The Japanese Battleship with Guns that Weighed More than Entire American Battleships

Prior to WW2, knowing that they couldn’t compete with the numbers of the US navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy quietly authorised the construction of the two largest battleships by weight ever seen in warfare- the Musashi and her sister ship, the Yamato.

The origins of these two behemoths can be traced back to Japan’s 1934 withdrawal from the League of Nations. Amongst other things, doing this allowed Japan to ignore rules set by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930, both of which aimed to limit the size of battleships as well as the right of participating nations to construct them.

Almost immediately following Japan’s withdrawal, a team working for the Japanese Navy Technical Department helmed by an engineer called Keiji Fukuda began submitting designs for a class of battleships superior in size and firepower to anything ever seen before.

While initially planning to build five of these battleships, ultimately only two were completed, with a third being converted to an aircraft carrier mid-way through construction.

The two completed ships, the Musashi and the Yamato, were quite literally in a class of their own, designed to displace some 73,000 long tons when fully equipped. For reference here, the United States’ Iowa class battleships created around the same time, while of similar length, weighed about 40% less.

As one Japanese officer, Naoyoshi Ishida, described, “How huge it is! When you walk inside, there are arrows telling you which direction is the front and which is the back—otherwise you can’t tell. For a couple of days I didn’t even know how to get back to my own quarters. Everyone was like that…. I knew it was a very capable battleship. The guns were enormous.”

On that note, not just big, these ships also featured nine of the largest guns ever put on a battleship, featuring 460 mm barrels and weighing an astounding 3,000 tons each, with all nine combined weighing approximately as much as the United States’ Wyoming, New York, and Nevada class battleships.

These weapons were capable of firing shells that weighed up to 3200 pounds (1450 kg)- or, in other words, in the ballpark of what a typical full sized sedan car weighs. While you might think the range when shooting such an object must have been poor, in fact, these guns could hit a target over 25 miles (40 kilometers) away. They could also be fired at a rate of about once every 40 seconds.

The shockwave produced by one of these guns firing was noted as being powerful enough to tear the skin off of a human if an unlucky individual stood within 15 metres of it without proper shielding. This shockwave also resulted in nearby anti-aircraft guns having to be specially armored to protect them from this.

Speaking of anti-aircraft guns, ultimately these ships were equipped with approximately 150 25 mm guns. In between these and the massive 460 mm cannons previously described, the ships also featured six 155 mm and 24 127 mm guns.

Further, if not needing the 460 mm cannons for hitting ships far away, these battleships were equipped with so-called “beehive rounds” to fire from those cannons. In a nutshell, these rounds were filled with nearly a thousand incendiary tubes and hundreds of shards of steel. The round also included a fuse and explosive that would cause the shell to explode out, with the incendiary tubes igniting shortly thereafter, producing a wall of flame and molten steel meant to absolutely obliterate enemy aircraft. Essentially, the idea here was to convert these guns into comically large shotguns, able to pick any enemy birds out of the air.

Armor-wise, each ship possessed on its outer shell a protective layer some 16 inches thick.

While you might think this all combined must have made these ships slow as molasses, it turns out, they had a top speed of about 27 knots (31 mph). While not the fastest battleship in the world, this compared favorably to, for instance, the aforementioned Iowa class battleships that weighed about 40% less, but could only go about 6 knots faster.

Despite their awe-inspiring power and the full confidence of Japanese military brass that each ship was “unmatchable and unsinkable”, neither saw much combat. In fact, the Yamato spent so much time protecting Japanese ports that it was nicknamed the “Hotel Yamato”.

The reluctance of the Japanese navy to commit either ship to combat was motivated by both the scarcity of fuel in Japan during the war, with these battleships taking copious amounts of such to go anywhere, and the fact that military brass believed losing either ship would be a massive blow to the morale of the rest of the Japanese military.

Of course, in the closing months of WW2 with their forces almost completely obliterated, Japan reluctantly began committing both battleships to naval engagements. Unfortunately at this point these super battleships were so absurdly outnumbered in the limited engagements they’d ultimately take part in that they mostly just functioned as sitting ducks.

Most notably, they proved especially vulnerable to aircraft attacks. Even the aforementioned beehive rounds, which the Japanese believed would decimate aircraft, proved to be little more than a visual deterrent, with some American pilots simply flying straight through the flaming shrapnel they produced.

And while the near couple hundred anti-aircraft guns made it so it took a brave pilot to dive bomb the ships, the sheer number of aircraft that the Americans could throw at these battleships at the same time and how chaotic the battles got, ultimately saw these guns prove just as worthless in practice.

