The Ship Model Forum

Thank you very much for the explanations!

Chokai was the ship of the class, which was not modernized to the extend of her sisters. Maya was modernized late, which could explain the difference.

Degaussing cable was removed from all IJN heavy cruisers at spring or summer 1944 (last modification at the end of June 1944 and beginning of July 1944)

For example - degaussing cable was removed from Maya at modernization before April 1944. Because, at photo taken 15 May 1944 when Maya arrived at Tawitawi, Maya didn't have degaussing cable.
If we will look at R/V Petrel photos - we will not find cable.

Now we can look at photos of Mogami, Chokai, Maya at the sea bottom - and they all don't have degaussing cable from October 1944
We can look at photos of Aoba, Tone, Myoko, Takao and uncompleted Ibuki in Late 1945-1946 - they didn't have degaussing cable too.
I have some photos of Atago and Chokai from May 1944 at Lingga and Takao in March 1944 at Palau, but shadows on board on a sunny day or the size and quality of photos doesn't allow me to see the cable or its absence on board. Only at one photo of Maya in Tawitawi I don't see the shadow from degaussing cable on board
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hi, Dan K- and me did discuss the degaussing cables a lot in the past. Can assure you Chokai at least had the cable,one of R/V Petrel photos can confirm this. On Chokai model 1944, yes, expression of the degaussing cable is a must, I might say.
As Dan wrote above, copper and other metals were in acute shortage,they stripped ´em off from ships removed from ocean going operations. They even collected any metals from cities and civilians:bells,clocks from temples, metal statues ,just about any available metals from anywhere in the country then.

cheers,

By looking into the R/V Petrel´s photos in the above I took a time in re-arranging the cable of Chokai around the stern, 1944 and on the drawing as a side task to do, so the cable here runs below the place of the ship name plate.

cheers,

The Japanese mounted their cables in several ways. One appears to be the rectangular (in cross-section) box we see on Chokai's hull in 1942 that runs under the torpedo tube openings in the hull. It's possible that what we are seeing today is the back of that same box enclosure still attached to the hull. I feel it's too much of a coincidence to have the same shape in the same place.

1) I think you gentlemen are probably forgetting about the blast impact of torpdedoes on the starboard side hull by Fujjinami.Will the degausssing cable remain then? I shouldn´t think so.

hi, all
Here are other images which will show the way how the degaussing cable is laid differently between Chokai and Maya.

In general the cable will have to be lowered where there are handling areas of fairleads, boat davits, stairways, mooring boom,etc. as safety measures. Re. Maya´s portside it will be partially difficult to see the cable because the hull is painted with camouflage colors. Means Maya already had the camou at that time.

Just f.y.i. the cable itself has a width of 25cm , 9 coiled wires of copper, 19,9mm in diameter, to be laid at a certain interval. At the outlet area there are 9x2= 18 coiled wires.The cover becomes wider here, accordingly. The power comes from an el. distributor inside of the main bridge(Takao class, Tone class) Kako and Aoba class will be different.(from power supply of the search lights)

Width of 25 cm may expand to 30cm when it is covered with 1,5cm thick tree material ,plus margin of 1cm each.
The cable on the Chokai model here on the portside is way too wide,am gonna mend it later.

cheers

Some elements of importance were taken into considerations yesterday night.
Hiragana letters of the ship name are 50 cm below the deck. Size of the letters are : 60cm tall.
The wedge line of the outer hull plate is 150cm below the deck.
The streak circled with orange color is a natural phenomenon? or artificially made?
The cable with cover might have been layed here, and it conincides with the line of this white streak.

Maya´s degaussing cable will be like this;therefore it is impossible to see the cable in the photo of the midter section of the hull. I should think that the cable ´s not being visible does not follow that there´s no cable attached to the hull.

cheers,