My Shipyard

- Akumu Class Cruiser -

# Ship Version

With the Sun Empire finally fully engaging in the War of the Empires while still fighting the war against the Dynasty Empire, it was noticeable that the five heavy cruisers built at that time weren't enough for the war... Aware of such a problem, after the attack of the Bright Water harbor, the Imperial Sun navy started to make its plans for the next class of cruisers based upon the design of the Nagasaki class. At first, the intention of the navy was the construction of heavy cruisers highly capable of night combat missions fitted with the latest Sun Empire night battle equipment, but as the admiral discarded the idea of needing cruisers especially for night-hunting, he proposed instead a class of light cruisers, fast and still highly capable. Named the Akumu class, six ships were built, Akumu, Kirameku, Ankoku, Yozora, Kemuri, and lastly, Teikō.

As armament, the Akumu class was initially fitted with a total of six triple mounts and two twin mounts of 15.5 cm guns, noticeably displayed with three triple turrets placed on the front of the ship, the other three on the aft, and the twin mounts one on each side of the warship. Other armaments included eight twin mounts of 12.7 cm dual-purpose guns, 12 triple mounts of 25 mm "Kaze" AA guns, 16 single mounts of 7.7 mm AA guns, and four 610 mm quadruple torpedo launchers, usually equipped with the classic Sun Empire "Katana" torpedoes. With the remaining space available, the cruiser was also fitted with a single seaplane catapult, but the lack of a proper hangar allowed the warships to carry only a single seaplane, usually kept at the catapult. Despite the heavy armament and relatively decent armor, the cruiser managed to keep up a good high speed of about 36.2 knots, at cost of having a little less maneuverability, which made it harder to turn and therefore, dodge incoming, but it was still fairly hard to hit her at this speed.

As the project was meant to be one of a heavy cruiser and a night-hunter first, some officers managed to convince the admiral to allow the construction of a single night-hunter heavy cruiser based on the design of the same class. Named Kirameky, the second of the class, she had her armor slightly enhanced for the purpose she was designated and the armaments changed to six twin mounts of 20.3 cm guns with the side guns being taken out, twelve twin mounts of 10 cm dual-purpose guns taking the space of the side main guns, eight quadruple mounts of 25 mm AA "Kaze" guns and four 610 mm quintuple torpedo launchers while the 7.7 mm AA guns remained all the same aboard the ship. Kirameku was also equipped with advanced radars with much better efficiency, star shells, and searchlights for nighttime illumination and last, but not least, two seaplane catapults, allowing the ship to have a capacity for two seaplanes, usually the heavy seaplane night reconnaissance aircraft "Tsuki", which was fitted with flares, radars, and a small searchlight, allowing it to rely on information as needed. The Kirameku's crew was trained specifically for nighttime combat, learning to shield their eyes from the lights of fire and the guns explosions, thus preserving their night-vision capabilities, but they are not any less effective during daytime. The speed, despite the engines that were enhanced to push the ship with the new heavier equipment, suffered a drastic drawback, giving the ship a new 33 knots of maximum speed... But the results were quite favorable and the admiral needed to admit the success of Kirameku after the battle in which the ship got the nickname of "Midnight Demon" by the enemies, sinking and damaging several of their ships with the help of Tsukishima at first, and then alone. For that motive, the admiral agreed on the conversion of the other ships into night-hunter cruisers, one by one so not all the warships would become unavailable at the very same time.

The ships also received special appearance schemes. The ships were covered under a very dark blue color all over the ship except the deck and inside it, fading to a slightly lighter blue as it gets to the waterline of the ship. A single bright white line runs along the freeboard of the warships, making a white drawing of something when it passes under the second turret... The head of a human with sharps teeth and strange terrifying white eyes for Akumu, a large sixteen-pointed star for Kirameku, a hole with hands coming from it for Ankoku, a crescent moon inside a circle for Yozora, a large flame for Kemuri and a shield for Teikō. Aside from that, all the ships had small randomly placed white points, as though they were stars in a night sky of dark blue paint. A red circle on the bow deck of the warships was also added, with their names written in black inside it and, lastly, the bow mast was replaced by a naginata, which caused the warships to be called by the Sun Empire officers and sailors as "Naginata Cruisers". As an extra, Kirameku received a golden-edged dark blue shield to be put on the bow tip, with the kanjis "夜魔" written inside it, meaning "Night Demon".