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[WulfPack3]

 Initially Shinano was laid down as the third of the Yamato-class battleships, Shinano's partially complete hull was converted to an aircraft carrier in 1942, after the lost of aircraft carriers at Midway. Partially completed in November 1944, Shinano was transfering from the Yokosuka Naval Shipyard to Kure Naval Base to complete her fitting out and transfer a load of 100 Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka rocket-propelled kamikaze aircraft. She was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Archer-Fish 10 days after her commission by four torpedoes due to crew inexperience and serious design flaws. As of 2013, Shinano is the largest warship in history to be sunk by a submarine.

The Shinano would be great for a what if campaign, when it load with Sams and judys to attack american B-29 bases in the Mariana Islands.

General characteristics

Class and type:  Yamato - class battleship

Type:  Aircraft Carrier

Displacement:  62,000 long tons (63,000 t) standard, 72,000 long tons (73,000 t) full load
Length:  266 m (872 ft 8 in)
Beam:  36.3 m (119 ft 1 in) waterline, 40 m (131 ft 3 in) flight deck
Draft:  10.8 m (35 ft 5 in)
Installed power:  150,000 shp (100,000 kW)

Propulsion: 
4 x geared steam turbines
12 x Kampon oil-fired boilers
4 x shafts
Speed:  27 knots (50 km/h, 31 mph)
Range:  10,000 nmi (19,000 km, 12,000 mi) at 27 knots (50 km/h, 31 mph)
Complement:  2,400

Armament: 
16 x 127mm (5 in) dual-purpose guns
145 x 25mm (1 in) Type 96 AA guns
12 x 28-barreled 127mm (5 in) AA rocket launchers

Armor:  Belt:  20.5 cm (8.1 in)
Deck:  19 cm (7.5 in) hanger deck, 8 cm (3.1 in) flight deck

Aircraft carried:  47 (capable of storing 139)


Shinano underway during her sea trials in Tokyo Bay.

[Sleepingdragon]

I remember reading about that when I was a kid. I think the Acher fish waited patiently on it for some time. Strange how IJN carriers had such small AC compliments when compared to US carriers.

[Whiskey_Sierra_972]

US carriers use flying deck to park planes while IJN ones don't....

[IJNfan_PL]

Strange how IJN carriers had such small AC compliments when compared to US carriers.

IJN seaborne aircrafts had only folding wingtips (not whole wings like in US Navy seaborne planes) and this reduced number of A/C taken into hangar.
And in this case - Shinano - small area of hangar was choosen just to shortening the reconstruction from BB. Initially there was a plan to build big hangar (for 150 A/C's) but this option required a thorough reconstruction and extended reconstruction time which was unacceptable for IJN HQ.

BTW Shinano was requested earlier: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,14061.0.html 

Mayby Diving_Hawk who created awesome Yamato mod would like to made Shinano? 

[Sleepingdragon]

I forgot about the non folding wings. I kinda figured the conversion from BB to CV may have had a limiting effect on the hangar space since the Lexington/Saratoga were the biggest CVs in the fleet when the war started, but only carried about 60 planes I think; the conversion from battle-cruiser during construction caused that also.

Thanx for the input comrades. 

[AG-51_Razor]

Actually, the Sara carried many more than 60 a/c. They would trice the spares in the overhead of the hanger bay as well as have more spares disassembled and stowed in a compartment below the hanger deck. Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Saratoga_(CV-3)

[Sleepingdragon]

I didn't know that. I knew the Wasp hung planes from the hangar cieling, but never seen that about Sara and Lex.

I was going by "The Cactus Air Force", about the air siege at Henderson field on the G'canal in 42. I highly recommend that book btw.

Anyhoot, I believe it said the entire air winng, either 60 or 65 planes,  was launched from the Sara after she was torpedoed by a sub (one hit), and they re-enforced Henderson field after the massive night bombardment left only 5 planes servicable. That IJN sub skipper didn't realize he had done so much to help the US win that battle - his timing was perfect. There were no ohter planes avail that could get there that quickly.

intersting that the IJN didn't put more priority on making thier planes more adaptive to storage.