Kull
Posts: 2275
Joined: 7/3/2007 From: El Paso, TX Status: online
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Chinese Light Cruisers Ping Hai & Ning Hai: As a change of pace from working on Japanese merchant ships, I decided to work on an interesting class of Chinese Light Cruisers. Here's a brief description (largely taken from wikipedia): Ning Hai (#1) and her sister Ping Hai (#2) were based on the experimental Japanese cruiser Yūbari (although shorter in length), which combined a small size with heavy weaponry, but in an even smaller displacement of only 2,526 tons (vs. Yūbari's 2,890). As with Yūbari, Ning Hai has a single trunked smokestack (#3), and a tripod bridge arrangement. Her weaponry was comparable to ships with a larger displacement: six 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns mounted in three double gun turrets, six 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type naval guns, and dual 533-mm torpedo tubes. Ning Hai also had a small hangar for two seaplanes; two Aichi AB-3 biplanes, one bought from Japan and one built locally using a spare engine and domestic materials. It did not have an aircraft catapult, and the seaplanes were hoisted and deployed using a crane (#4). By contrast, Ping Hai did not have seaplane capability and thus the profiles (and armament) are different (#5). Both ships were sunk by Japanese Naval Air in the Yangtze river in September 1937 (combinedfleet has an informative section on this), but soon after were refloated and sent to Japan for repairs (completed in 1938), following which they were designated as "coastal defense vessels" and were renamed Mikura (Ning Hai) and Mishima (Ping Hai). There they stayed until 1943 when they were refitted as Escorts (and renamed again), finally appearing in AE as Ioshima (Ning Hai) and Yasoshima (Ping Hai). Anyway, I found it interesting that these warships exist at the start of the game, but aren't in the OOB (not a slam at the devs, there are definitely good reasons). I know they are in a few mods however, and perhaps others might want to include them in a personal mod, so I worked up shipsides for both vessels (#6 and #7). The bmps will be attached to a subsequent post as a downloadable zip file. Enjoy!
Attachment (1)
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