If you look at their Aegis “destroyers”, at full load they are as heavy as our cruisers. Germany and Japan did this before the first World War as a way of getting around the treaty restrictions. Japan could not have battleships so they made carriers and the rest is history.
Please do the research. The Japanese absolutely could build battleships. They had a large battelship fleet. You should have seen the scale of their plans that were scrapped by the Washington Treaty of 1922! They were going to build
4 new battleships and 4 new battlecruisers, almost matching American plans for the time. The CONFERENCE ON THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT, aka the Washington Treaty of 1922 stopped an arms race that would have bankrupted Japan. It did however allow the construction of aircraft carriers and the conversion of battleship and battlecriuser hulls into aircraft carriers. The Japanese had already built the Hosho, the first purpose built carrier. The Amagi class battlecruisers Amagai and Akagi were converted into carriers. The Amagi was damaged in the 1923 earthquake, so the Tosa class battleship, Kaga, was converted. The US converted two Lexington class battlecriusers (Lexington and Saratoga). The British had already converted three "Large Light Cruisers: Courageous, Glorious, and Furious.
As for the Aegis destroyer, do you know anything about the modern US navy? Our Arleigh Burke class destroyers are almost the size of our Ticonderoga Cruisers. (btw, the Ticos were originally designated as destroyers) The 4 Japanese Kongo class destroyers are basically Japanese versions of the Flight 1 Arleigh Burke class destroyer. The 2 Atago-class destroyers are Flight IIA Arleigh Burkes.
46 posted on
08/07/2013 11:17:51 PM PDT by
rmlew
("Mosques are our barracks, minarets our bayonets, domes our helmets, the believers our soldiers.")
Yea yea. They could have battleships but not the same amount as the Allies.
I’m an AF guy so I don’t claim to be an expert. We are just chatting here.
The basic idea is that they can’t have “offensive” weapons by their constitution. A cruiser is an offensive weapon so they call their “cruisers” destroyers. Carriers are offensive so they call them “helo carriers” which is defensive. etc etc.