Giants Doomed to Failure

The Yamato-class

The Japanese battleship Yamato, and her sister ship, the Musashi, are remembered as ships of historical records: the largest warships ever built, the heaviest warships ever built, the World War II battleships with the thickest armor, and the ships with the heaviest main guns ever mounted on a ship. But were they actually good battleships? Being big and hitting hard doesn't necessarily make them the best. Conversely, the fact that neither of them survived World War II doesn't necessarily mean they were bad, since not even the two greatest battleships ever could save the Japanese war effort in the face of overwhelming Allied industrial strength. This article will try to offer a brief but balanced view of the Yamato-class and its two representatives.

In the interwar years, Japan knew that it was heading for an inevitable conflict with the United States, and possibly Britain, in the Pacific. Japanese leaders were greatly influenced by the writings of 19th century American naval theoretician Alfred Thayer Mahan. Mahan claimed that national greatness was inextricably associated with commercial and military control of the sea. Commercial control brings wealth at peacetime; military control allows you to land troops anywhere you want and support and supply them by sea, and also to prevent your enemy from doing the same.

Based on Mahan's works and the country's own experiences in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 (won by Japan), Japanese naval planners developed the doctrine of Kantai Kessen ("Naval Fleet Decisive Battle"). The doctrine called for a single decisive battle, fought by battleships with heavy guns, to cripple the enemy and give Japan free run of the seas.

But how could Japan actually win such a battle? It was clear that even if Japan withdrew from the Washington and London Naval Treaties that limited the size and number of capital ships signatory nations could build, it still wouldn't have the industrial capacity to outproduce the U.S. or Britain, let alone both. The solution they settled on was similar to the German Wunderwaffen ("Wonder Weapons") idea: build a small number of extraordinary battleships that were powerful enough to defeat two or three enemies battleships at the same time, and compensate for the lack of numbers with individual prowess.

Japan withdrew from the limiting naval treaties by the mid-30s and started building the first ship of the new class in 1937. Just like how the U.S. named its battleships after states, Japan named theirs after provinces in the country and alternative names for the whole country. Yamato, the first of the class, was a no longer existing historical province, and a poetic name for Japan as a country. The second ship, Musashi, was also a former province (and not a reference to the famous 16th-17th century swordsman Miyamoto Musashi); and so was the third planned ship, Shinano, which ended up being converted to a carrier during construction.

Looking at the numbers, the new battleships certainly looked up to the task of taking on Western battleships. They had a full-load displacement of 78,300 U.S. tons, while Treaty battleships were limited to 39,200 tons on paper. (This article uses U.S. short tons for simplicity.)  For comparison, the Iowa and King George V classes, usually considered the best American and British battleships of the war, had full-load displacements of around 64,400 and 44,800 tons, respectively.

The main belt (side) armor of the Yamato-class was 16.1 inches (410 mm) thick – 12.1 in (307 mm) for the Iowa, and 14,7 in (373 mm) for the King George V classes. The front armor on the turrets was a whopping 26 inches (650 mm), similarly outclassing its Western counterparts. After the war, the Allies recovered an armor plate identical to the ones used on the Yamato's turret faces from a Japanese dockyard and performed penetration tests on it. The test showed that the battleship guns in use by the Allies at the time could only penetrate the armor from point blank range, something that would never occur in combat.

The Yamato-class's main battery comprised three turrets, each mounting three guns of an 18.1 in (460 mm) bore, the largest guns ever made for ships. (The main guns were 16 in (406 mm) on the Iowa and 14 in (356 mm) on the King George V. A single turret with the guns installed weighed 2,774 tons, more than an entire Fletcher-class destroyer. The guns themselves were also very accurate, with shots only dispersing some 500 yards (457 m) at the maximum range of 26.1 miles (42 km), which is coincidentally almost exactly the length of the Marathon run. This gave the ships the second longest firing range, only beaten by the Italian Littorio-class. The throw weight of the ships, the total weight of all ammunition fired in a single broadside, was 28,971 lb (13,141 t), unmatched by any other ship, with the runners-up being the Iowa-, North Carolina- and South Dakota-classes with 24,300 lb (11 t).

