Though wasn't Akashi the only repair ship skulking around for ad-hoc repairs for Japan though? I remember the US even had a FREAKIN FLOATING DRYDOCK.
They also had a pre-dread that they had converted into a repair ship, and US didn't only have one floating drydock but multiple ones of them, some even large enough to support an Iowa-class battleship.
She had such amazing capabilities -(taking care of 40% overall repair + maintenance works on the Combined Fleet by herself during peaceful time / taking part in nearly all repair work during the World War II)- thanks to latest machineries/tools imported from Germany.
Personally, she was utmost useful ship among other Imperial Japanese Navy ships. [At the same time, that was why she was the one of number one target ship from the Allied Force]
However, due to IJN(also Army too) almost neglected about Logistics Support -[as they were more focused on manly BIG GUNS]- , unlike USA and UK who had about 10 of 'pure' repair ships even before the war, IJN[known for one of powerful navy in the world at that time] had only one repair ship that was purely designed & dedicated for repairing. Despite of they should have at least 6 of them.
But the biggest obstacle for them to build additional Akashi-class repair ship was: During that time, Japan did not have ability to produce such high quality machineries/tools. Thus it was impossible for them to build the repair ship that has similar capability as Akashi. ...Not to mention that, as the war started and when IJN finally realized they need more of them, Germany was very far away from Japan AND it was not easy for them to bring the imported items from Germany through Indian Ocean, where was infested with the Allied patrol.
Wow. I looked up "Floating Dry Dock" and that is incredible. I didn't even know you could do that! I always thought that the bottom face of a ship was blade or bar shaped, and that lifting a ship up on to another ship's deck would just cut it in half if it wasn't reinforced with steel and concrete.
Wow. I looked up "Floating Dry Dock" and that is incredible. I didn't even know you could do that! I always thought that the bottom face of a ship was blade or bar shaped, and that lifting a ship up on to another ship's deck would just cut it in half if it wasn't reinforced with steel and concrete.
Learn something new every now and then.
If you look at battleships, they basically look like tubs that taper at the ends under the waterline.
The reason is draft - those wedge-shaped ship bottoms go deeper into the water and will run aground in shallow harbors, and it's a massive problem to need to make all your harbors deeper just to fit your new super-battleship, so they basically stick to just one maximum draft, and make the ship wider/longer if they need to displace more water. Remember that part of the reason Pearl Harbor was such a major naval base was that it was believed the water was too shallow to use torpedo bombers. The water's depth at Pearl Harbor was just barely enough to let the heavy ships in without beaching themselves, (and this is also why none of the ships actually 'sank', no matter how much damage they took.)
If you look at battleships, they basically look like tubs that taper at the ends under the waterline.
The reason is draft - those wedge-shaped ship bottoms go deeper into the water and will run aground in shallow harbors, and it's a massive problem to need to make all your harbors deeper just to fit your new super-battleship, so they basically stick to just one maximum draft, and make the ship wider/longer if they need to displace more water. Remember that part of the reason Pearl Harbor was such a major naval base was that it was believed the water was too shallow to use torpedo bombers. The water's depth at Pearl Harbor was just barely enough to let the heavy ships in without beaching themselves, (and this is also why none of the ships actually 'sank', no matter how much damage they took.)
Eh, almost any ship nowadays has a nearly flat bottom with bilge keels it provides more internal space and is just flat out much easier to construct and not really less efficient. It really has nothing to do with draft as even small ships will have rounded nearly flat bottoms (go look at destroyer's hulls for instance). Deeper V hulls pretty much aren't seen much on anything bigger then a speed boat. In the case of armored warships wide beam also had advantages in terms of stability as a gun platform, reserve buoyancy/freeboard, and side protection depth.
Actually for the US it was very much the opposite of this during the war era. Added beam was unacceptable due to the limits of the panama canal and insistence ships fit through it so a fair number of larger inter and war era ships had somewhat less then optimal beams and rode rather deep in pursuit of fitting through the canal. The Iowa in particular definitely would have benefited from being able to add a few meters of pudge.
Please fix this~ClangThis too, hurry~At that moment, having witnessed so much carnage, Akashi-chan had eyes like those of a senior programmer who had learned the truth...ClangWell, the conditions are much better here than they were back during the war.Akashi-chan, you sure are incredible at full power! With all your Ship Repair Facilities equipped, you can repair five* ships at once!
* Six if you include Akashi herself.No, sir...Get going!!The crewmembers aboard me even had a farm going... maybe that'd be a good hobby to pick up...We couldn't even send them back to the homeland and get it done there.
That was my daily life.Hey you, there's still work to be done. You thought you were going home?Dispatched RepairsClang, clangLeave it to us!I had to repair as many as 9 ships at a time when things got busy.For small repairs and ships that couldn't dock alongside, I had to send out workboats. What really sucked up time was scraping barnacles and oysters off ships' hulls.
