Shogun Battleship/profile

## Overview

Shogun class Battleship / Project "Battleship Yamato"

Designation: Experimental heavy bombardment ship / Advanced anti-surface ship

Designer: Ten-Shi Zaibatsu (Tenzai Robotics + Shirada Shipworks)

National Origin: Empire of the Rising Sun

Manufacturer: Tokyo Bay Combined Special R&D Institute / Kure Naval Arsenal

Mass-Produced at: Imperial docks

Key Features:

>>Shipborne artillery solution with greater firepower than an entire carrier division:

Shirada Experimental Specialized 46cm Triple Gun Mount Type B x3

Kure Naval Arsenal 15.5cm Triple Gun Mount x2

Tenzai Robotics 8.8cm Twin Gun Mount x4

Yokosuka Naval Arsenal 25mm Twin High-angle Machinegun Mount x6

>>Staggered shipborne instant generators

>>Improved prow mounted nano shield and small directional nanoswarm hive

>>Station of Plays 5 video game lounge complete with ice cream machine

>>Inspirational painting and calligraphy gifted by Crown Prince Tatsu

## Background

### Part1

**This is one of the many secret weapons Tatsu has prepared to fulfill the divine destiny.**

We may never know what happened to Prince Tatsu on his return journey after the "day of destiny" pilgrimage. Perhaps, as folklore says, he heard "the revelation of the divine destiny" when he passed through the torii of the shrine; perhaps, as his close attendants said, the grand plan secretly carried out by the prince made a breakthrough; perhaps, as some historians have studied, in the turbulent tide of society, Yoshiro and Tatsu father and son reversed the destiny of the Empire of the Rising Sun through a tacit confrontation. Whatever the reason, after that pilgrimage, Tatsu stood in silence for dozens of minutes in the face of the prototype of the latest air craft "dragon ship" that the ambassador of Celestial Empire took and the Celestial fleet sailing through the port, and started a series of actions that have not been fully understood up to now - one of which is to start the design and construction engineering of the Shogun class battleship (project code  "Yamato").

Of course, before we start, we will review the history of the two countries as usual.

The formal relationship between Empire of the Rising Sun and Celestial Empire can be traced back at least to the time when Oda Nobunaga held his last barbecue party in Honnou-ji. Although the Celestial Empire had not yet completed the establishment of the country at that time, southern Chu still indirectly helped the emperor's family unify the islands of the Rising Sun through economic means, ending the chaotic Sengoku period. With the Celestial north and south integration, in the face of its strong economic and military strength, the most sensible choice of most neighboring countries is to comply, or to become the vassal of Celestial Empire. Considering the inextricable connection between two empire, Empire of the Rising Sun has become the most representative or special one among many vassal states.

Since the reunification, the construction of the maritime military forces of the Rising Sun has been centered on maritime trade for a long time. They maintain the routes from their coastal waters to the southeast countries and even Australia, sharing the escort pressure for the huge fleet of the Celestial. As a "grace", the crafts of the Rising Sun can also be exported to India and even the Occident.If everything develops according to this division of labor, the navy of Rising Sun will still have the function of coastal defense in modern times.

However, history will never be static - countless atoms, characterized by their respective vectors and kinetic energy, collide and deflect with each other, and everything is in motion.

At the end of the era of great navigation, large-scale Celestial colonial groups formally set foot on the desolate and uninhabited Australia at that time, and then developed all the way to the South and North Maori Islands (New Zealand). Although the ships and navigation technology brought by the great navigation tide have made it possible to navigate around the world and draw precise maps, the Celestial, which is in the early accumulation stage of the industrial revolution, has not yet developed It has the ability to expand its influence to all Oceania, and even to hundreds of islands near the west coast of South Edenia.Even so, the Australian colony helped Celestial Empire extend its influence to the whole South Pacific and made leaders realize the importance of maritime rights for the first time.

In the North Pacific, the Far East, taking advantage of the curent of Celestial industrialization, suffered the first impact on its naval construction at sea, which came from farther east. At the beginning of the century marked as the 19th century, Edenia declared its sovereignty over Hawaii with the White Fleet, and the interlaced zone outside the influence was marked by the flag of the Germanic-Anglo-Saxons people. As a sign, the Pacific's sphere of influence was roughly divided for the first time.

**Before going further, we must clarify the evolution of a concept - "vassal state".** While some uninvited guests intruded into the world system of the Celestial from the East, the rapid development of the Celestial productive forces forced the most profound changes in production relations through various ways, and the drastic changes in the economic base led to the drastic changes in the superstructure. After this change, the international relations between the Celestial and other countries in its cultural circle will go in a totally different direction. The first is the vassal system. The new leaders of the Celestial redesigned their relations with the vassal states according to the new concept, abolished the obligation of tribute, and at the same time, the vassal states also got a high degree of autonomy in politics and diplomacy; the only thing that remained was the military obligation: the Celestial still provided assistance to the vassal states in times of crisis, so that their countries would not be destroyed by the aggressive Occident, in addition, let the vassal states act on their own.It is also because of this military connection that the vassal state relationship can be preserved, but the international relations it refers to are totally different from those in the past. Of course, the relations among countries are not only vassal relations, but only to clarify this point.

Under this kind of vassal relationship, the emergence of the edenians in the east did not affect the cross ocean trade of the Rising Sun, and because of the existence of Celestial Navy, this incident failed to give enough impetus to the construction of Rising Sun ocean going navy. Celestial windsurfing steam fleet is still the symbol of the power of the east Asia for the people of Occident; this event is just to let some Celestial electronic games in the distant future contain some windsurfing steam battleships of "rising sun line".

In a sense, the development of civilization is accelerating. The enlightenment and the two industrial revolutions resulted in the unprecedented development of productive forces and ideas in human history. The conflict between incentives and cultural ideas in the industrial age is intensifying, and the trend of history is difficult to change. Under the background of imperialism, war is the main theme at the end of the 19th century, centering around the North Atlantic and the Celestial Empire respectively, the two major world systems have basically taken shape. The mainstream capitalist countries in each world system have entered the stage of imperialism and almost divided up the whole world. But the momentum of expansion will not stop: within the North Atlantic world system, many European forces are getting locked in strife; between the systems, Edenia and the Celestial are fighting each other in the Pacific, and the world situation is turbulent under pressure.