It didn’t help that at this point in the war Japan’s own aircraft were ridiculously outnumbered and outclassed, providing little to no air cover to try to protect the massive battleships. (See our article, How Were Kamikaze Pilots Chosen?)

Ultimately the Musashi was lost during the battle of Leyte Gulf in October of 1944, taking 19 torpedo and 17 bomb strikes to sink it.

As for the Yamato, it took part in her final engagement in April of 1945 in operation Ten-Go, which was an intentional suicide mission.

The Yamato was to be the tip of the spear of this final, last-ditch effort to repel the American advance. Its crew was ordered to beach the ship near Okinawa and use its main battery to destroy as much of the invading force as possible. Essentially, the ship would function as a base on the island, and members of the near 3,000 strong crew not needed to operate weaponry aboard the ship were to wage a land battle with any enemy forces encountered.

The mission plan was flawed from the outset, however, and performed under protest of some of the Japanese Navy brass involved, who noted there would be no chance of even reaching the target island in the first place given the stated plan, including no air support whatsoever, and time of day they were to execute the plan (broad daylight).

This turned out to be correct- en route on April 7, 1945, the Yamato and handful of accompanying ships were completely, and quickly, overwhelmed by a combined assault from 6 cruisers, 21 destroyers, 7 battleships, and a few hundred aircraft.

One surviving member of the Yamato crew, junior officer Yoshida Mitsuru, had this to say of the battle that they all had known was a suicide mission from the start,

How many times, in target practice, have we conducted such tracking? I am possessed by the illusion that we have already experienced searches under the same conditions, with the same battle positions, even with the same mood.

What is going on before my very eyes, indisputably, is actual combat — but how can I possibly convince myself of that fact?

The blips are not an imagined enemy but an enemy poised for the kill. The location: not our training waters, but hostile waters.

More than one hundred enemy planes attacking!” Is it the navigation officer who calls this out?

… The battle begins….

As my whole body tingles with excitement, I observe my own exhilaration; as I grit my teeth, I break into a grin. A sailor near me is felled by shrapnel. In the midst of the overwhelming noise, I distinguish the sound of his skull striking the bulkhead; amid the smell of gunpowder all around, I smell blood….

The tracks of the torpedoes are a beautiful white against the water, as if someone were drawing a needle through the water; they come pressing in, aimed at Yamato from a dozen different directions and intersecting silently. Estimating by sight their distance and angle on the plotting board, we shift course to run parallel to the torpedoes and barely succeed in dodging them.

We deal first with the closest, most urgent one; when we get to a point far enough away from it that we can be sure we have dodged it, we turn to the next. Dealing with them calls for vigilance, calculation, and decision…. That these pilots repeated their attacks with accuracy and coolness was a sheer display of the unfathomable undreamed-of strength of our foes.

In the end, it took only 2 hours for American forces to destroy the single most powerful ship constructed during WW2, along with most of the tiny fleet it set out with. When the smoke cleared, around 4,000 were dead on the Japanese side vs. just around a dozen dead on the American side and a few more wounded.

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Bonus Fact:

  • Early in WW2 the Imperial Japanese Navy had plans to construct even bigger ships than the Yamato and Musashi as part of an even more powerful class of ships they called the Super Yamatos. These ships, if constructed, would have possessed 510 mm guns, displaced upwards of 82,000 tons and could have moved at speeds approaching 30 knots. Lack of resources stopped Japan from ever building the ships however.
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14 comments

  • , not just big, these ships also featured nine of the largest guns ever put on a battleship, featuring 460 mm barrels and weighing an astounding 3,000 tons each, with all nine combined weighing approximately as much as the United States’ Wyoming, New York, and Nevada class battleships.

    Incorrect. Each TURRET weighed 2774 metric tons, not 3000 long tons PER BARREL. Total weight of main battery for all three turrets was just over 8000 tons, nowhere near the weight of another battleship.

    • I read in “Victory at Sea” by Dunnigan&Nofi that Iowa class armor was lighter and superior, rate of fire of Iowa’s 16 inch guns was twice that of Yamato. The 16 inch American guns were longer and more accurate than Yamato’s 18 inchers. Iowa had a deeper draft that kept the ship steadier while guns were firing. Turning circle was tighter in the Iowa, faster and tighter turning !
      None of the 4 Iowa Class ever encountered the Yamato or her sister ship, so we will never know.

  • Overall the article was interesting, however the title is really deceptive, the Yamato class turrets were not heavier than any battleship ever, regardless of nation. They were however heavier than many destroyer classes total tonnage, but then again so were iowas. Interesting article, check, click bait title, check.

