I have always had a liking for the Takao class. I built my first 1/500 scale Takao about 1969-70 and just loved the big superstructures and lots of guns.
The Japanese, knowing the treaties were about to become toilet paper, started designing their improved Myoko class cruisers in 1928, laid them down in 1930 and completed the four ships in 1932-33. So how do you improve an already fine design? You make it bigger with more guns! and that is exactly what I planned for them. The only way to increase the number of guns aboard was to put triple turrets in place of the twins. Four triple turrets were to be fitted.
Having no restrictions, the Japanese designers gave themselves the chance to design the best cruiser in the world. And they did. No stinting on stability. Right to the end of their lives these ships never required bulges to aid stability as happened so often to their real life brothers. Not until my Germanic States Hipper class do the Takao class ships have contenders for their 'Best in class'. One of the biggest advantages these cruisers had was the four quadruple sets of 24" Long Lance torpedoes. Aiding that the ships carried reloads.
To aid with the deception on the size of these ships, it was 'leaked' to Janes Fighting Ships that they had been made very fast ships (36 knots) with lots of machinery, little armour and the guns were a new mark of 7" rather than 8".
