Excellent, that really fills in some blanks I was coming up with.
TTL, HIJMS Izumi is the largest Japanese battleship yet to be completed, armed with 12 x 16" guns. Despite her impressive capability and appearance, she is nonetheless a compromise.
Initially proposed to be a class of 4, and armed with 8 x 18" guns, her class was reduced in caliber to 16" and number to 2 to satisfy the Treaty. Her sister Sagami was canceled before her keel could be laid, as her construction would demand the replacement of two other battleships, all relatively new, and cost Japan far too much in steel and money.
Worse, Sagami could only have been built at the expense of Japan's cruiser and destroyer forces, already stretched thin and in need of new and more capable ships. Japan's battle doctrine demanded that these ships take precedence.
I was thinking that as well on further reflection; the USA would have by far the slowest fleet otherwise.
The hulls would need new numbers painted on them, but they could be commissioned as CV-2 Lexington and CV-3 Saratoga for carriers (named for battles) , CC-1 Constellation and CC-2 Constitution (named for ships) as battlecruisers, and Ranger and United States as scrap.
OTL the sequence was
#1#2 Nagato class: Nagato and Mutsu
#3&4 Tosa class: Tosa and Kaga
#5-8 Amagi class: Amagi, Akagi, Atago, and Takao
#9-12 Kii class:Kii, Owari #11&12 (unnamed)
#13-16 #13 class: #13-16 (unnamed)
So 9th ship of the program named Kii, 10th Owari. Yamato and Musashi as names are in use already by patrol craft so pick other Japanese province names, Iki, Izumi and Sagami are free and used before
Japanese doctrine needed both, the idea was that they would have one or more night battles where cruisers and destroyers with torpedoes would attrit the US battle line for a grand daylight battle
TTL, HIJMS Izumi is the largest Japanese battleship yet to be completed, armed with 12 x 16" guns. Despite her impressive capability and appearance, she is nonetheless a compromise.
Initially proposed to be a class of 4, and armed with 8 x 18" guns, her class was reduced in caliber to 16" and number to 2 to satisfy the Treaty. Her sister Sagami was canceled before her keel could be laid, as her construction would demand the replacement of two other battleships, all relatively new, and cost Japan far too much in steel and money.
Worse, Sagami could only have been built at the expense of Japan's cruiser and destroyer forces, already stretched thin and in need of new and more capable ships. Japan's battle doctrine demanded that these ships take precedence.
The US actually still needs the Lexingtons, unlike UK or Japan they have no Battlecruisers at all, I'd think a mixture more likely, 2 converted, 2 scrapped, 2 completed
I was thinking that as well on further reflection; the USA would have by far the slowest fleet otherwise.
The hulls would need new numbers painted on them, but they could be commissioned as CV-2 Lexington and CV-3 Saratoga for carriers (named for battles) , CC-1 Constellation and CC-2 Constitution (named for ships) as battlecruisers, and Ranger and United States as scrap.
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