Quote:
Originally Posted by Klaus
According to the informative links you gave us this must have been a hell of a ship.
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Oh yeah, it was a hell of a ship alright. Even her AA ammunition was rather interesting. She carried a rather unique shell for her primary guns. Fired toward the direction of incoming bogeys, the shell explodes after a set time and spreads fiery shrapnel across the sky. A 3,000-lb flak shell, if you will. Quite a scary thought.
Here's something of interest. In a way, Yamato was not used for battles for 90% of the Pacific War because the risk that a ship bearing the country's mythical name might be sunk was just unthinkable. A nearly identical scenario actually held for Germany, too, for a time. See this ship:
WW2DB: Deutschland
Originally named Deutschland, she was an awe-inspiring heavy cruiser. Of course as Hitler led Germany into war, the ship was renamed Lützow before engaging in the conflict in Norway. Why? Hitler would lose a lot of face if the ship named after the
Vaterland was to be destroyed!
Here's a what-if: Had Yamato not been named Yamato, perhaps she would've been used in the Solomon Islands Campaign when big guns might actually had made a difference in the war?