| About the Japanese
Yamato Battleship
In October 1934 the Japanese Navy started
plans for a new superdreadnought battleship, and after
22 months a proposal called A140-F5 was adopted.
Substantial modifications were made and in March 1937
the final proposal for a 68,200 ton ship was adopted and
building started at Kure Naval Dockyard on November 4th
1937. On August 8th 1940 the Yamato was launched and it
was completed on the 16th December 1941. The most
characteristic feature of the Yamato was the nine 46cm
guns, the biggest ever mounted on a ship. For camouflage
the guns were called 40cm guns of type 94. They had a
maximum range of 41,000 meters and could penetrate a
43cm armour plate from a distance of 30,000 meters. The
rate of fire was two rounds per minute. An armour
piercing projectile of type 91 weighed 1.4 tons. The gun
barrel weighed about 166 tons and the revolving part of
the turret was as heavy as 2,265 tons. In addition to
the powerful 46cm guns, the Yamato carried twelve 15.5
guns. The Yamato had excellent protection. Its hull was
short and broad for its displacement. The turrets,
bridge, machinery, etc. were disposed near the centre
where the armour protection was concentrated. Of nearly
43,000 tons of steel, 21,266 tons was armour plating-
more than 30% of the load displacement. The length of
the Yamato was 256 metres, the breadth 34.6 metes and it
had a draft of 10 metres. To gauge how huge the Yamato
was, the height from keel to top of bridge was more than
50 metres, the hull contained six decks and the bridge
structure thirteen decks. There were about 400 speaking
tubes, 750 telephones and eight generators with a total
output of no less than 4,800 kw, enough to supply a
small town.
The Yamato first saw service in the
Battle of Midway in June 1942, but it was not until
October 25th 1944 that the 45cms guns were first used in
action. On April 6th 1945 the Yamato took part in
"Operation Ten No.1" (Operation kikusui), and on the 7th
April early in the morning the Japanese unit was spotted
by an enemy plane and in the afternoon it was attacked
by more than 300 enemy aircraft. The Yamato was hit by
ten torpedoes and eight bombs and at 2.23 p.m. it sank
with its crew of 2,498 without proving the worth of its
huge guns. |
