haruna at the Kawasaki company at Kobe, Japan
14 inch gun being installed (in the turret at left) on Japanese battlecruiser Haruna at the Kawasaki company at Kobe, JapanShizuo Fukui · Public domain · source
Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Haruna undergoes trials after her second reconstruction.
Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Haruna undergoes trials after her second reconstruction.Kure Naval Arsenal Shipbuilding unit · Public domain · source

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