Quote:
Originally Posted by CroFlames
There is a WWII battleship docked in LA as a museum now. I visited the museum several times, and an old gnarly vet who served on the ship said that it had only 6 inches of total clearance going thru the canal.
This is the USS Iowa, the biggest battleship every constructed. Apparently it's got the same hull design as the carriers.
That vet may or may not have been correct. Visiting that ship is amaze balls though.
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Not to be picky but the Yamata class was a monster compared to the Iowa.
With nearly 74,000 tons of displacement versus 51,000 the Yamata had a length of 839 feet versus the Iowa's 861 feet and the Yamata had a beam of about 110 feet versus 127 for the Iowa.
So your right on one side, in terms of physical dimensions the Iowa was bigger, however the Yamata was far heavier due to its 16 inch armor versus the Iowa's 12.1 inches of armor. in terms of sheer firepower the Yamata had the biggest guns of its generation with 18 inch guns with an effective range of over 26 miles, the Iowa had 16 inch guns with a range of about 23 miles.
The American design philsophy of their battleships was sharply different as they wanted their battleships to be able to keep up with carrier battlegroups, whereas the Japanese almost saw their battleships as a ship to build battlegroups around. The Iowa was incredibly fast for a ship of its size and draft with a top speed of 35 knots, the Yamata was a lot slower at a top speed of 26 knots.
Both ships dwarfed and outgunned the German's Bismark who had 8 15 inch guns a speed of 30 knots a 12 inch armor belt. As big as the bismark was the Japanese and American battleships completely outclassed it.