Late for the war - battleship "Yamato"

Japanese sailors said that in their history people built the three largest and at the same time most useless things: the pyramids in Giza, the Great Wall of China and the battleship Yamato. What has earned this ironic attitude this magnificent battle ship, the pride of the Japanese ship industry and the flagship of its navy?

The idea of creating

The battleship "Yamato" was a product of the experience of the sea battles of the First World War. Then, not only in Japan, but in the rest of the world it was believed that only heavy guns and armor of battleships could provide dominance at sea. On the wave of successes in the Russo-Japanese War, the Admiralty of the Land of the Rising Sun believed that the Japanese fleet is able to resist any enemy, even an industrial giant such as the United States. However, there was also an understanding that the industry of the island would never be able to compete with the American, and hence the numerical superiority would definitely not be in favor of the imperial fleet. In order to level out the numerical advantage of the enemy, it was decided to emphasize the qualitative superiority. According to Japanese strategists, the throughput of the Panama Canal limited the displacement of ships passing through it. So, the US battleships could not have a displacement of more than 63,000 tons, a speed of more than 23 knots, and the most powerful weapons could consist of only ten guns of a caliber of not more than 406 mm. Fairly believing that with equal costs, increasing the displacement of the ship will significantly increase its combat power and thereby compensate for the numerical superiority of the enemy, the Japanese planned a series of super-battleships, the main of which was to become the battleship Yamato.

Great plans

The construction of the newest battleships was to begin no later than 1936. In total, seven ships were planned in the first series, armed with nine 460 mm guns, with armor holding up to 406 mm of the projectile from a distance of 20 km and a speed of more than 30 knots. By 1941 it was planned to transfer them to the fleet. Then followed the construction of four more giants, but already with guns of 20 inches (~ 508 mm). They were to be commissioned in 1946, and until 1951 the previously built battleships were converted to new powerful guns. Implementation of this plan, according to Japanese experts, allowed to maintain at least parity with the US Navy in the Pacific. But in reality only four ships of the series were laid, and only two of them were built - the battleship Yamato and the battleship Musashi, the unfinished building of the third was converted into the aircraft carrier Sinano, and the fourth one did not even get a name. Both ships reached full combat readiness by 1942.

Fighting career

When the battleship "Yamato" became the flagship of the Imperial Navy, the war in the Pacific Ocean has already reached its apogee. And all the grandiose victories the Japanese fleet achieved at the expense of naval aviation, and by no means in the skirmishes of battleships in the wake column. Superlinkoram simply did not find a place in the new war, and their fate was obviously sad. Taking part in several naval operations of the fleet, the Yamato (battleship) was nowhere to demonstrate its qualities, and was practically just a dashing floating headquarters.

The death of the battleship "Yamato"

April 7, 1945 the ship went on its last trip. He was attacked by 200 American aircraft and within a two-hour battle received 12 heavy bombs and about ten torpedoes. Then he sank together with 2498 sailors and his commander.