Japanese Battleship Yamato COBI 4833 - World War II

You know that:

• The Japanese Empire ordered the ship in March 1937 and a few months later, on 4 November 1937, construction began.
• A total of five ships were to be built in the Yamato class, namely Yamato, Musashi, Shinano and two others which were not named and whose construction was not completed or even started.
• The construction of the ship was carried out in a special dock under absolute secrecy and therefore the exact parameters were not known to the Americans until 1945
• .Perhaps no other ship of the Second World War carries as much "best" as the Yamato, namely the largest, best armed, largest calibre of guns, etc.
• All the parameters were to surpass anything that had been produced up to that time.
• The Japanese also believed that the United States would never build a more powerful and larger ship, as it would not sail through the Panama Canal.
• The ship was launched on 8 August 1940 at the Kure shipyard.
• On board the Yamato were a total of seven reconnaissance aircraft and eight observation balloons.
• Yamato had no peer, but the way the war was fought had changed, and so her last battle at Okinawa on 7 April 1945 proved fatal, when an air attack by 300 planes resulted in the explosion of her ammunition magazine at 14:15.
• Today the wreck of the ship lies 300 metres deep, broken in two pieces.
• There are very few contemporary photographs, because at the end of the war Japanese intelligence officers destroyed all plans, photographs and records of the construction.
• The sinking of the Yamato, a ship whose size should have shocked and terrified the enemy, ended the era of large battleships and traditional naval battles as they had been fought for several centuries.
• Also of interest is the character of the Admiral, the original adoption of Tanaka, who was adopted as a child by the maleless Yamamoto family to preserve the lineage. This practice was quite common in Japan.
• Yamamoto graduated from Harvard University in the United States and, aware of the enormous potential of American industry, was one of the greatest opponents of war with the US.

Technical specifications:

• dimensions: length 263 m, width 38.9 m, draught 11 m
• displacement 65 027 t (empty), 72 800 t (full)
• power unit 12 Kampon boilers with power transfer to 4 steam turbines with 110MW output
• number of propellers 4
• fuel tank capacity 6300 t
• maximum speed 50 km/h (27 knots)
• range 13334 km
• armour 410 mm sides, 650 mm turrets, 200 mm deck
• armament 9x Type 94 guns of 460 mm calibre + 12x guns of 155 mm calibre + 12x guns of 127 mm calibre + 24 x anti-aircraft guns of 25 mm calibre + 4x machine guns of 13.2 mm calibre
• crew 2750 persons