In Europe, a twisted storm between rationality of military and industrial and irrationality of ultimate goal has involved the whole world. Russia's October Revolution on November 7, 1887 stopped its game with the Celestial in Central Asia, and the Celestial focused on the confrontation with British colonists in South Asia, especially in India. Unexpectedly, edenia joined in and help Britain in South Asia, which made the confrontation on both sides of the Pacific heated up in the surprise and anger of the Celestial leadership. The economic crisis that broke out in the Celestial in 1898 and the great depression that broke out in the North Atlantic system in 1900 put everything on the table.

Not long after Europe subsided from the war and revolution, new gunfire broke out in the south and west of the Pacific.

Due to the internal depression and crisis after the war, Edenia extended its hand across the Pacific Ocean and into the South Pacific Islands to Australia. While trying to seize the market that did not belong to them, it also occupied many islands on the vast ocean and tried to divide the ocean. Since March 1900, the new conspirators in the South Pacific countries led mercenaries of unknown origin to seize power, and almost all governments were in a state of disability. These "conspirators" established the new order in favor of edenia, mainly in the substantial reduction of tariffs and the deregulation of the black market, but they used the state machine to harass investors and businessmen from the Celestial and obstruct economic activities.

This series of actions were regarded by later generations as the fuse of the Pacific war between 1908 and 1912, but at this time, the Celestial was busy solving the embarrassing situation of economic difficulties at home and abroad and being attacked by the East and the West geographically, and failed to respond in time. Of course, the Celestial was not the only country in deep trouble. The serious economic crisis prompted Edenia to expand its cross ocean forces madly, The countries in Celestial cultural and economic circle are also struggling with each other.

Let's move back to the Rising Sun of earlier periods, and then back to the theme.

A war broke out unexpectedly in 2559 of the Rising Sun chronology  (February 26, 1899 A.D.). The two sides of the confrontation were Korea and the Rising, which are both vassal states of the Celestial.The war in the East Sea really mobilized all the modern military industries in the Rising Sun, and a large number of coastal torpedo boats and destroyers were included in the naval equipment sequence. Although some battleships and heavy cruisers "achieved remarkable results" in bombing Busan, Wonsan and other industrial areas, the sea battle between the Rising Sun and the Korea was basically limited to offshore islands and reefs, and the necessity of strategy and tactics related to ocean operations and supporting ship facilities has not been reflected.

This war, which developed from regional conflicts and suddenly out of control, caused huge losses to both sides. For the first time, the two countries that realized the cruelty of the war under the support of modern industry realized that they did not have the ability to end the war independently. It was only in the sixth year that the Celestial pulled itself out of the affairs of South Asia-Australia and the "Great Depression" to mediate the relationship between the two countries. After three countries readjusted many economic policies, the war finally came to an end.

But, the pace of development of navy of the Rising Sun has not been delayed for a long time: in the subsequent Pacific War, in order to restore the legal power of South Ocean and Australia countries, since 1908, the Celestial mobilized several fleets to go south to fight fiercely with the special ocean going fleet of Edenia, which took the opportunity to invade. As a friendly force, navy of the Rising Sun dispatched a number of torpedo fleets and several main ships in coordination with the Celestial fleet - this is the earliest record of the Navy of the Rising Sun's participation in ocean military operations.

A series of maritime military operations in the Pacific War are of great significance and far-reaching influence for the construction of the navy of the Rising Sun. The Touyama command post in the Rising Sun has obtained valuable information from the fleet dispatched from the front line of operations. Of course, this also includes various problems exposed when the fleet is far away from the mainland, which has laid an empirical foundation for the future development of the ocean fleet of the Rising Sun.

Naturally, it's all in the future. Let's talk about how the end of the war was drawn.

Although the Celestial drove the power of Edenia from the southern Pacific Ocean port from each port and island, the two sides fell into a general stalemate due to the setback of the Celestial fleet's attack on Hawaii in 1911. Edenia, which had been driven out from the Australia of the previous battle, finally found an opportunity to bring the Celestial back to the negotiation table. The following year, the peace agreement was signed, the Pacific War ended, and the ocean pattern was basically established.

As Hawaii was determined to be included in the scope of influence of Edenia in the agreement, its oceangoing fleet has an excellent base and the ability to continue to cross the date line to intervene in the Western Pacific. On this basis, even if it can not take advantage of the South Pacific, the threat of Edenia to the countries within the scope of influence of the Celestial in the Pacific Rim region still exists.

Therefore, the Rising Sun has a very realistic demand for the construction of ocean going navy, which is to strengthen its own national defense and help the Celestial to guard against the threat from Hawaii. As a central component of the defense system of the Celestial island chain, after noticing the special relationship between the Rising Sun and the Celestial, Edenia regarded it as a major obstacle to the strategic goal of blocking Celestial Pacific forces, which made it feel more pressure and tend to be closer to the Celestial to some extent.

The strategic cooperation and even active cooperation between the Rising Sun and the Celestial reflect different voices among the people of the Rising Sun. The mainstream voice with a positive attitude thinks that this is the embodiment of long-term friendship. After all, the Rising Sun has long shared weal and woe with the Celestial through division of labor economically, and close military ties are also beneficial to the Rising Sun. At least they do not need to face the military threat of Edenia alone, or even bear the main pressure almost inevitable according to the geographical relationship. But there are many negative views too, one of which is that this kind of cooperation weakens the independence of the military forces of the Rising Sun, is not conducive to the independent ground against the war, or this kind of cooperation is a sign of "cowardice", and so on.

But in any case, the threat from the other side of the ocean is real; in terms of naval construction, the Rising Sun must be involved in the field of ocean going Navy, which has never invested enough resources before. Although with the new round of expansion of Celestial world system after the Pacific War, the economy of the Rising Sun has gradually improved in the process of reconstruction, and the military expenditure has naturally increased, and the navy has gained more available resources. However, some conservative forces at the top of the navy of the Rising Sun always have doubts about the strategy of simply copying the technology and experience of the Celestial by the military industry departments, and insist that the manufacturing and design technology of Celestial large naval ships, whether before or during use, must be digested by the manufacturers. As a result, many budgets have been spent on production technology improvement funding and personnel training, while the combat effectiveness of the fleet itself has not been formed.

