Shogun Battleship

*Not to be confused with the Shogun Executioner.*

 **Key Features** | »» Shirada 510mm cannon (x12)»» Self-charging auxiliary generator»» Prow-mounted point defence shield»» On-board detention/meditation grove»» Hand-sewn ornamental flags inspire faith

*"Behold, the Shogun Battleship!"*

- Shogun Battleship captain

## Tactical Analysis

* **Shirada cannons**: Shogun battleships are armed with twelve guns a piece; three barrels on each of four turrets, two one in the fore and two one in the aft. While functionally similar to traditional battleship cannons, the superheated kinetically lobbed slugs of the Shirada cannons are even more destructive yet more precise, and are paired with an extensive secondary arsenal to deal with smaller targets and incoming aircraft.

* **Ramming Speed**: Although the big guns on a Shogun Battleship are primarily meant for long range battle, these vessels are far from defenceless up close. Their captains stand ready to supercharge their engines and ram any enemy vessels that dare to close the distance.

* **In support of the armada**: The strict code of the Imperial Navy dictates a symbiotic relationship between various fleet elements, linking their survival to their cooperation. As a result, the Shogun battleship eschews any anti-submarine weaponary, lending it a purity of purpose and a perceived weakness.

* **The highest standard**: Newer prototypes of the Shogun Battleship, which can be identified by their ornamental flags, are fitted with a new generator that lets it project its forcefield indefinitely and ramming will direct power to repair the ship, making these fortified Shogun battleships are altogether more powerful than their counterparts, but their rarity means they're reserved for only the most-venerable captains and commanders.

## WWIII Operational History

There is a grim irony in how destructive a vessel as majestic as the Empire of the Rising Sun's **Shogun-class Battleship** can be. While it is the standard-bearer of the Imperial navy, its decorative and symbolic nature is merely an embellishment of its role as a ship designed for long-range anti-naval combat.

Forces of the Soviet Union, unfortunately for them, were only made aware of these details recently when the Empire launched its unexpected assault against the northern coast of Russia, decimating most of the defences there easily. The rest of the world is now all the wiser for their sacrifice.

Shogun battleships are prides of the Imperial Navy and their combination of speed, armour, firepower, range, and agility is virtually peerless. Some ships might surpass them in some categories, but their excellent blend of characteristics makes them kings of the sea. However, because they tend to be one of the most heavily defended and supported elements in an Imperial strike group, rarely have these sturdy ships been known to require even minor repair.

Their weaponry's crowning glory is their twelve large calibre cannons, mounted in four rows of three along the fore and aft, allowing Shogun battleships to compensate for their slow turning speed by having 360-degree firing coverage. As expected, however, they must turn broadsides in order to attack a target with the full force of their guns.

While the guns are unmistakably shaped like those of battleships from years past, they turn out to have been modified to launch a superheated kinetically boosted projectile of some sort. The ensuing blast-impact must measure some unknown thousands of degrees Celsius at ground zero judging from the destruction they cause, and the guns themselves offer a remarkable rate of fire for such powerful weapons.

While Shogun battleships naturally are kept to the centre of Imperial Armadas, some of the most dramatic first moments of this war happened when the Soviets initially managed to break Imperial ranks and engage a fleet of Shogun battleships directly. Once threatened, the battleships turned to face a defiant and emboldened Soviet fleet rather than turn broadsides.

The Shogun battleships then all supercharged their engines in unison while engaging a fore-mounted point-defence shield system of some sort, rushing forward with appalling speed, smashing straight through the Soviet remnants, shattering them to pieces. Only an escort wolfpack of Akula subs survived, their captains shaken and near-maddened by the experience. The video evidence the captains returned is now being studied intently in order to gain more insight into Imperial strategy.

If anything is predictable about Shogun battleships, it's that the command of such ships is reserved only for the most decorated, most honourable, and often eldest members of the Imperial navy. These are men who have given practically a lifetime of service to their Emperor, and are prepared and motivated to complete that service by fighting for the Empire to their last breath. It is said that to die in the captain's chair of a Shogun battleship is the highest honour achievable by a man born to modern Japanese society.

## Post-War Operational History

 File:ShogunArtwork.jpg  The Imperial Japanese Navy was devastated by the third world war, overcome by the sheer production capacity of its enemies and its hopeless degree of overstretch. Though they started out strong with sorties around the world, as the months passed the Navy found that it could not replace ships faster than they were being sunk and the enemy was getting perilously closer to the home islands with every passing day. The initial focus on trying to attack the Russian hinterland's key strategic points in the hopes that the pockets would surrender as well as trying to overwhelm the United States, India, South America, and Iberia with an all out invasion had proven a miscalculation.

Once the surprise factor of even attempting to invade these places from Japan or the arctic ocean had been overcome and a strategy of concentrating fire on the Black Tortoise Fortresses that made the invasions logistically feasible to begin with was increasingly put into practice, more and more shoguns began to sink. The defeat at the Canary islands and the Azores at the hands of the Royal Navy significantly weakened their north Atlantic presence, as did the defeat at the battle of the White Sea. While the Indian Navy paid an immense price for it, many Shoguns would go down in the protracted debacle of the Indian campaign, including the "Four Heavenly Kings and their Elite Fours", a formation of Four Shoguns and their most honoured escorts that would be sunk to the very last with the Indo-Thai attack on the leading Black Tortoise.

