The true Kitakami purpose. Suicide torpedos.

[Col_Overkill]

Through my research, I have discovered the true purpose of the Kitakami torpedo cruiser. It was not designated as a torpedo cruiser at all, but instead as a Kaiten cruiser. A Kaiten was a type 93 torpedo, that had been modified with a human guidance system. In other words, it was a Kamikaze torpedo. There were smaller cruisers that mounted the Kaiten armament system, but none to the scale of the Kitakami, with its 40 launch tubes. Below is a schematic of the Kaiten Type 93 torpedo. They were "deemed a disappointment" by the IJN high command, with only a small percentage of accuracy increase over the existing guidance systems of the Type 93, and the project was never successful enough to proceed to large scale deployments.

 

[Daigensui]

No. Get out.

[Guest]

I don't think that could be amazingly popular with some people in the community, since it has to deal with suicide weapons, it touches a sensitive topic. 

Plus, I don't recall them being amazingly effective. 

[Harkonen_siegetank]

I don't think that could be amazingly popular with some people in the community, since it has to deal with suicide weapons, it touches a sensitive topic. 

Plus, I don't recall them being amazingly effective. 

 

Yup, even the German version weren't that great either.

[Col_Overkill]

No. Get out.

 

There isnt any reason to be rude. At no point was I suggesting these needed to be implemented, I was just stating the original purpose for the ship. To my knowledge, none of the man guided torpedoes from any country were that effective. The only successful system in the whole suicide weapon idea were the kamikaze aircraft strikes.

[NGTM_1R]

 

 I was just stating the original purpose for the ship.

 

No, you weren't. The "original" fit of the Kitakami dates about twenty years before the Kaiten was even conceived, and the torpedo cruiser refit predates same by at least a year.

 

This topic is ridiculous, your statement is ridiculous, and get out.

[Seraphil]

Your research is lacking.  Being a Kaiten carrier was never Kitakami's original purpose.

 

Being fitted with Kaiten was a desperation effort along with the rest of the suicide weapon projects; for a good chunk of the war up to that point, Kitakami was fitted as a fast transport, not even a fighting ship.  The Kaiten project proved an abject failure, and Kitakami never actually deployed with them due to the lack of fuel the IJN was suffering.  She then became a repair ship at war's end.

[Daigensui]

There isnt any reason to be rude. At no point was I suggesting these needed to be implemented, I was just stating the original purpose for the ship. 

 

Exactly why I'm ordering you to shut up. How is carrying Kaiten the original purpose of Kitakami when she was completed in 1921, converted into a torpedo cruiser in 1941, then converted into a fast troop transport in 1942, before the idea of Kaiten was established in 1944?

[RedBear87]

There were smaller cruisers that mounted the Kaiten armament system, but none to the scale of the Kitakami, with its 40 launch tubes.

Never mind the fact that it was not its original purpose, as it's been already pointed out, you're making a hell of confusion between the torpedo cruiser configuration, fitted with ten quadruple torpedo mounts (i.e. forty torpedoes with no reloads), and the kaiten carrier itself, which carried eight kaiten on two rails that tapered down the stern. There were no other "cruiser" refitted to carry human torpedoes, but the No.1 class fast transports were similar in design to the refitted Kitakami and they were used in the same role carrying six kaiten, many Matsu/Tachibana class destroyers were refitted with a single short rail carrying one kaiten and an overhang that extended past the original stern and tapered down in the water, two surviving Minekaze class, Namikaze and Shiokaze, carried respectively two and four.

They were "deemed a disappointment" by the IJN high command, with only a small percentage of accuracy increase over the existing guidance systems of the Type 93, and the project was never successful enough to proceed to large scale deployments.

The IJN during the war greatly overestimated the efficacy of the kaiten based on inaccurate reports. The actual carriers were usually submarines, the only single attempted attack with a surface ship (fast transport No.18) ended up in disaster with the ship torpedoed and sunk by a submarine. Kitakami herself was only used for training.

[1Sherman]

 The Kaiten project proved an abject failure

The only successes of the Kaiten were this ship ->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mississinewa_(AO-59)

And this ship->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Underhill_(DE-682)#Underhill_sinking