Who Would Win Battle Between Most Powerful Battleships Ever Built?

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This is what would REALLY happen. 

Michael Peck [2]

In the end, a Yamato versus Iowa duel might have been a fascinating but futile curiosity. In 1945 the era of the battlewagon was already ending, sinking beneath the weight of swarms of aircraft. In fact, Yamato was sunk during its suicide run to Okinawa on April 7, 1945, overwhelmed by waves of U.S. carrier-based torpedo bombers. Iowa enjoyed a career through World War II, Korea and was even reactivated during the 1980s. She bombarded shore targets aplenty, but never had the chance to engage an enemy battleship.

It would have been the ultimate duel of dreadnoughts. In one corner, Japan’s Yamato [3], weighing in at 65,000 tons, the biggest battleship in history. In the other corner, Iowa [4], at 45,000 tons the pride of America’s World War II battleship fleet. In reality, the two ships never met in battle. But what if they had, in a cataclysmic clash of seagoing titans?

One researcher can offer an answer, or at least a very educated guess. Jon Parshall, historian and author of the superb Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway [5] has pitted the top battleships of various nations against each other at Combinedfleet.com [6], the go-to site for information on the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Among the battleships he compares are Yamato and Iowa, based on five criteria: guns, armor, underwater protection, fire control and “tactical factors” such as speed and damage control.

It would have been the ultimate duel of dreadnoughts. In one corner, Japan’s Yamato [3], weighing in at 65,000 tons, the biggest battleship in history. In the other corner, Iowa [4], at 45,000 tons the pride of America’s World War II battleship fleet. In reality, the two ships never met in battle. But what if they had, in a cataclysmic clash of seagoing titans?