Along with her sister ship Musashi the mighty Yamato was the biggest,most powerful battleship ever built. Her nine massive 18 inch guns were housed in turrets that weighed one and a half times as much as a destroyer and fired shells that weighed more than a honda civic ! Anybody standing within 15 metres of her main armament when it was fired would have been skinned by the blast. She was also armed with batteries of 6 inch guns and 24 5 inch guns. She was lost (pointlessly sacrificed in fact), off Okinawa.Taking incredible punishment before sinking. Musashi was equally pointlessly sacrificed at Leyte Gulf,the death ride of the Japanese high seas fleet. They are and will remain the largest,most powerfully armed Battleships ever to go into action.We will never see anything like them again. This website www.battleshipyamato.info/ (from which these statistics are taken) includes more fascinating info and great pictures of this awesome floating fortress. For more superb content see also : www.vincelewis.net/yamato.html
