Thanks to you both!
As I am now getting ready to do the piping on funnels that distinguished Kinugasa from Aoba, I noticed the following other differentiator that I overlooked previously (marked yellow):
Attachment:
Drawing Kinugasa (left) vs Aoba (rt), Maru Special #38.jpg [ 71.64 KiB | Viewed 1852 times ]
I checked my photo collection and found only one photo of Kinugasa dated 1936 that shows something in this place:
Attachment:
19360600 IJN Kinugasa at Kure 2nd half of 1936 before reconstruction from port aft.jpg [ 38.3 KiB | Viewed 1852 times ]
It looks to me like some kind of a side chute. None of the earlier photos I´ve got show anything there and the only other later photo I´ve got showing her port side in 1941 (available
here) is not really clear enough but I´d say there is nothing between the two HA gun sponsons there.
I tried searching the net once again and found a similar photo of Kinugasa before her pre-war reconstruction (available in full resolution
at this link):
Attachment:
19360600 IJN Kinugasa at Kure 2nd half of 1936 before reconstruction from port aft from naviearmatori.net.jpg [ 199.16 KiB | Viewed 1852 times ]
Here that feature looks to me like a detachable chute, not attached permanently to the hull side. I consulted this with Dan K and finally decided to omit this in my build at all for lack of better resources. If detachable, it would presumably not be there in wartime conditions (as I intend to depict Kinugasa at sea in the middle of the Savo Island battle) anyway. I still don´t know what that item shown in the Maru special sketch was but I´ve probably got no way to find out exactly.
Your ideas welcome!