I blame whatever hax Japan put in the freakin Shimakaze that literally makes her zoom like a torpedo that generates a really strong wake.

ezekill said:

I blame whatever hax Japan put in the freakin Shimakaze that literally makes her zoom like a torpedo that generates a really strong wake.

It's not any great secret they just crammed a very large power plant into a rather large destroyer hull, but she paid for that with lackluster performance in other areas. She had no increase in gun power and only a side grade in torpedoes (yes she had more tubes, but she had no reloads meaning she actually carried one less torpedo total then the preceding 8 tube+reload classes)for a large increase in displacement and complexity. She also seems to have had little margin for growth given that when they added more AA they removed one of her turrets.

This was a common failing of very high speed designs. In the end the displacement and money eaten up and the complexity added to gain those few extra knots almost never seems worth it in hindsight. The Iowa's are often knocked for similiar reasons being 10,000 tons heavier then the Sodaks and basically gaining only six knots of speed and a rather marginal increase in combat power for it.

ezekill said:

I blame whatever hax Japan put in the freakin Shimakaze that literally makes her zoom like a torpedo that generates a really strong wake.

That's more just hype than fact. Even on this chart, she's only 6% faster than a light cruiser, which isn't dramatically different enough to make it anything more than a technicality that she's "the fastest". Also notice that this scale doesn't exactly stay to scale... Makes me think of this...

In fact, Fubuki, a ship a decade and a half in the period of the most rapid naval technological advancment older than Shimakaze, and under half her tonnage, managed thirty-EIGHT knots.

Basically, Shimakaze is best looked at as a prototype ship that was expensive to produce and not quite up to what a line production model would be like. They were just testing out a new type of boiler. That they even still classified Shimakaze as a "destroyer" at all is kind of stretching things, as well, as she's closer to Tenryuu's tonnage than Fubuki's.

NWSiaCB said:

That they even still classified Shimakaze as a "destroyer" at all is kind of stretching things, as well, as she's closer to Tenryuu's tonnage than Fubuki's.

It's a well-established fact that more advanced ship designs tend to be heavier than their earlier counterparts. For example, the modern-day Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer displaces more than the Aoba-class Heavy Cruiser did. Given that Tenryuu is almost as old as "Granny Kongou" and Shimakaze is a mid-war design, this might well be expected.

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NWSiaCB said:

Basically, Shimakaze is best looked at as a prototype ship that was expensive to produce and not quite up to what a line production model would be like. They were just testing out a new type of boiler. That they even still classified Shimakaze as a "destroyer" at all is kind of stretching things, as well, as she's closer to Tenryuu's tonnage than Fubuki's.

All that counted back then was gun size: up to 5.9"(~14.99cm) was a DD, 6"(15.24cm) to 7.9"(~20.1cm) was a CL and anything over 8"(20.3cm) which wasn't a battleship was a CA under the treaty. Which is why the DKM stuck 5.9" guns on their CL sized and equipped DDs.

Shimakze could actually make up to 41 knots; 39 was just her design speed.