// On-Rabu, 31 Agustus 2016
Historical note:
Taihō (大鳳?) (meaning Great Phoenix), was an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Possessing heavy belt armor and featuring an armored flight deck (a first for any Japanese aircraft carrier), she represented a major departure in Japanese aircraft carrier design and was expected to not only survive multiple bomb, torpedo, or shell hits, but also continue fighting effectively afterwards.
Built by Kawasaki at Kobe, she was laid down on 10 July 1941, launched almost two years later on 7 April 1943 and finally commissioned on 7 March 1944. She sank on 19 June 1944 during the Battle of the Philippine Sea after suffering a singletorpedo hit from the American submarine USS Albacore, due to explosions resulting from design flaws and poor damage control.
Character:
Appearance:
Artist: Shimada Humikane (島田フミカネ)
Has golden/light-brown eyes and medium-length brown hair with bangs over her forehead. She also wears a headband with two horn-like protrusions on either side.
Dresses in a white long-sleeved bolero that exposes the armpits while her hurricane bow is placed below her neck; wears a pair of armored thigh-highs and a spats underneath a red pleated skirt.
A metal-like belt with miniature-sized AA-guns is seen secured and wrapped around her waist that connects to her rigging with the bridge on the right side and her armored flight deck on the left
Historians dispute over the material of her deck surface. In earlier WWII-related games, Taihou is usually given grey-colored deck, representing either concrete or latex-painted surface, but recent evidences tend to support that she actually used wooden deck surface.
Unlike the other standard carriers, she uses a repeating crossbow instead of a bow. In her pre-kai form, a magazine labeled "戦" (fighters) is loaded on the crossbow, while she holds a spare magazine labeled "攻" (attackers/torpedo bombers) in her left hand.
Upgrade
Her skirt, together with the side of her flight deck, changes to a forest green camo-like color while the top of the deck now colored black. Most likely representing latex-painted deck finish.
The spare magazine for her crossbow is now stored in the hangars of her flight deck.
Her illustrator, Shimada Humikane comments: "She is the modified Taihou. Aside from change in colors, she has a slightly longer hull (her carrier-shaped part behind her waist), more AA guns (behind her waist) and improved underwater defense (thicker armor around her thighs)." These are the improvements of the planned Kai-Taihou-class armored carrier, making her the only ship so far to have her Kai form based on a successor ship class, which is impossible to be remodeled into in real life.
A confident smile can be seen on her after remodel.
