The Size of the Yamato-class Battleships

[temujin77]

The Washington Treaty of 1934 limited the size of battleships. Even if the Americans could build battleships without regard to this limitation, they could not; with a two-ocean fleet, the Americans need to keep their warships narrow enough so that they could pass through the Panama Canal.

Many Japanese leaders, on the other hand, thought the Washington Treaty a disrespect of Japan's international status from day one. On top of that, the Japanese did not have an equivalent of the Panama Canal to worry about. Thus, the forthcoming Yamato-class battleships were free from any size restrictions imposed by the those two particular reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, I began a discussion on the enormous size of Yamato-class battleships' primary guns, which required a wide design so that the ship would remain stable when the heavy guns fired. The large size of the Yamato-class design allowed such large weapons to be deployed. Another requirement for the battleship design was that that battleships must be able to withstand a salvo from their own guns. The lack of size constraints again allowed armor of unmatched thickness to be installed.

When Naoyoshi Ishida, an officer who served aboard the Yamato, first saw her, he thought "How huge it is!" He recalled:

When you walk inside, there are arrows telling you which direction is the front and which is the back—otherwise you can't tell. For a couple of days I didn't even know how to get back to my own quarters. Everyone was like that.... I knew it was a very capable battleship. The guns were enormous. Back then I really wanted to engage in battle with an American battleship in the Pacific.

Because of the enormous size, men who served aboard Yamato-class battleships reported that there was no pitch or roll when sailing, even when standing at the top of the command towers. It was almost as if they were standing on firm ground, recalled Ensign Mitsuru Yoshida who served on Yamato as a radar officer.

Many sources cite the Yamato-class battleships' length, 863 feet, as an indicator of their massive sizes. While there is absolutely no debate with that, personally I like to think of their widths to image the immense size of Yamato and Musashi. At 121 feet wide, they were as wide as the height of an 8- or 9-story building. No wonder the sailors thought they were serving on firm ground!

Still not sold? Let us examine the displacement tonnage of Yamato and Musashi. At over 65,000 tons, they made the 45,000-ton Iowa-class battleships a bit small. It is probably not until the age of the super carriers, 1950s, that the Yamato-class battleships' displacement tonnage was exceeded.

For more information and photographs from the World War II Database, please see the links below.

WW2DB: Yamato
WW2DB: Musashi
WW2DB: Yamato-class Battleship

[lufttiger]

Here's a piece of info i came across, those two battleships were the first to
use the new technolgy of that bull nose in the bow to break up the water
which gave them a greater speed. I don't know the correct term for that
bull nose?

[temujin77]

Originally Posted by lufttiger

Here's a piece of info i came across, those two battleships were the first to
use the new technolgy of that bull nose in the bow to break up the water
which gave them a greater speed. I don't know the correct term for that
bull nose?

It was called a "bulbous bow", which increases ship speed by changing flow characteristics to reduce drag. I don't believe it was a new technology, though. I want to say Europeans have done it a few year before.

[lufttiger]

Here it is, your right about experimenting had started before these battleships.

"Bulbous bows were further developed and used by the Japanese. Some World War II-era Japanese battleships such as the Yamato were fitted with bulbous bows. However, Japanese research into this area did not spread to the western world, and much of the advances were lost post-war."

[MAGNA]

Are there any figures for the Horsepower rating of the broadside from either of these ships ? Bismarks broadside generated 700,000 horsepower (in energy at firing). These two ships must have generated a huge amount.