When the international situation is relatively relaxed, the Celestial naturally does not care about this development strategy of the Rising Sun. However, since the change of Celestial strategic policy in the Pacific Ocean in the late 1960s, new pressure has been put on navy of the Rising Sun: the Celestial needs navy of the Rising Sun as an ally to undertake more military tasks in the ocean, so as to more actively respond to the growing threat on the other side of the ocean. Out of respect for the sovereignty of the Rising Sun, the Celestial did not directly intervene in the construction process of its military forces, but in the face of greater threats, the celestial also had to let its political and economic influence play a role in the political arena of the Rising Sun, a "vassal state".

Therefore, the military technology and industrial base laid before was further transformed into military power.

In terms of budget, affected by several economic fluctuations from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, the Rising Sun has always been wavering between increasing military investment and reducing budget to ease the deficit, which has also affected the construction of naval vessels in the Rising Sun. In the mid-1980s, with the breakthrough and promotion of Celestial nuclear fusion technology and power transmission technology, under various pressures from other internal industrial sectors, the Rising Sun and the Celestial reached a series of power transmission agreements. Most of the impact of manufacturing industry in the Rising Sun was transferred to its internal energy sector, but its economy still fluctuated greatly. In order to restore the normal economic order, government of the Rising Sun was forced to show the talent of using all kinds of financial magic in macro-control. Of course, the military investment was also decisively expanded at this time, far exceeding the expectation of the Celestial. While the military of the Celestial was surprised by the active cooperation of the alliance, it also felt a sense of danger.

After that, the speed of ship equipment upgrading has been greatly accelerated; in the past, some ships of the Rising Sun that could only be shelved in the dock have speeded up the speed of outfitting, and the new design scheme has also been moved to reality from the prints or hard disk faster, among which the most eye-catching new-type main ship is also the focus of the Celestial attention and support. In order to achieve his goal, Tatsu also needs more powerful military forces in addition to the changes in political and economic fields; with the support of the Celestial, he is obsessed with weapons and is able to realize a more powerful warship plan - new super battleship.

As a symbol of the navy of the Rising Sun, the "Samurai" class battleship has become obsolete military equipment even after many modernization improvements. They once showed their advantage in several conflict in the Pacific Ocean, which made the Edenia fleet suffer serious threat, but they gradually lagged behind in the wave of military change brought by aircraft carriers and missiles. They and the combat system behind them represent the revolutionary influence of information technology on the war in the new era, and the large-scale battlefield control and precision strike ability are beyond the reach of the big ship and big gun in the old era. Most of them were disassembled after the war, and now only a few of them are used as exhibition ships and museums.

However, Tatsu provided a new idea: with the help of the global mobile combat command system and several high-end technologies put forward by his exclusive scientific research team, it can make up for the shortcomings of battlefield suppression and the unit's attack and defense attributes. The finished product is the future "Shogun" class battleship. Naturally, the design of this innovative large-scale ship has very high requirements for the technolog, and even exceeds the independent ability of any military industrial consortium in the Rising Sun. The project plans to carry out theoretical verification and modular prototype manufacturing of the confidential part in the Tokyo Bay special joint facility: many special equipment including nano material technology and high-energy artillery technology in the draft ideas need the full support of Tenzai Robotics; On the other hand, this creative construction task requires Shirada Shipwork, a famous enterprise specializing in the production of large ships .

Tatsu named the project "Yamato", the code name of supreme glory as a national symbol of the Rising Sun. Ostensiblly , this is a large-scale warship project to stimulate the economic situation in the industrial field and meet the strategic needs; but in fact, Tatsu's goal is to build a super flagship that can surpass all potential rivals, including the Celestial navy. Although the Celestial navy is dissatisfied with the fact that the next type of battleship to be built in the Rising Sun is still a pure artillery battleship, the Rising Sun has argued for it. They listed many highlights of artillery battleships in the past combat cases, as well as the extremely terrifying fire delivery efficiency and psychological deterrence of fire support on the other side. So in the end, the Celestial, which did not want to bear the accusation of excessive interference in the Rising Sun, did not demand too much, but turned its attention to the new large aircraft carrier of the Rising Sun.

In the white paper provided to the Celestial, Tatsu claimed the plan is the modern successor of the Samurai class battleship; she will carry triple 40 cm naval guns, launch a special attack shell with excellent damage efficiency, and have a main armor belt of 350 mm nano reinforced armor, a standard displacement of 50000 tons and a maximum speed of about 30 knots.

However, in fact, the internal secret design index of the special joint research and manufacturing institute directly under Touyama and the Kure naval factory assembly command office  are totally different: he documents require that the main turret, ammunition lift shaft, hoister and other equipment carried by the ship should be reserved to support 43 cm and above caliber main guns. On this basis, a series of auxiliary batteries with different sizes and types are added. The actual thickness of the main armor belt in the design is 480 mm, and the front of the turret is even astonishing 720 mm. Under this transformation, the standard displacement of the overall design has also become 65000 tons, followed by 32 knots of high speed which does not match the huge volume. In addition, after summing up a series of experience and intelligence against the Allied air force, the horizontal armor of this project is required to be able to resist the laser guided bomb carrying 1500 kg semi armor piercing warhead; however, after learning that both the Allied forces and the Celestial are developing new guided penetrating bombs, this index is again raised to ▇▇▇. This new type of warship is called "shogun" in public. All the technical guidance documents and data materials used in practice are classified as level II. It is forbidden to disclose secrets to all personnel of other countries, including the Celestial, and any personnel from the Rising Sun other than the list issued by Touyama command post.

