Water Line Series

IJN AKAGI

Akagi was laid down as an Amagi class battlecruiser at Kure, Japan. However, the Washington Naval Treaty, which Japan signed in 1922, prevented Japan from completing Akagi. Because the Treaty authorized conversion of two battleship or battlecruiser hulls into aircraft carriers of up to 33,000 tons displacement, the incomplete hulls of Amagi and Akagi were selected for completion as carriers. Amagi's hull was damaged beyond economic repair in the Great Kant??? earthquake of 1 September 1923. The remaining battlecruisers of the class, Atago and Takao were cancelled and scrapped in 1924, in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. Akagi, the only remaining member of her class, was launched on 22 April 1925 and completed at Kure Naval Arsenal on 27 March 1927. As completed, the ship had two hangar decks with a capacity of 61 aircraft. The hangars opened onto two superimposed flying off decks at the bow. In theory, this permitted aircraft to take off directly from the hangars, while landing on the main flight deck above. Funnel gasses were discharged through a downturned starboard funnel. To compensate for the weight of the hangar structure, the horizontal armor was reduced from 3.8 to 3.1 inches and moved one deck lower. The belt armor was reduced from 10 to 6 inches and was also lowered by one deck.

In practice, the multiple flight deck arrangement proved unsuccessful. From 1935 to 1938, Akagi received a massive reconstruction at Sasebo Naval Arsenal. It extended the hangars forward, removed the flying off decks, and increased aircraft capacity to 91. The refit added an island superstructure on the port side of the ship, which was an unusual arrangement; the only other carrier to share this feature was a contemporary, the Hiry????. Akagi and the Hiry???? were intended to work in a tactical formation with starboard-sided carriers, in order to improve the flight pattern around the formation, but the experiment was not continued beyond those two carriers.

Because Akagi was initially conceived as a battlecruiser, the prevailing ship naming conventions dictated that she (like her sister ships) be named after a mountain. Akagi was named after Mount Akagi, a dormant volcano in the Kant??? region (the name literally means "red castle"). After she was redesignated as an aircraft carrier her mountain name remained, in contrast to bespoke aircraft carriers like S???ry????, which were named after flying creatures. The name was previously given to the Maya class gunboat Akagi

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