I missed this post…had seen the Kirishima article a bit back and recommend it to anybody with even a passing interest in WWII at sea, or the Guadalcanal campaign. I’d also put in a plug for Richard Frank’s fine book on the campaign.

Kirishima was a Kongo class battleship. These four battleships (battlecruisers before modified somewhat in the 30′s) were probably the most useful, overall, of all the Japanese battleships — at max speed of 30.5 knots they were the only ships that could keep up with the carriers on a speed run (even the slowest big carrier, Kaga, made 28 knots max — just slightly outstepping Yamato’s best speed of 27.5. (The great defect of Yamato was her relative lack of speed, especially as compared to, say, the Iowas).

Kongo (the class leader) was built in the UK, by Vickers, and was apparently a great embarassment to the British, for she far outclassed the latest Admiralty design (the Lion class which, pound for pound, were probably the worst warships the British ever built). The Japanese were smart enough to retain a Vickers designer — Sir George Thurston, rather than using copying British Admiralty designs. The British responded by building Tiger — very similar in design and layout to the Kongos.

Kongo’s sister Hiei (sunk the night before Kirishima) had some percentage of British components — the other two ships were completely Japanese built.

Anyway, the class is a fascinating group of ships.