The research and development of "Yamato" project concentrates almost all the top technology and resources in the design and manufacturing of large warships in the Rising Sun. However, due to the high technical index, too many experimental equipment are forced to be used, which makes the construction and the department coordination very difficult. After more tens of times of repeated argumentation and modification, the design scheme of "Yamato" was finally approved by Tatus and started construction in Kure Naval Shipyard. Of course, in order to make the project go on smoothly, Tatsu made an amazing move in the short time when the project was in the demonstration stage - he broke up the superstructure of Tenzai and Shirada by means of thunder never used before and reorganized them into a new organization directly responsible for Touyama command post: Ten-Shi Zaibatsu, and basically eliminated the unsettled forces within the two families in the process and suppressed the confrontation between the army and the navy of the Rising Sun. Under the premise of the volatile national economic situation, this change did not cause the stress behavior of most of the middle and grass-roots personnel. Instead, many industrial jobs resulting from the reorganization eased the unemployment tide in the main control areas of the former two companies to a certain extent. The two families of Tenzai and Shirada also made a wise choice and reached almost agreement on the Ten-Shi Zaibatus related projects a strategic cooperation agreement without selfishness. As a result, the project started smoothly.

### Part2

In the whole project of "Yamato", the main weapon configuration is the most important one. The naval generals and engineers in the Rising Sun know very well that the power of traditional high explosive warhead is approaching the bottleneck, and the original  type19 40mm armor piercing projectile is replaced with the existing new high explosive warhead, its power still can not be improved qualitatively; it is not only difficult to threaten the new main ships of the Celestial and the Allies, but also the shore support effect is only basically enough.

This is one of the biggest technical difficulties of the project: the high demand for the main weapon index, or can say several main guns with sufficient power and caliber. Even though the wave-force weapons prepared for large-scale service in the Rising Sun have shown that the directional energy weapons have some advantages over the traditional weapons, the wave-force weapons and other directional energy weapon that can only strike the target in a straight line  means can not meet the Long-distance Firepower delivery requirements of "Yamato" due to the influence of the curvature of the earth. In other words, even if the triple wave-force cannon as the exclusive defense weapon of large floating island fortress can be miniaturized, it is still not suitable for the weapon system of "Yamato" project .

Under this premise, in order to improve the artillery's armor piercing ability and shore support ability, the only choic is to further expand the artillery caliber in the traditional path; according to the results of computer simulation, the artillery caliber may have to be increased to about 50 cm to meet the requirements of technical index.

Shirada's design department has launched a 51 cm caliber artillery for this purpose. Although the Rising Sun has never had such a precedent, the core technology research and development of this part is still smooth due to the existence of a series of nano strengthened alloy steels that can support enough strength. But correspondingly, the extra cost and maintenance difficulty brought by the configuration of a complete set of auxiliary machinery for the 51 cm super large caliber exceed the expectation. Moreover, in the simulation test of supercomputer, the researchers also found that the super large caliber artillery with new weapon system even exceeded the calculation range of warship artillery model, which made the debugging more difficult than before, and some experimental parameters were even worse than the previous 46 cm artillery.

In addition, even with years of technology digestion and relatively developed industrial technology, 51cm The manufacturing cost of naval gun is also quite amazing: the extremely high chamber pressure has extremely strict mechanical performance requirements for steel, and the manufacturing process of this kind of special steel is extremely complex; more importantly, even the most experienced senior engineer can not be sure whether the yield of this kind of large gun can reach the acceptable range in the production process, and the error in this aspect will inevitably delay the service of new warships. Obviously, Tatsu is unwilling and unable to take the risk that his plan will be delayed due to overdue delivery of naval guns. The factory can only expand the scale of production line to ensure the qualified quantity under low qualification rate, which will involve the problem of resource allocation - even if the navy budget has been gradually liberalized,if put resources too much on this 51 cm artillery, people can't help asking: is it worth it?

When there is only one way to achieve the target, people have to be used to the choice of enduring such high cost and uncertainty; but if there is another alternative, people naturally have to weigh it.

Inspired by the Celestial Zhurong Heavy Tank, a scientific research team of Tokyo Institute of Technology, which has close cooperation with Tenzai Robotics, boldly put forward another design scheme: the caliber of the new gun is still 46 cm, and the overall structure is similar to that of the traditional one, but it is equipped with brand-new shells and charging equipment.

The scientific research team of Tokyo Institute of Technology intends to use a special nano metastable material as the warhead and propulsion part of the projectile: this material can absorb and store a large amount of energy in a short time, and it will be in a sub stable state at this time; as the warhead hits the target, the delay fuze triggers the release of catalyst, and a large amount of energy stored in the metastable material will be released in a very short time. While causing the primary damage, the warhead material will be split into countless nanoscale directional energy ammunition to bombard to produce secondary damage; the specially designed internal structure can maximize the secondary damage effect. "It's like the explosion point fired countless micro wave-force blast in all directions at the same time" -- from the joint explanation of Tenzai Robotics and Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Of course, considering the safety factors, all the materials of the shells are in an inactive state when it enters the chamber. The shell needs to be quickly charged by the additional power supply device of the main gun barrel. After the shell energy is saturated, it can be ignited and launched by the special ignation device. But this kind of gun barrel structure is not complicated, just adding the power supply device in the traditional gun barrel.

At the same volume and mass, the fully saturated nano metastable material can release more energy in a shorter time, with a detonation velocity of 14000 m/s, with higher power and energy efficiency than any conventional high explosive. In the test, the plasma produced by the explosion of the warhead presents the blue-purple light representing the ultra-high temperature, rather than weak red-yellow light; the high temperature of nearly 10000 degrees centigrade in the center is enough to gasify any conventional material. Even if there is no direct hit, the secondary damage and high-speed shock wave generated by ultra-high detonation pressure will also flatten a large area nearby. In the case of using this kind of projectile, even if the caliber is reduced to 46 cm which can be produced stably, its firepower delivery efficiency is much higher than that of 51 cm traditional artillery.

At the same time, engineers also found that by adjusting the combination of energy input frequency during rapid charging, the metastable material of warhead can be deactivated into a new type of armour piercing material with self-sharpening ability; compared with conventional armour piercing warhead, this kind of warhead structure not only improves the toughness and hardness of warhead, but also greatly reduces the probability of fragmentation and significantly improves the efficiency Its penetrating power; moreover, the remaining warheads will still be able to maintain lethality of high explosive level.

