Board Thread:Game Updates/@comment-3502824-20171207155334/@comment-32647310-20180130025845

I did a bit of reading on the Kaiser ships, and they also get an undeserved bad rap.

A lot of the problems that their construction had was due, mostly to lack of full understanding of different materials and how they act/interact with each other (for example, too much sulpher in the coal used to produce steeel makes it brittle in cooler tempratures) and new produciton processes (work crews, while being trained and understood their work, were still learning the ins-and-outs of welding, as before, joins were rivited) and, more importantly, the ships weren't designed to be durable. They were designed to be able to be produced quickly, cheaply and be 'just good enough to get the job done'.

...and all things considered, that only 2 of these ships were lost given the hell they were put through is saying something. Were they great? No, not by a long shot...but they did their job and they did it well.

As far as looking at things from the perspective of Kurita, it's a good question as to why he turned back as he did. He really had very little to lose. I mean, the IJN were already well aware of their situation (the war was over for them/Japan). Leyte was, for all intents and purposes, a last gasp of defiance...an opportunity to give the Allies a bit of a black eye as they went down, because even if they were to win and/or accomplish their objectives, those ships would have been stranded in the region unable to get ammunition or parts (because they were in Japan), and no real way to get the fuel out (supply chains had been wrecked as it is).