Hiryū was one of two large carriers approved for construction under the 1931–32 Supplementary Program. Originally designed as the sister ship of Sôryū, her design was enlarged and modified in light of the Tomozuru and Fourth Fleet Incidents in 1934–35. The ship’s power and slim, cruiser-type hull with a length-to-beam ratio of 10: 1 gave her a speed of 34. 3 knots.
About Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū in brief
Hiryū was one of two large carriers approved for construction under the 1931–32 Supplementary Program. Originally designed as the sister ship of Sōryū, her design was enlarged and modified in light of the Tomozuru and Fourth Fleet Incidents in 1934–35 that revealed many IJN ships were top-heavy, unstable and structurally weak. The ship’s power and slim, cruiser-type hull with a length-to-beam ratio of 10: 1 gave her a speed of 34. 3 knots. She was scuttled the following day after it became clear that she could not be salvaged. Hiryū had a capacity of 64,000 kilograms, plus nine spares, and was capable of transferring aircraft weighing up to 5,000 kilos. The carrier’s 216. 9-meter flight deck was 27. 0 meters wide and overhung her superstructure at both ends, supported by pairs of pillars. It had a length of 227. 4 meters overall, a beam of 22. 3 meters and a draft of 7. 8 meters. She displaced 17,600 metric tons at standard load and 20,570 metric tons at normal load. Her crew consisted of 1,100 officers and enlisted men. It was also one of only two carriers ever built whose island was on the port side of the ship. It was positioned further to the rear and encroached on the width of the flight deck, unlike Sôryū. Nine transverse arrestor wires were installed on the flightdeck that could stop a 6,000-kilogram aircraft.
One group of three wires were positioned further forward to allow the ship to land aircraft over the bow, although this was never done in practice. This caused problems because the wings of a Nakajima B5N “Kate” bomber could neither be spread in the upper hangar nor folded in the lower hangar. The primary anti-aircraft armament consisted of three elevators, one abreast the center of the island on the centerline and the two elevators offset to the starboard. They were capable of carrying up to 13,000 kg (36,000 pounds) of ammunition. They could also carry 4,500 metric tons of fuel oil, giving her a range of 10,330 nautical miles at 18 knots. The boiler uptakes were trunked to the ship’s starboard side amidships and exhausted just below flight deck level through two funnels curved downward. The upper hangar was 171. 3 by 18.3 meters and had an approximate height of 4. 6 meters ; the lower was 142. 3By 18. 3m and had a total area of 5,736 square meters. It was the only ship of her class to have a platform that measured 16.0 by 13 by 12 0 meters, the middle 13 by 13 0 meters and the rear 11 by 11 0 meters by 13.0 meters by 11.5 meters.
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This page is based on the article Japanese aircraft carrier Hiryū published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