  • these ships also featured nine of the largest guns ever put on a battleship, featuring 460 mm barrels and weighing an astounding 3,000 tons each, with all nine combined weighing approximately as much as the United States’ Wyoming, New York, and Nevada class battleships.
    — the barrels themselves don’t weigh 3,000 tons; it’s the entire turret of 3 guns, and the weight is actually 2,774 tons — each gun was only 162 short tons.
    — the comparison should be to one (1) US destroyer at about 2,700 tons.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato

  • Essentially, the idea here was to convert these guns into comically large shotguns, able to pick any enemy birds out of the air.
    — those “enemy birds” — were US Torpedo Bombers, US Dive Bombers and US Fighters.

    In fact, the Yamato spent so much time protecting Japanese ports that it was nicknamed the “Hotel Yamato”.
    — the ship stayed in Japan to avoid burning fuel, which was in very short supply; and the ship consumed vast quantities of it.

  • The individual gun barrels did not weigh thousands of tons, as the article claims. It is the combined weight of the guns, the turret, and the barbette housing that was well over 3000 tons. Still massive, sure, but it doesn’t out-weigh battleships. Rather, they outweigh destroyers such as the Gearing, Farragut, and Fletcher classes. All three turrets put together can outweigh light cruisers such as the Omaha. But the numbers this article puts forth were miscalculated.

    • Daven Hiskey

      “It is the combined weight of the guns, the turret, and the barbette housing that was well over 3000 tons.” I thought that was implicitly understood, but apparently worded that poorly based on comments.

      “but it doesn’t out-weigh battleships.” The combined weight of all the guns (and associated hardware as you listed) did indeed weigh around what the battleship classes listed weighed, and more than what some previous generations weighed.

      • “The combined weight of all the guns (and associated hardware as you listed) did indeed weigh around what the battleship classes listed weighed, and more than what some previous generations weighed.”

        That is flat-out false. Where in the world are you hearing this information?

        • Daven Hiskey

          Check the sources.

          • Robert Gaston

            Whatever “sources” you’re looking at that are telling you this nonsense are absolutely false. Either that or you don’t understand basic arithmetic.

  • So much steel wasted in cultural compensation by the Japanese.

  • The article is a joke.. first no BB EVER hit a target beyond about 13-14nm .. the Yamato could not even detect a target much less hit one beyond about 20nm and its first gen radar could only detect out to about 9nm. Firing out to 22nm is utter nonsense and total waste of ammo. The Iowa could straddle – and did several times – a DD sized target, at max speed, out to 18nm. A feat no other navy in the world EVER accomplished in naval history by using the best fire control radars for surface gunnery available in the mid 1940s.

    A speed difference of 6 knots is NOTHING to sneeze at.. that means the faster ship – especially with FAR more advanced naval gunnery accuracy (also over the horizon and blind fire capable) – could stay at max range and out of effective range of the Yamato while pelting it in return with heavyweight 16″ shells all day and the Yamato would not even see who is shooting at it, especially in ANYTHING below perfect visibility.

    The Yamato was arguably the biggest waste of naval expenditure the world has ever known during WW2.. 2nd being the Bismarck class which did not fare much better – one became a target sponge and the other a one flash in the pan never to return target at sea. Good reason why the Shinano became a CV instead and got sunk before getting planes due to lack of ASW protection – something the Yamato could have made buckets of per hull and might have saved some tankers.

    Overall the Yamato was a mid 1930s concept pipe dream that was a beautiful design but utterly useless on any naval strategic level at launch and ate more fuel then all her escorts combined. Her fire controls were near obsolete by the mid 1940s, radar was poor, crew had minimal training at best as most all they did was visit port to port, slower then cruisers, destroyers, CVs, and faster battleships, pathetic AA defenses, and one massive ordnance sponge. Side note, the Musashi and Yamato were dead at sea with far fewer torpedo and bomb hits before they finally went down then they ended up absorbing. If they could not make it home on their own power.. whether they sank or not was entirely irrelevant. Also helped when some torpedo hits effectively counter flooded the hull, a drawback of anvil attacks.. if hit on all one side they went down much quicker.

    Thanks.

    • “no BB EVER hit a target beyond about 13-14nm”

      Yamato near-miss White Plains at 31 km didn’t happen apparently.

    • Hmmm.

      Warspite hit Giulio Cesare at approximately 26000 yd, and Scharnhorst hit Glorious at about the same range. That’d be 23.8 km for those keeping score. Both those hits were optically directed, as they occurred in 1940. Not a total waste of ammo, then.

      Iowa straddled IJN Nowaki at 35000 yd, along with Yamato’s shot above, but you did specify “hit”. By the way, both the IJN and USN trained for beyond horizon shooting between the wars, i.e., before radar. Fleet doctrine in both navies was for very long range battleship engagement. The USN was blissfully unaware that the IJN also planned for very long range torpedo engagement as well.