Compared with the traditional artillery system, the new type of special artilly has some unique advantages: because it does not need propellants when the whole shell is fired, and the type of ammunition completely depends on the charging type selection process after it is loaded into the chamber and before it is launched, the charging system thus saves the two steps of inserting propellants and the mechanical change of the type of ammunition, which makes the loading process more efficient, and improves the overall reliability and rate of fire.

More importantly, due to the unique properties of metastable materials, when they are uncharged, the energy density is very low, and there is almost no possibility of unstability and deflagration. In other words, the main gun ammunition depot and all subsequent metastable ammunition of the ship of the "Yamato" project have fundamentally eliminated the risk of detonation by influence, and can even be used as a buffer layer to absorb part of the energy in some cases. This allows the top designers of Shirada Shipwork to boldly concentrate additional protection on more important places such as the core of nano instantaneous generator, combat intelligence center and power cabin. In addition, it is worth mentioning that, at the insistence of the retired captains, the engineers prepared several rounds of conventional ammunition in the safety interlayer of the Yamato's main turret in case of emergency in extreme cases.

After the shell was finalized, this high-energy shell with special warhead was named as type57 special trans-phase shell. Compared with traditional shells, type57 is more suitable for new artillery, and the combination of the two gives better ballistic performance. Combined with the improved inertial guidance system and the fire control system with global command and positioning network it can guarantee the high hit rate of large targets even in the very long distance, and also avoid the trouble that the terminal guidance weapon is easy to be interfered. Due to the relatively mature charging system design experience of wave-force artillery system, the research and development of special artillery system is relatively smooth; however, it is a pity that the mass production of nano metastable materials for warhead is still stagnant. Even though the scientific research team of Tokyo Institute of Technology has been working hard almost all nights, it is still unable to find a suitable industrial preparation method under the current military industry level of the Rising Sun. All of a sudden, the project executives of the "Yamato" plan were in a bad mood. The failure to industrialize the manufacturing of nano metastable materials meant that this class of battleship could not obtain enough new high-efficiency shells, and the Shogon class battleship, which could only launch conventional shells, was not essentially different from the samurai class battleship bombed and sunk by the aircraft carrier formation. At a time when everyone was at a loss, the research team of Tokyo Institute of Technology suddenly welcomed a group of special experts, who were said to have taken over some research projects from the research department directly under the crown prince Tatsu, and then showed extraordinary ability, while the original members of the research team found themselves under the close monitoring of Kasumigaseki. A member of the research team was extremely curious about these new members who had never heard of them in the research field before. He tried to inquire about the identity of these special experts, but he was questioned and threatened. In any case, although slightly overdue, nano metastable materials were successfully put into mass production without delaying Tatsu's thorough plan.

The design of the main weapon has been settled, so the enthusiastic engineers are full of motivation and hope; but then they realize that this is only to make their firepower level on the same level as that of Celestial Empire and Edenia.

Tatsu has always believed that there will be a war between Empire of the Rising Sun and Celestial Empire that will determine the fate of the nation. This is also the voice of some leaders in the Rising Sun since the economic crisis in the Celestial . As a result, Tatsu is one of the most outstanding activists. It can even be said that this war was triggered in advance by him - maybe he did saw something or made up his mind in that pilgrimage.

As early as a few years ago, the warships of the Celestial had achieved full electrification including shipborne electromagnetic artilleries and full informatization of direct connection battlefield command system. As the opponent of the Celestial Empire, Edenia may even surpass the former in some aspects. When the fleets of both sides began to fire on each other on the battlefield, the Yamato warships of Empire of the Rising Sun needed sufficient defense capability to avoid "repeating the same mistakes" .

So in the aspect of protection, the designers designed special armor composition for the Yamato: in the aspect of basic structure, the armor steel modified by nanotechnology is reasonably applied in this project, and the nano armor steel can achieve higher equivalent thickness with lighter weight. However, its fatal defects can not be ignored: the microstructure of nano armor steel makes it more vulnerable to self oxidation at high temperature, therefore, flame retardant materials and antioxidants must be added into the interlayer.

In the aspect of artillery protection, engineers encountered another problem: as Tatsu's biggest imaginary enemy, the Celestial had begun to equip electromagnetic artilleries in batches at that time, and part of the Heavenly King Wudao class battlecruiser, which was used for experiments, also completed the refitting of electromagnetic main guns; its projectile was said to have a mass of 250 kg, and its muzzle speed was up to six mach. The Rising Sun has no reason not to believe that the next generation of Celestial battlecruiser will also carry electromagnetic weapons, or even more powerful improved models. Combined with various intelligence information, Tatsu and the evaluation department believe that the projectile mass of electromagnetic shells carried by the next generation of Celestial battlecruiser will still be about 250kg, but its muzzle speed will reach about eight mach, and it may also carry a special high-energy warhead. This kind of electromagnetic projectile, which looks like armor piercing projectile, not only has amazing penetration depth, but also has deflagration ability that the former model of "steel needle" does not have, which makes it still have good damage effect after penetrating the target.

But the idea of "deforming the cap" which is often used to resist the traditional large caliber shells is useless for the electromagnetic projectiles. The light but high speed electromagnetic projectile will easily break through the traditional armor using this idea. Facing such a terrible threat, engineers from Tenzai Robotics reorganized the armor design schemes and corresponding effects of many land combat vehicles and naval ships in service and retired against ultra-high speed armor piercing projectiles. On this basis, designed an extremely complex composite armor to resist the high-speed projectile launched by Celestial electromagnetic artilleries- the outermost layer is the 120 mm nano armor steel  mentioned above, inside there are two layers of 380 mm high hardness nano reinforced ceramics; the next layer is 700 mm helium gap with average thickness; the fifth and seventh layers are 140 mm nano reinforced steel with 240 mm nano reinforced glass fiber sandwiched in the middle of the sixth layer; the last layer is 40 mm aluminum alloy back plate.The actual average thickness of the whole armor is about 1760 mm. It is worth mentioning that because the overall trajectory of the electromagnetic gun is straight and the incident angle of the normal hypothetical engagement distance is smaller than that of the conventional projectile, the inner armor with a large inclination angle is applied to the design. Although this kind of seemingly armour deck design will increase the occupied space and tonnage, and has poor protection ability for the long-distance high throwing trajectory, but considering that the only weapon that may threaten the hull of "Yamato" is the electromagnetic artilleries, this seemingly outdated design that can maximize the equivalent armor thickness against the electromagnetic weapon was adopted in the project. In theory, this type of armor can resist most of the attacks at normal engagement distance, and it is difficult to break through even if the electromagnetic artilleries equipped by the Heavenly King Wudao class battlecruiser with 133% output power.

