Japanese heavy cruisers repeatedly had to take on duties beyond the roles for which eight-inch cruisers were designed. Their deployment shows how heavy cruisers became stand-ins when capital ships were unavailable or too scarce. Treaty calibre constraints made it difficult to turn them into the substitutes that strategy sometimes demanded. A prepared 9.2-inch up-gunning path could have offered more flexibility, though it would not solve the wider force-structure problem by itself.
Notable Point · 2:07:54-2:08:47
When heavy cruisers are asked to do capital-ship work
Japanese heavy cruisers were repeatedly assigned missions better suited to capital ships.