Totoya Island would see the APRC's People's Revolutionary Navy destroy a black tortoise and the extensive space infrastructure set up at the island, while the Soviet Navy would defeat the IJN crushingly at the Battle of the Kurils that saw the Soviet Union drive the Japanese out of the Sea of Okhotsk. With the general imperial defeat at the battle of the Bering Strait, the road to the invasion of Japan itself was opened, and the Imperial Navy had to shamefully hide from the Soviet and Allied fleets swarming its waterways. The allies in particular, had surprised the Japanese by moving their fleets from Europe after the Empire had believed itself victorious against the Allies at sea with the ruination of the American navy.

With the Royal Navy leading the charge towards Tokyo and Dreadnoughts off the coast of major military industrial centres, the Shogun Battleship would suffer the so called long-night, where over the course of a month more ships than ever would meet their end. Many torn from the seas by Magnetic satellites, others ruthlessly singled out by concentrated enemy bombardment or sea-based super weapons or found their dockyards set ablaze by the chronoshifting or space dropping of invading troops.

By the time that the newly crowned Emperor Shinzo agreed to surrender, the Empire's pride and joy, its navy, was shattered. With the death of Admiral Naomi Shirada and the loss of huge portions of the old fleet, Shirada Shipworks, a long standing zaibatsu, was partially nationalised while a new heir was found. Furthermore, the treaty of Kyoto imposed significant limitations on the Imperial Japanese navy by joint writ of the World Socialist Alliance and the Alliance of Democratic Nations.

In order to replace the lost battleships to build up to their allowed strength, the Shogunate had Shirada distribute the Shogun's blueprints to the national Kure Naval Arsenal. Between them, the two contractors have thus far exceeded expectations, with plans to expand the Imperial Navy's capital ship count to the maximum tonnage it is allowed to, no more than one third that of the Royal Navy's, within six months. The new Shogun battleships are outfitted with enhanced AI-assisted point defence systems that should give Shogun battleships more of an ability to defend themselves against audacious, smaller enemy targets that manage to close the distance, if they ever do manage to evade the majestic ram of the Shogun.

However, the new Shogun battleships have been noted to be inferior to the old Shogun Battleships, particularly in the strength of their cannons against structures. In part, this has been due to several cost cutting measures; many expensive materials used in the manufacture of Shogun battleship main guns have been substituted for cheaper but lower performance compounds, so as to further speed up battleship production.

Following a recent event after an Empire scouting force consisting of a Shogun Battleship, four Naginata Cruisers, six Sea-Wings and several Yari Mini-Subs, against an Alert Icebreaker and an Assault Destroyer off the coast of North America, Shogun captains now take pride in seeking Allied 'Alert Icebreakers', for now they are not the only ones who engage in the honourable act of ramming another ship.

Alongside the new model is an improvement to the Shoguns defense system, with the new shield now capable of projecting indefinitely until it has to temporarily shutdown from damage, and in the event the captain switches to ramming speed the shields will be redirected to its engines and a prototype nanite dispenser, which will repair the Shogun while in ramming mode. But due to the cost to make the new system only veteran crews are given it.

## Famous Ships

### Kure Shogun Battleships

Template:EmpBoatinfo

The first Kure Shogun Battleship, flagship of the Empire 21st Tactical Bombardment Fleet.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Newest Shogun Battleship of the fleet, she has yet to see any major battles and is assigned to the 21st Tactical Bombardment Fleet.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Currently under construction, the Kongō is designed to replace the *IJN Yamamoto* as the flagship of the Imperial fleet after its engagement at the Battle of Pearl Harbour revealed serious structural flaws in the *Yamamoto*.

### Shirada Shogun Battleships

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of Pearl Harbour.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of the Bering Strait and the Battle of Pearl Harbour. Sunk by the *ANV Arizona* during the Battle of Pearl Harbour.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of the Bering Strait and the Battle of Pearl Harbour.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Flagship of the Shogun Shiro Kamina during the Battle of Pearl Harbour. Heavily damaged during the Battle of Pearl Harbour. The *Meiji* has been repaired and is back in action.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of Pearl Harbour.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Flagship of the Shogun Kenji Tenzai during the First Battle of Leningrad. Damaged during the battle with most of the crew killed.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of Pearl Harbour. Sunk during the Battle of Pearl Harbour when the Assault Destroyer *ANV Hurricane* rammed into it.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Flagship of the Imperial 2nd Invasion Force in the Northern Sea, flagship of Shogun Shinzo Nagama during the Russian invasion.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Flagship of the Admiral Inani Yamamoto, named after his father. *Yamamoto* was a flagship of the Imperial Pacific Fleet West group and fought during the Battle of Pearl Harbour. Heavily damaged by the *ANV Arizona* in the Battle of Pearl Harbour. The *Yamamoto* is still in dry dock.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle for the North Pacific, captured by Soviet forces during the Battle of Aomori.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle for the North Pacific and the Battle of the Bering Strait. Heavily damaged during a routine patrol of the South China Sea by unidentified ships. The Ieyasu has since been repaired and redeployed.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of Gibraltar, was sunk by the *USS Oregon* during a routine patrol of the Pacific Ocean. She was lost with all hands.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Fought during the Battle of Gibraltar, sunk by the *Scee-eeee-ee-eeek* dolphin pod during the battle.

Template:EmpBoatinfo

Construction was never completed, fought during the Battle of Tokyo, was boarded and eventually captured by Allied personnel from the *ANV Louisiana*. Its entire crew was killed in the engagement.

## Just the Stats

 **Armour Type** | Heavy Armour Omni

 **Kill Reward** | 24000

 **DPS** | 150