All of these numbers are impressive, but the Yamato-class also had its weaknesses. Being heavy from carrying thick armor and big guns made the ships slow, with a speed of 27 knots (31 mph), significantly less than the Iowa's 33 knots (38 mph) or more with a light load. The weight also meant that the ships were real fuel-guzzlers, which limited their range and the country's ability to deploy them often.

The guns themselves shot very straight, but practical accuracy also depends on how well you can aim. Japanese optical targeting systems were the best in the world at the time, but they still couldn't match the new fire control radars U.S. and British ships used. Both the Yamato and the Musashi were upgraded with surface search radars during their careers, but even these were comparatively simple devices that fell short of Western designs. The lack of proper fire control radars not only decreased accuracy, but also meant that the ships couldn't aim at targets hiding in the cover of a squall, which was exactly what happened during the Battle off Samar (Read our earlier article), where the Yamato (already equipped with the radar at the time) was the only Japanese ship able to fire at fleeing enemies.

There were also problems with defensive capabilities, most notably with anti-aircraft fire. The AA guns turned slowly, had a low rate of rate, and had a primitive gun direction system that was essentially an officer pointing a stick at the intended target. The gunnery crews were also exposed and often massacred by American pilots coming in for aggressive strafing runs. Additionally, there just weren't enough guns to match the high number of attacking planes the U.S. regularly threw at a single Japanese warship.

On a note related to anti-aircraft gunnery, the Yamato-class, as well as other Japanese warships, was stocking the special "Common Type 3" shells, nicknamed "beehive shells," for its main guns. These were combined shrapnel and incendiary rounds that came in a variety of calibers and were intended to give the main guns some anti-aircraft capability. The timed fuze of the shell detonated a predetermined time after firing, filling the air with a large volume of flame that would hopefully destroy a plane that couldn't swerve in time. While an interesting idea, the beehive saw little use, as it turned out to be pretty bad at actually destroying aircraft, the blasts disrupted the fire of the smaller anti-aircraft guns, and the shell had a tendency to damage the rifling of the gun when fired. In fact, it's speculated that one of the main guns of the Musashi was disabled by its own beehive shell during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the battle where the Musashi sank. Despite its general uselessness, beehive shells made up 40% of the Yamato-class's ammunition load by 1944.

A smaller but noteworthy defensive weakness lay in the quality of the armor plates. The joint between the upper and lower belt armor was relatively weak and could be cracked by a torpedo hit. A single torpedo, or even a few, would not imperil the ships (both ships of the class were hit by torpedoes multiple times), but would cause flooding that took several weeks to fix in drydock. To be fair to the Japanese vessels, even the weak spot was supposed to be quite safe against the torpedoes that were in service at the time. The significantly more powerful British Torpex explosive only entered service in late 1942, and was something the Japanese could not plan for while designing the ship class.

The Yamato and the Musashi had their keels laid down in November 1937 and March 1938, were launched in August and November 1940, and commissioned on December 16, 1941 (9 days after Pearl Harbor) and August 1942, respectively. Construction was done in utmost secrecy. The drydocks (located at different shipyards) were surrounded by canopies to hide the work process from view. In the case of the Musashi, the screen was made of 450 tons of sisal hemp rope, causing a shortage in the fishing industry. The third ship, Shinano, which ended up being converted to a carrier during construction, was built behind a fence with the workers confined to the dockyard compound for the duration of the work and threatened with death if they leaked any information.

Launching the ships was also a daunting task. The Musashi was launched on a 13 ft 1 in (4 m) thick platform of fir. Assembling the wooden platform itself took two years: it was made of nine planks bolted together, and drilling perfectly straight holes through 13 feet and 1 inch of fresh wood proved surprisingly difficult. For the launch, Musashi was fitted out with 628 tons' weight of iron chains dangling down the sides; the purpose of the chains was to increase drag in the water and prevent the massive ship from lurching forward too far when hitting water at the bottom of the slide. The launch caused a 3 ft 11 in (120 cm) tall wave that flooded homes and capsized small fishing boats. A city-wide air raid drill was held during the launch to keep people in their homes and prevent them from seeing the ship.

A total of five Yamato-class ships were planned, but the last two were never built. Both Yamato and Musashi joined the Combined Fleet, and both served as Admiral Yamamoto's  (Read our earlier article) flagship – Yamato until February 1943, and then Musashi, which was modified during construction to be more suitable for the role.

