I've got my set of Tone plans in tonight, and with luck (and motivation!) I'll get started on her this winter when I finish with the Belleau Wood. The question I am struggling with, is do I want Tone or Chikuma. Which has the more interesting history in your guys' opinions? Right now I am leaning a bit towards Chikuma for sinking the Gambier Bay, but Tone was a survivor and usually spent her time as the flagship. What do you guys think on a very frivolous topic?
I say Tone, because it was a flagship, and thats when you know a ship is special. I know my graf spee isnt one, but id like to the the iron duke later on, and that was the flagship at Jutland.
If you're picking your ship name based on an "interesting history", how do you think I feel building a ship whose only claim to fame was being the first battleship sunk on film? Personally, if given a choice between Tone and Chikuma, I'd go with Chikuma. Not only does it sound more ferocious (kuma means bear in japanese), it's hard to mis-pronounce the name. For the other ship, I can't tell if it's talking about A-flat, or objecting to toes.
Haha, at least your battleship DOES have a claim to fame. I am definately leaning towards Chikuma right now, she was very involved in a lot of the early actions as far as scouting goes, and is one of VERY few surface gunships with a carrier on her scoreboard.
Actually, Chikuma has a pretty dark past as well. I recently read Shattered Sword, a book about Midway told from the Japanese perspective and it challenges quite a few of the historically perceptions of the battle. Of interest to the Tone/Chikuma debate, historically, Tone gets beat up a bit about her #4 search plane taking off late, and that being the bird that finds the US fleet. By extention, many people take that to mean that had Tone 4 taken off on time, Nagumo would have had the time to prepare a proper counter attack before his ships were attacked. That perception actually, couldn't have been farther from the truth. One of the Chikuma birds, I want to say Chikuma #2, was /assigned/ that sector, but was hotdogging it a bit. Weather was a bit crappy and he was flying ABOVE(!) the clouds, and thus failed to detect the US fleet on time. He flew right over it an never saw it! Tone 4 on the other hand, because of his late departure, cut his search short, and was on his way back to Kido Butai when he found the US fleet. It's important to note, that Tone 4 was never supposed to be where he was, and thus never SHOULD have detected the US fleet. It's only a stroke of good luck on the part of the IJN that the US fleet was ever detected, thanks to the failure of the first Chikuma scout to do his job properly. So, the fact that Chikuma was very much indirectly responsible for the US victory at Midway truly appeals to the Allied captain in me. Other Chikuma scouts did an excellent job in shadowing the Yorktown, and ensured that she was killed. Chikuma scouts also played a role at Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz. It seems like whenever I read about those early carrier duels, it was Chikuma involved. Tone just seems to have not "done" as much. She was kinda just along for the ride it seems.
Did you like Shattered Sword? I nabbed it right off the presses when it was published but found it a bit dry and boring, too many statistics and not enough narrative. I've been thinking about going back and trying to read it again, as everyone seems to love it. As for dark pasts, I was talking about something I can no longer find any info about... perhaps I'm thinking of the wrong ship? But if I recall correctly a US ship had sunk and the Tone went to pick up the survivors - and then killed them all. I've seen some really fierce debates about whether or not to build a model of the Tone because it's like building a model of Auschwitz (not to the same level, but they were making comparisons).
OOPs my mistake. I should researched it better. Just got my computer up and running again . Marriage and moving what a combination.
I did like Shattered Sword. As for being a story, it's a bit dry like you say. For someone who is just interested in reading about the battle to find out the basics of what happened, I wouldn't recommend it...you're better off with something like Morrison. The true value in the book is understanding WHY Nagumo made some of those decisions which from a western perspective seem ridiculous, such as not launching an attack immediately when he found out there was a US carrier in the area. As for Tone, you are correct. There was a raid in the Indian Ocean and part of the crew of a ship that was sunk was executed, on orders of the task force commander. Some of the Midway pilots may have been executed on her as well, but might have been other ships, I don't recall exactly.
