Editing Imperial Japanese Equipment (section)

=== Aircraft Carriers ===
Japan entered World War II with the most experienced sea aviation force in the world, with a total of 8 carriers constructed before 1940.  They soon learned the lessons America and Britain eventually did, that larger carriers are better and that superimposed decks (multiple flight decks stacked like cake tiers) are a bad idea.  However, they failed to anticipate the scale of their losses and were unable to complete replacement carrier construction for much of the war. One achievement that highlights this failure was the construction of the carrier ''Shinano,'' a converted ''Yamato''-class battleship and thus the largest aircraft carrier built during the war. Because she was a conversion of a half-finished battleship hull that had been hastily chosen after the disaster of Midway, the IJN couldn't actually convert her to a full fleet carrier and settled for making one of their most expensive assets (in terms of time, money, and resources invested) into a support carrier that would focus on repairing and resupplying the air arms of full fleet carriers that, by the time she was launched in 1944, had all been annihilated. She was sunk less than two months after being launched by an American submarine, and had only ever carried 50 '''Ohka''' flying bombs.

* '''''Akagi''''': An ''Amagi''-class battlecruiser hull converted to an aircraft carrier after Japan entered into the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Akagi was completed with '''three''' flight decks, from which planes could theoretically be launched simultaneously. In practice, the bottom and top decks worked well while the middle flight deck was less than 1/10th the length of the top flight deck and was flanked by two twin 8" gun turrets that prevented the deck's use in battle. The lowest flight deck was also small, being only 1/3rd the length of the uppermost flight deck; both the middle and lower decks, as a result, could only be used for small, light, and increasingly obsolete aircraft. The remaining armament consisted of six casemate 8" guns, as well as six 4.7" guns for anti-ship and anti-aircraft duty. Much like the USS ''Langley'', this early and pioneering design lacked an island for command and control arrangements. Eventually the ship was completely refit to the iconic aircraft carrier design recognized today: all major gun turrets were removed, the top flight deck was extended, and the lower decks were eliminated in favor of increased hanger space for more aircraft. An island bridge allowed for better aircraft coordination and fire control, especially for the new 25mm autocannons that were fitted to the ship. These improvements did have a negative effect on her speed, though she could now theoretically launch 80 aircraft, most of which would be A6M Zeroes. 
**''Akagi'' carried a weakness common to most early aircraft carriers: Usually made from converted warships built for entirely different purposes, they possessed the armor specifications of a battleship against direct and indirect gunfire, but none against air attack. Their decks were especially vulnerable to enemy aerial attacks, with the American ''Lexington''-class carriers also sharing this characteristic. ''Akagi'' was sunk by aerial divebombs during the Battle of Midway in 1942, partly because tired ordnance crews left explosives strewn throughout the open hangar and most of her planes were being pumped full of aviation fuel in preparation for a strike against the American carriers.
* '''Sōryū''':
* '''Kaga''': Kaga was planned to be the second of the Tosa-class battleships, but after the Washington Naval Treaty she was intended to be scrapped before being completed. Akagi's sister Amagi was wrecked while under construction in the Great Kanto Eartquake, so Kaga was converted instead.
* '''Hiryū''':
* '''Shokaku and Zuikaku'''
* '''Hiyō and Jun'yō'''
* '''Taihō''': An object lesson in damage control.
* '''Unryū, Amagi and Katsuragi (+ whole host of cancelled ships in this class)''':
* '''Shinano''': Taihō at least got to go into battle before it was abysmally mismanaged, this one was a complete and utter failure on so many fronts that the official inquiry declared that so many people from the bottom to the top fucked up in pretty much every single aspect that it was pointless to assign blame.