The whole anti ballistic idea of armor is as follows:

① The outermost layer of nano armor steel is enough to resist most of the conventional projectiles, but it only has a small resistance to the electromagnetic projectiles, and its internal structure design will even reduce the damage to the overall structure of the armor at the cost of allowing hypervelocity projectiles to pass through.

② The double-layer high hardness strengthened ceramics will bear the tip of the electromagnetic projectile: the ceramic layer constrained by the titanium alloy frame and chemical means will be broken but can not be dispersed after the long and thin projectile rod is inserted, and the resulting "reverse impact" effect has the probability to break the incoming projectile rod.

③ Even if the ceramic layer fails to break the rod, the projectile that has penetrated the two layers of ceramics will certainly consume most of its kinetic energy; the density drop caused by the sudden appearance of the helium layer will deflect its incidence angle, so that it will crush with the armor with a large inclination at a wrong angle.

④ The next nano reinforced steel will have a great possibility to stop the rod at the end of its flight, and the subsequent reinforced nano glass fiber layer is responsible for absorbing the impact of the warhead after explosion (but it has almost no ability to intercept the rod itself).

⑤ The penultimate layer of nano reinforced armor steel is the last line of defense. If the projectile break through all the front protective layers, it will encounter the final blockage here; the final aluminum alloy back plate is responsible for absorbing and blocking the possible armor fragments, and serving as the substrate of the inner cabin.

Good ideal, beautiful model, but cruel reality: If all the main armor belts of the "Yamato" project use special composite armor with this thickness, then the total displacement will inevitably soar to more than 100000 tons, which is naturally unacceptable. However, if the 1760 mm armor is thinned, the armor thickness of the "Yamato" will be in an extremely embarrassing situation - it is more than enough to resist conventional large caliber projectile and anti-ship missiles, even a little wasted, but it has no resistance to the attack of Celestial electromagnetic artilleries, which is equivalent to wasting tens of thousands of tons of displacement.

In the face of this dilemma, one of the main designers put forward a crazy idea: "it's better to give up the armor of all cabins outside the core area, including the ammunition depot, than be in a dilemma!"

This ridiculous idea at first glance rekindled the torch of hope in an instant, and was later called "absolute protection of key sections" in the engineering documents. As mentioned above, the main artilleries ammunition made of metastable materials does not have the risk of detonation by influence; with the special design and efficient damage management measures of the engineers of Shirade Shipword, "Yamato" can reduce the armor outside the core area and the auxiliary ammunition depot to the level of conventional ships, and the saved part of the displacement can provide sufficient installation space for other systems.

After the reset by a large margin, "Yamato" can be said to have implemented the "belief" and "measures"  to every line of the blueprint against the imaginary enemy never imagined, the Celestial Empire. The designer estimated the data of the electromagnetic artilleries of the Heavenly king Wudao class battlecruiser, and set the data with 40% additions as the penetration depth of the normal engagement distance of the electromagnetic artilleries carried by the next generation of Celestial battlecruiserl after combining with the multi-party information. In addition to the real core area, the armor thickness of the main armor belt, including the ammunition depot under the turret, has been reduced from 480 mm to 180 mm, and the saved weight has been allocated to the core area, the bow Nanoswarm Hiveand the command tower. The 1760 mm special composite armor carried by the main turret enables these parts to theoretically resist extremely powerful electromagnetic projectiies at standard combat distance.

The standard of the horizontal armor is to be able to withstand the single wave attack of air launched anti-ship missiles and 2500 kg laser guided bombs by the Celestial air force. The designer thinks that this is also enough to withstand a single round of bombing of most of the bomb of the Allied air force, including 3000 pounds of joint direct attack munition. However, later facts have proved that they and the intelligence agencies of the Rising Sun had miscalculated the reload speed of the Allied air force.

However, compared with the strict defense against surface and air threats, the underwater protection of "Yamato" is poor. Since the Celestial navy and the Edenia navy do not have conventional attack submarines, and the nearest red navy submarine squadron is conservatively estimated to be outside the Bering Strait, the navy of the Rising Sun needs to face a lower torpedo threat, so the designers only add some extra watertight compartments according to the traditional idea, and the hull surface uses an improved coating to reduce the seawater erosion speed and infrared heat source signal.

In the battle command system, in addition to a wide range of new electronic equipment, a set of independent artificial intelligence system, originally developed for another secret project of Tatsu, was first installed in the "Yamato" project. Although this is only an experimental "engineering test" version, it still has the ability of most of the complete version. Unfortunately, due to the imperfections and many bugs in the self-awareness module, AI experts finally decided to give up installing this module.

However, even so, the warship mainframe of "Yamato" still retains the deep learning function. This enables her to collect and analyze the data collected from the internal sensors and the surrounding environment of the warship, adapt to the complex and changeable environment of the battlefield with extremely fast speed, coordinate and process the internal resource information of the warship, provide various tactical reference and planning schemes for the captain, artillery chief, navigator and other officers, and assist them by means of automatic correction of fire control computer and other means to assist combat personnel. Even in the case of combat personnel reduction, artificial intelligence can take over part of ship equipment to maintain combat capability, so as to truly be the one with the ship. Moreover, it is rumored that this central artificial intelligence system may have the ability to independently control the whole warship under unmanned circumstances. In fact, according to the engineers' idea, after the war with the Celestial navy, except for those who are left in some necessary positions, all the rest of the people in the outer area of the warship will enter the core area that can resist electromagnetic projectiles to preserve their life, part of their work will be taken over by AI; in other words, the minimum number of combat crew in outer area of "Yamato" may indeed be, zero.

