Pick the ship

[Antediluvian Monster]

BTW, I have a picture for "Pick the ship: learn to read edition" that requires some convoluted knowledge to understand what's going on, so I'll just leave it in the spoiler. The answer I'm looking for is which ship is this and what's written there.

It's Ooi. The name is written from right to left (this is typical in ship names and even other stylized names, but normally Japanese goes from left to right or up to down) in traditional non-standard kana known as hentaigana (no, not that kind of). According to Lacroix the supposed reading is o-ho-wi. Modern Japanese speaker would understand it as ta-ho-yu and write Ooi as おおい in hiragana (or いおお in this case).

To be fair, I don't think this kind of spelling was all that common even in IJN. Usually when you see a IJN ship with it's name legible (destroyer typically) it's written "normally".

 

[SchwarzKatze]

It's Ooi. The name is written from right to left (this is typical in ship names and even other stylized names, but normally Japanese goes from left to right or up to down) in traditional non-standard kana known as hentaigana (no, not that kind of). According to Lacroix the supposed reading is o-ho-wi. Modern Japanese speaker would understand it as ta-ho-yu and write Ooi as おおい in hiragana (or いおお in this case).

To be fair, I don't think this kind of spelling was all that common even in IJN. Usually when you see a IJN ship with it's name legible (destroyer typically) it's written "normally".

Besides the variant of O, all others were regular kana used in that period. The odd ones were etymological spellings that were no longer phonetic at that point.

Examples:

Spoiler: A bit OT so spoiler'd

Kongo as a battlecruiser, the kana reads from right to left "KO-N-KA-U"

E1Y scout planes mounted on Kongo after conversion, reads left to right, "KO-N-GA-U"

However in the naval treaties the ship was romanized as "Kongo" consistently.

And destroyers were spelt in the old fashioned way too, just that most of them had names that weren't affected by sound changes.

Kagerofu (this one is blurry but still obvious)

Shiranuhi

Kuroshiho (bad angle but still visible)

And these all go from right to left again, despite all of them built after E1Y were retired.

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Edit: Still sometimes people romanize by old orthographic spelling instead of phonetic spelling because it's cool:

 

[jamesd]

Every statement here is correct - however, I will say that the ships were built by one of the nations you mention above...

Well I looked through my "Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II" last night and didn't see it. To be fair that book has lots of holes and would probably be better titled "Jane's most of the fighting ships that survived World War II and some of those that didn't".

I also checked the Romanian, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, Swedish, Finnish & Norwegian fleets and didn't find a match, most destroyer sized ships being constructed after WW1 had started and/or being constructed in the home country rather than one of Germany, Italy or Japan.

 

[Lexis]

A vague suggestion, is it ORP Burza or Wicher of the navy of poland? It was built in france would match your hint.

Edit: no the armament seems wrong

 

[jamesd]

A vague suggestion, is it ORP Burza or Wicher of the navy of poland? It was built in france would match your hint.

Edit: no the armament seems wrong

Clues from @Axe99 so far:
1. It has 4" main armament
2. Its not Russian
3. It predates WW1 but not by much
4. They weren't discarded until after WW2
5. It was not constructed or used by Britain
6. Its not a Japanese destroyer
7. Its not a Greek destroyer
8. Its not an Italian destroyer
9. Its not a German torpedo boat
10. It was built by one of Japan, Italy, Germany or Greece

The combination of 6-10 means its either a ship of one of those countries that is not a destroyer (or German torpedo boat) or it was constructed in one of those countries and sold, or taken as war reparations after WW1. As far as I can tell Greece did not construct any of its own warships of destroyer size.

 

[Axe99]

It's a problem of perspective, the mast wasn't that close to the stern as it may seem.

Ahh, danged perspectives! Cheers for the info on IJN ship labelling conventions btw, very interesting .

Well I looked through my "Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II" last night and didn't see it. To be fair that book has lots of holes and would probably be better titled "Jane's most of the fighting ships that survived World War II and some of those that didn't".

I also checked the Romanian, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, Swedish, Finnish & Norwegian fleets and didn't find a match, most destroyer sized ships being constructed after WW1 had started and/or being constructed in the home country rather than one of Germany, Italy or Japan.

A vague suggestion, is it ORP Burza or Wicher of the navy of poland? It was built in france would match your hint.

Edit: no the armament seems wrong

It's not the Polish destroyers, but not a bad guess. To help things along, the vessel did not serve in a European navy.....

 

[jamesd]

Ahh, danged perspectives! Cheers for the info on IJN ship labelling conventions btw, very interesting .

It's not the Polish destroyers, but not a bad guess. To help things along, the vessel did not serve in a European navy.....

Argentinian Catamarca or La Plata class destroyer? I don't have any references on them, and can't find anything that lists their armament. About all I can find is they were constructed by Germany in 1912 and decommissioned in 1957.

 

[Axe99]

Argentinian Catamarca or La Plata class destroyer? I don't have any references on them, and can't find anything that lists their armament. About all I can find is they were constructed by Germany in 1912 and decommissioned in 1957.

Spot on, nice work . Built by Germany between 1910 and 1912, and kept on steaming for a good long while. A bit buggered now, but will post another ship later today if no-one else does first.

 

[Axe99]

To clarify, it was that Catamarca class, and Jujuy in particular (although the half-ship to it's side is a La Plata).

Here's an easy one - the clue is in this question - why is this picture cropped thus?

 

[SchwarzKatze]

To clarify, it was that Catamarca class, and Jujuy in particular (although the half-ship to it's side is a La Plata).

Here's an easy one - the clue is in this question - why is this picture cropped thus?

View attachment 156395

That looks like a Leipzig-class cruiser, and since Nürnberg shouldn't have an 88 at the left near the cutoff, it should be Leipzig.

Though I don't know what's in the hidden parts. Prinz Eugen rammed Leipzig between the mast and the funnel, not where the pic's cut off so it should be something else.

 

[Lexis]

More obviousely it is not the Nürnberg because of the missing Platform round the funnel.

I do agree with SchwarzKatze it is the Leipzig. Because the Mast behind the funnel is missing and the funnel itselfe seems wrong somehow you could misstake it to be a K-Cruiser. If this was intended then the picture was cropped to hide the two turrets with the 3 x 15cm guns which make it easy to separate a K from a Leipzig-Cruiser

 

[Axe99]

Liepzig it is, and cropped for the reason Lexis said, nice work the both of you . I like the design of those German cruisers, but they're so damn distinctive a normal pic of them is an insta-giveaway (and even a cropped pic isn't that tricky). I'm afraid I'm not feeling so flash at the mo, but will post up another pic tomorrow when I'm feeling a more human.

 

[Axe99]

Here we go, sorry for the delay, this ship turned out to be unique in its class, but didn't begin that way....

 

[Sun_Killer]

Queen Elizabeth-Klasse I think. Maybe the Warspite

 

[Axe99]

You've got the nation right, but it's not the Warspite .

 

[churchilldog]

HMS London County Class ?

 

[Axe99]

HMS London County Class ?

Spot on . Any thoughts on why it was unique in its class?

 

[jamesd]

Spot on . Any thoughts on why it was unique in its class?

It received a new superstructure in its 1939-41 reconstruction, the only County class cruiser to receive do so.

 

[Axe99]

It received a new superstructure in its 1939-41 reconstruction, the only County class cruiser to receive do so.

That be it . A few counties had a decent reconstruction with some belt armour thrown on, but only London got that nice new funnel and some other bits and pieces.

 

[PhroX]

Pretty easy, but it's a good picture, so: