Of the Kongo-class consisting of the Kongo, Haruna, Hiei and Kirishima. Laid down at the Mitsubishi Shipyard Company, Japan on 17 March 1912, launched on 1 December 1913, completed on 19 April 1915, modernized and reconstructed into a battleship between 1927-1934 and into a fast battleship between 18 November 1934-8 June 1936 and sunk during the battle of Guadalcanal after being heavily damaged by the USS battleship Washington after she herself had damaged the USS South Dakota at 03:25 o’clock in the morning of 15 November 1942.Designed by the British naval engineer George Thurston.(1)
General technical specifications of the Kongo-class battle cruisers before the reconstruction as fast battleships. With a displacement of 27.384 tons/26.952 long tons and as dimensions 215,58 x 28,04 x 8,22 metres ot 704.0 x 92.0 x 27.0 feet. The two Parsons direct drive steam turbine sets and 36 Yarrow boilers supplied via 4 shafts 64.000 shp allowing a speed of 27,5 knots and with a speed of 14 knots a range of 8.000 nautical miles. Her crew numbered 1.193 men. The armament consisted of a 7,6-20,3cm/3-8” thick waterline belt, a 2,54cm/1” thick deck with the gun turrets, barbettes and gun turrets protected by respectively 22,9-25,4cm/9-10”, 7,6-2,54cm/3”-10” and 22,9cm/9”. The armament consisted of 4x2-35,6cm14” Vickers guns, 16x2-15,2cm guns, 4x2-7,6cm anti aircraft guns and 8-53,3cm/2” torpedo tubes.
Note
1. Sir Thomas George OwensThurston (1869-22 January 1950), studied naval architecture in Liverpool and Newcastle-on-Tyne and was in the first half of the 20th Century an import naval architect.
