Taxata-class battleship

The Taxata-class was a planned line of 6 battleships ordered by the Imperial Navy in 1936 and 1937. They were designed and intended to counter the Ta’arohan Navy's numerically superior battleship force in the years leading up to the Summer War. However, the line's construction was interrupted by the Invasion of Riyude in early 1941. Ultimately, only two ships of the class were completed: Taxata and TBD (originally TBD), the latter of which was boarded and captured by Ta’arohan troops on !Date.

The Taxata-class ships each possessed a main armament of eight 18-inch guns, the largest caliber ever mounted on a warship at the time. If all six planned ships had been completed, they would have represented the most powerful force on the seas, eclipsing many other nations' navies which had been demilitarized and confined to interwar treaty regulations.

Maximum Caliber Question
There was a significant debate within the Imperial Navy concerning the direction of their capital ship development. Historically, Riyude had emphasized armor and firepower over speed; however, the TBD-class battlecruisers were a major departure from this line of thinking, and the Imperial Navy was considerably split as to which direction the capital ship force should develop towards: the "Maximum Caliber Option," consisting of slower but more powerful battleships that would be able to outgun all or most enemy vessels that approached them, or the "Minimum Caliber Option," which advocated for faster battleships that would possess weaker armament and armor but would be able to reliably outmaneuver enemy capital ships.

Eventually, advocates for the Maximum Caliber Option won; the upcoming Taxata-class would be heavily-armed and be considerably slower than the TBD-class battlecruisers, the only other modern capital ships of the Imperial Navy (excluding aircraft carriers). However, its top speed of 28 knots still classified it under the emerging subclass of "fast battleships."

Main battery


The Taxata-class battleships were armed with a main armament of eight 18 inch/Type 37 guns mounted on three centerline turrets, with a twin-gun turret superfiring over a triple-gun turret in the fore pair, and a single triple-gun turret in the rear.

Impact and legacy
Although she ultimately never sailed alongside her sister ships, Taxata exceeded all expectations and irrevocably reaffirmed the Imperial Navy's commitment to the Maximum Caliber doctrine. Following the Summer War, the Imperial Navy adopted the 27-knot rule, stating that all new battleships must be heavily armed, but not to the point of reducing their top speed below 27 knots. This would be applied to the TBD and TBD-classes, which had top speeds of 28 and 30 knots respectively. Although these later Riyudic battleships were increasingly slower relative to their contemporaries, they would possess increasingly powerful artillery, culminating in the 20-inch main armament of the TBD-class that would become the highest caliber ever mounted on a warship.