The advanced AI mainframe controls almost everything on the warship: in addition to the traditional damage control unit, the "Yamato" project also has a disaster response system based on Nanoswarm Hive. Its core is the shipborne Nanoswarm Hive under the bow barrier. A large number of nano robots produced by the core will be deployed in the reserved slots around the warship. When the ship is damaged or small-scale invasion occurs, the monitoring and sensing facilities throughout the ship will feed back the relevant information to the Artificial Intelligence Center, and the mainframe will send nano machines, damage control team to the target area or start automatic defense facilities accordingly. The damage control part of the mainframe also has the control authority of automatic fire extinguishing device, in cabin drainage pipe network and multi section automatic watertight partition hatch, so as to ensure that the water inflow area can be closed and emptied layer by layer in case of insufficient personnel. This kind of automatic damage management is the only feasible and reliable maintenance method for the outer area which is sparsely manned but frequently bombarded by electromagnetic projectile during the engagement. These fearless micro automatic robot swarm can be responsible for plugging the leak and repairing the pipelines with the support of storage materials. When the core area suffers a fatal strike, they can even consume themselves in offline condition to forced restore some important facilities, but the reduced parts need to be made up relatively slowly through the hive.

Shipborne Nanoswarm Hive will also be used as a supplement to the protection system, which is responsible for the so-called "dynamic defense armor": When the photoelectric equipment detects the incoming fire, the mainframe will quickly calculate the impact point, analyze the threat level according to the type of incoming projectile, and then assign the nanoswarm to form an charged nano shield on the outer surface of the ship's impact point according to the conclusion. According to the number of incoming targets and the level of threat, this  "barrier" has a great range of changes - the size ranges from 2.5%  to 34% of the surface area, and the equivalent defense capability ranges from 1200 mm  to 100 mm standard armor steel. If a large number of small and medium-sized firepower incoming, it will form a large area and low thickness nanoshield; if a small number of high threat targets, it will form a small area and high thickness nanoshield, and do everything possible to weaken the incoming targets.

In theory, the "dynamic defense armor" system has a further application, that is, to launch the charged core to realize the short-term release of the charged nanoshield; this idea is finally applied to the anti-missile system of the Tachi Cruiser, but as the "Yamato" project, this system is only used to protect itself, without the core launching function.

Under special circumstances, the mainframe of warship can cut off the energy supply of most structures including the main guns, and transmit the energy to the shipborne Nanoswarm Hive. This measure will enable the swarm to be overcharged to 120%, thus allowing it to form an overload nanoshield that can wrap the bow in an instant. This short-term shield, commonly known as "impact shield", is full of special crystal lattice structure pinned by excessive energy on the micro level, which is enough to block most of the incoming fire, and even crush the enemy ships in front from the molecular level.

Thanks to this, the sinking resistance and survivability of the achievements of "Yamato" project have been further improved, which has been proved by several short but fierce battles.

In terms of power system, the project, which is expected to adopt all electric propulsion, is a real high energy consumer - special main gun, nanoswarm hive and advanced AI warship mainframe, each of which consumes a lot of power. Therefore, it is very important to choose a suitable "heart" for this project. Engineers are very clear that conventional generators can never meet the terrible energy consumption of "Yamato", so they turn their eyes to the instant power generation technology that has just completed the miniaturization experiment: this new generator is the result of the concentrated top application of nano materials and molecular design technology in the energy field; all its structures use the theoretically optimal design, so that the energy consumption can be reduced to the minimum. The chemical fuel and its spreading nozzle and the combustion chamber structure are also processed by molecular structure programming, so as to ensure the optimal and the fastest combustion efficiency. Even though the most powerful "multi energy hybrid power generation" advantage of the instant generator can not be shown in the shipbrone type, the modified model focusing on thermal power generation is enough to provide sufficient power for a large warships. Coincidentally, the new type of heavy cruiser also plans to use this kind of generator. Both the ship administration headquarters and the ministry of navy support the large-scale application of instant generation technology on new large warships, which is also to stimulate some sluggish industrial chain in the Rising Sun. Because of this, "Yamato" project publicized the bidding information, encouraged various manufacturers to participate in the production bidding of various parts of the project, and purchased a new generation of miniaturized shipborne nano instantaneous power generation system to meet the large energy demand of main gun, engine, radar and other electrical equipment.

The pursuit of unparalleled sinking resistance and reliability is also reflected in the cabin layout of the warship: the designers will use staggered layout for the large-scale imstant generators of "Yamato" to be placed in the partition power cabin under the middle of the ship, which is protected by the thick armor of the core area, and they can produce at least 300000 horsepower. And benefiting from the streamlined hull of the new design, even though "Yamato" adopted the trimaran hull with low speed in exchange for higher stability and seaworthiness of the whole ship, it still achieved an amazing speed of 32.2 knots in the full load sea trial.

Of course, this is not the full potential of the new battleship power system; in the "emergency accelration" power mode, through the manegement of Shipborne artificial intelligence, all the output of the generators will be concentrated in the two sections of nanoswarm hive and battleship motor system; in addition, the Instant generator can enter the overload mode to greatly improve the power generation efficiency, so that the "dual charging" can make the instantaneous power of the engine soar to 150% in a very short time. Combined with the diversion effect of the bow nano impact shield, the whole ship can temporarily reach a super-high speed of nearly 40 knots, and give "Yamato" the ability to continue to ramming for a certain distance after the collapse of the nano shield - but, in order to ensure that the precise structure of the instant generator can keep running, the duration of this overload is not very long.

The above is the outstanding point of "Yamato" as the latest scientific and technological crystallization of navy of the Rising Sun. Unfortunately, the domestic economic situation of the Rising Sun does not allow "Yamato" to become a super battleship in the real sense. Because the research and development and application of a series of new technologies required by the super high index are extremely consuming resources and budget, in order to make the "Yamato" project, which has already exceeded the budget by a large margin, succeed without causing too much attention from the Celestial , navy of the Rising Sun even abolished the purchase cost of two Naginata class destroyers and secretly used it for this purpose. Even so, designers are still unable to develop new independent secondary weapons for her. However, in order to achieve the index of the project and make her have complete combat capability, they can only refit the existing weapons or use the old equipment, so as to reduce the budget expenditure of other weapon system as much as possible.