The great decisive battle Japanese war planners were seeking occurred in June 1942 at Midway, but neither of the giant battleships got to play the role they were designed for. Yamamoto commanded the battle from onboard the Yamato, but the ship didn't actually see action; the planned trap for the American fleet was foiled by U.S. codebreaking efforts, and the Japanese carriers ended up sailing into an ambush themselves. The battleships were left far behind and were supposed to join the battle in its second stage, but the whole thing ended before they could get within engagement range. (As for the Musashi, she wasn't even there, since she hadn't been commissioned yet at the time.)

The ships continued to serve, but their enormous appetite for fuel and ammunition inhibited their ability to be deployed. They were present at the Battle of Philippine Sea in June 1944, where the Japanese carrier force was broken for good, but they could not contribute anything to a carrier-on-carrier battle. They might have been better used as troop transports to reinforce the Japanese garrison on the strategically important island of Biak, then engage General Douglas MacArthur's (Read our earlier article) weak naval forces in the area. This could have greatly frustrated the concurrent Allied effort to liberate Dutch New Guinea. This was actually what Yamato and Musashi were originally supposed to do before they were hastily pulled off the job and sent to the Philippine Sea.

The ships fought at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, one of the largest naval battles in history, when the Japanese Navy attempted (and failed) to stop U.S. forces from landing on the island of Leyte in the Philippines during the liberation of the archipelago. During the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, a smaller part of the larger battle, American planes hit Yamato with two bombs, causing flooding and moderate damage. Musashi, however, was struck by 17 bombs and 19 torpedoes and sunk.

The very next day, Yamato got within reach of a shining moment of glory when she led the remains of the Center Force through a gap in the Allied forces (the task force that was supposed to guard the area was lured away by a small decoy fleet) and came upon a U.S. force of six slow and vulnerable escort carriers only protected by a handful of destroyers and destroyer escorts. In her only action against enemy surface vessels, the hulking vessel opened up with what should have been murderous frontal salvos. As it happened, the Yamato's captain mistook the escort carriers for larger and better-armored fleet carriers and ordered the use of armor-piercing shells. These were actually a poor weapon against these targets, since they went clean through them without exploding. Even so, she caused fatal damage to the destroyer USS Johnson, which managed to slip away into a squall but broke apart and sank later in the day. She later placed several accurate hits on the carrier USS Gambier Bay, which took damage from multiple Japanese ships and sank; she also fired the shot that critically disabled another destroyer which was then sunk by other ships.

The war, however, was already practically lost for Japan, and all they could do was drag out the inevitable. U.S. forces invaded Okinawa, Japan's doorstep, on April 1, 1945. Acting under pressure from the emperor, the Imperial Japanese Navy made plans for glorious last stands for its remaining large ships. Operation Ten-Go (“Heaven One”) called for Yamato, escorted by a light cruiser, 8 destroyers and 115 planes (most of them kamikazes), to steam for Okinawa, deliberately beach herself so she couldn't be sunk, and fight until destroyed, at which point surviving crewmen would abandon the ship and fight on as ground troops. After briefing, every crew member was offered the chance to stay behind; nobody did. A farewell party with heavy drinking was held on the evening of April 5, and the ships got underway the next day.

There was no glorious last stand. Two U.S. submarines spotted the task force shorty after departure and started shadowing it, radioing in its course. Close to 400 aircraft were launched from 15 carriers to intercept the doomed Japanese force, while six battleships, seven cruisers and 21 destroyers were sent to finish the job if the planes failed.

As mentioned earlier, the anti-aircraft capabilities of the Yamato-class were severely lacking. American strafing runs, rockets, light and armor piercing bombs were used as a chaotic distraction from the real threat: torpedoes dropped by low-flying Avenger torpedo bombers. After two hours of furious fighting and hits by at least 11 torpedoes and 6 bombs, the Yamato finally capsized and sank. One of her magazines detonated during sinking, creating a mushroom cloud over 3.7 miles (6 km) tall that could be seen 99 miles (160 km) away. An estimated 3,055 of her crew of 3,332 went down with the vessel, as did Japan's last dreams of a glorious battle fought by a superheavy battleship.

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