By Kris Osborn, Warrior President
The largest, most massive battleships to ever exist were the Japanese Yamato-class WWII-era warships which incorporated nine ultra-large 460mm 18.1-inch naval guns.
The large weapons, designed for anti-aircraft fire and suppressive land attack , were each capable of firing 3,220-pound shells as far as 26 miles. These weapons are still reported to be the largest guns ever built onto a warship.
The sheer size of these guns were imposing to be sure, and the range and explosive power of the round were capable of exacting a serious toll upon enemy targets. While it is accurate to think of these weapons in terms of anti-aircraft and land attack, the shells also integrated armor-piercing technology for use against enemy surface ships.
Yamato vs Iowa
An interesting essay or excerpt from a text called “combined fleet” from 2008 makes a relevant comparison between the US Navy Iowa-class battleships and the Japanese Yamato-class warships. While the Yamato’s 18-inch guns were the largest, they may have been nearly matched in terms of armor penetration by the Iowa-class’ mounted 16-in/ 50 cal guns.
Japan ultimately had three Yamato-class warships built, the first two of which were the Yamato in 1941 and the Musashi in 1942. These battleships displaced 72,000 tons when fully loaded, making them the largest warships ever built. The size and volume of the large warships brought distinct “area-fire” advantages, something of particular value prior to the arrival of precision-guided shells which came years later.
At the time of WWII, the ability to deliver massive volumes of heavy fire upon an enemy force or location, offered a significant tactical advantage. Even if the rounds were “dumb” or unguided as was the case during WWII, this kind of firepower could simply “blanket” an area with incoming fire. “Bulk” and “volume” were used to compensate for what today would be seen as a lack of precision,
The huge warships arguably brought unprecedented advantages in the realm of heavy land, surface and air fire, yet even at the time of World War II, the undersea and air threats to the ship led the Japanese Navy to deploy them sparingly. A ship of this size was known to offer a larger and more “findable” target for enemy submarines, ships and attack aircraft.
Therefore in a strategic or maritime warfare tactical sense, the Yamato battleships presented a trade-off to a certain extent, because the impact or value of their massive guns was offset, mitigated or simply decreased by the vulnerability of the ships. WWII eventually verified this vulnerability for the Japanese Navy, as both the Yamato and the Musashi were sunk by US forces.
Iowa brought back
At the same time, the value of these heavy ships also brought unparalleled battlefield advantages, a major reason why the US brought back its large, WWII-era Iowa-class battleships during the Cold War. Iowa-class ships carried nuclear-armed Tomahawk missiles capable of traveling as far as 1,700 miles and land-attack Tomahawks able to hit targets from ranges out to 900 miles. These ships proved quite useful during WWII as they could bring massive “surface bombardment” against an enemy from the US Navy.
The reason seems clear, in any maritime warfare scenario where a large battleship was supported by superior air-power and faced a smaller or manageable surface or submarine threat, the benefits of the ship arguably prove unmatched and outweigh its vulnerabilities.
The Gulf War, for example, provides a significant example of this firepower advantage, given that the US Navy faced little to no threat from Iraq in the air or from undersea. Two Iowa-class battleships attacked Iraq with 16-inch guns during the Gulf War in 1991.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.