In terms of anti-air armament, Tenzai Robotics has offered nearly double the price of the old type for its new VX missile launch module. The reason is that the new model needs to add "additional anti-corrosion design and treatment for shipboard version", and the already stretched remaining budget is not enough to equip every ship with this module. Of course, after Tatsu's personal examination, he is also very clear that the old VX module is not enough to cope with large-scale saturation air raid in any case. The exasperating reason is just an excuse to avoid some negative remarks that shake the morale of the navy.

After many negotiations (and secret attempts to simplify the system) failed, the desperate engineers had no choice but to place the dual 25 mm kinetic machinegun produced by Yokosuka Naval Arsenal on "Yamato". As a "friend on the same front", Yokosuka Naval Arsenal offered a price close to the internal purchase price to the representative of Shirada Shipword, who was in charge of the negotiation. In this way, it happened to purchase six sets of dual anti-air machineguns in the design with the total budget of single ship air defense weapons.(Tenzai Kenji satirized this in private talks inside Ten-Shi Zaibatsu, and said that if he went out to discuss in person, maybe each "Yamato" battleship could only get one anti-air gun.)

The auxiliary batteries is also dismal: the designers have installed a total of four dual mounted 8.8 cm auxiliary caoones on both sides of "Yamato". These cannons improve from the main gun of the Naginata class destroyer, and regard it as a the medium caliber auxiliary cannons to deal with of small targets. When selecting large caliber auxiliary weapons, they only set up 15.5 cm triple cannons of Kure navy arsenal behind the No.2 and No.3 main turrets, which is just one of the abandoned candidate of the main gun of Tachi class cruiser, which can only be described as normal, just shows that this choice is the result of no choice. However, fortunately, with the development of the situation, some of the "Yamato" which was later in the construction sequence achieved the nano metastable technology upgrade of these auxiliary cannons.

All in all, due to financial constraints, the two auxiliary weapon systems of "Yamato" were only barely enough before the launch of the first ship. Its air defense capability is relatively weak, the firepower of those anti-air machineguns can even be described as "vulnerable". The quality of the auxiliary cannons is also mediocre, but with its sufficient quantity, it still has enough self-defense ability, and a small number of enemies who attempt to approach will still be hit by a large number of secondary firepower. In addition, it is rumored that the engineers of the Rising Sun had tried to make new guided anti-air shells or anti-air missiles using the mass destruction ability of nano metastable materials when they exploded, but whether this idea has been implemented still needs to be further verified.

In terms of logistics facilities, the interior of the flagship, which represents the Rising Sun, will not be so low-key; even if designers repeatedly wrote to cut the budget for these luxury decoration and add it to weapons and equipment, this kind of decoration has not been withdrawn. Senior naval generals who thought the "work for appearance" was indispensable first expressed their opposition to the contents of the letter. Some of the radicals even thought that since the main weapons of "Yamato" had sufficient strike efficiency, the auxiliary weapons would become insignificant, and the other ships in the fleet would be able to protect the "Yamato" in it. And Tatsu, on the other hand, believes that "Yamato", which has already demonstrated superior performance in the main gun and active defense system, should properly show its weaknesses, so as to eliminate some of the wariness of the Celestial..

Finally, various advanced and even luxurious humanized facilities and equipment were introduced according to the initial design: in addition to the cafeteria serving ice cream, there are also entertainment lounges with air conditioning and the latest SP5 game console, and some places are as luxurious as five-star hotels. For the crew, it's a great honor to be able to board the flagship and become a member. For the ship, she carries elite captains and sailors selected from different fleets.

As the leader of this project, when the new Shogun Battleship was completed and set sail, Tatsu personally wrote inscriptions for these proud works, and a plaque with "Victory" was hung in the center of the command room.

The harbor is calm, and the sunshine and seagulls surround the sleeping steel giant. With the cheers of the people, the instant engine gradually lit up and gave out a low roar. The energy, like fresh blood, flowed through her whole body through dense circuit pipelines. The nine thick barrels pointed obliquely into the clear sky, and the fireworks of display shells were visible even in the morning. However, in Tatsu's view, these huge warships, which are regarded by most people as shouldering the responsibility of defending the destiny of the Empire of the Rising Sun, may be just a piece of chess to reproduce the divine destiny.

## Notes From the Field

Battlefield reconnaissance has revealed at least these facts about the Shogun Battleship.

**Shirada Experimental Type B Naval Gun** - This new generation with super large caliber naval gun is superior to its predecessors in all aspects, and almost no armor can resist its special high-energy warhead.

**Umbrella of Yamato** - The highly intelligent AI mainframe can input energy into the bow shield generator to charge it to 120%, and then generate an indestructible nano shield; it can not only intercept enemy firepower, but also avoid damaging the main structure of the ship while ramming enemy warships.

**Flagship of the Fleet** - The development and construction process of "Yamato" consumed a lot of resources. Most of the high-end weapons carried by the ships were rare and not all of them could be mass produced, so they were extremely valuable. The crew they carried were the most skilled navy soldiers and the most prestigious captains selected from the fleet. These sailors were always ready to fight to the last breath for the revival and honor of the Empire.

**Naval Fortress** - As a mobile fire platform carrying a large number of various kinds of weapons, "Yamato" has terrible firepower no matter in long-range or short-range and the same terrible protection, and even can easily annihilate the entire surface fleet without support; however, its air defense capability is relatively weak, and it may be approached by underwater targets and posed a threat when she leaves the fleet.

## Referance

1. ↑ In real history, Yamato the Battleship also equiped with ice cream machine.
2. ↑ Obviously, this is the time when Tatsu has just returnd from the past.
3. ↑ Honno-ji Incident in our time line happened on 21 June 1582
4. ↑ Active defense system of Tachi Heavy Cruiser

## Notes

This article is an unofficial translation.