Super Type A Cruiser

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The Super Type A Cruiser was planned by the Imperial Japanese Navy in response to the American Alaska class large cruiser. Two ships, designated Hull Numbers 795 & 796, were planned under the 1942 Program. A rough plan, Project 64, was for a ship of similar size and armament to the Alaska class, with nine 12-inch guns in three triple turrets. Project 65, the last basic design, was for a larger ship of about 31,000 standard tons displacement armed with nine 14-inch guns. The secondary armament was to consist of sixteen of the new 100mm dual-purpose guns. Eight 24-inch torpedo tubes were featured in Project 64, but no torpedoes were included in Project 65. Maximum speed was to be 33 knots. Project 65 was Japan's last design for a large, gun-armed warship.

The Super Type A was similar in concept to the original battlecruiser promoted by Jackie Fisher before World War I. It was to destroy enemy scouting cruisers, being able to catch & destroy such cruisers but outrun & evade enemy battleships. Although not much smaller than the British King George V class battleships, and with similar armament, they would have been far less heavily armored. However, they would have had no speed advantage over the American Iowa class battleships, which were larger & much more heavily armored & armed, as well as more numerous. The basic design seems to have been an much-enlarged variation of Japanese heavy cruiser designs rather than a scaled-down, faster version of the Yamato class battleship.

Ironically, the Alaska class cruiser were ordered by the United States Navy because of mistaken intelligence reports about a super-heavy Japanese cruiser.

This was the only Imperial Japanese Navy design of battleship size that featured a dual-purpose secondary armament, intended to serve as both secondary anti-surface guns and the primary anti-aircraft defense. Previous designs featured secondary guns of 5.5-inch or 6-inch caliber for use against surface targets along with a heavy anti-aircraft battery of 5-inch guns. This wasted critical weight & space as well as providing a weaker anti-aircraft armament than battleships with dual-purpose guns. American & British designs from the 1930s avoided this mistake.

Although planning for these ships reached a more advanced stage than the Super Yamato class battleships, no orders were ever placed with Japanese contractors. After the Battle of Midway construction of all Japanese warships except carriers, destroyers & submarines was reduced to the lowest priority.

• Hansgeorge Jentschura, Dieter Jung & Peter Mickel, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1945, Arms & Armour Press, 1977.