Key Points and Summary on Imperial Japan’s Battleship Musashi: Japan’s Yamato-class battleships, built to counter U.S. naval dominance during WWII, were the largest and most heavily armed warships ever constructed.
-With 18.1-inch guns and thick armor, ships like the Musashi aimed to outmatch American battleships one-on-one.
-However, these giants were resource-intensive and vulnerable to air power, as demonstrated during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944.
-There, Musashi was sunk after sustaining heavy damage from U.S. carrier-based aircraft, marking a turning point in modern naval warfare.
-The Yamato-class symbolizes both the ambition and limitations of Japan’s naval strategy during WWII.
The Yamato-Class Battleships: Japan’s Naval Giants of WWII
The Yamato-class battleships, designed and constructed by Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s before the American entry into World War II, represented a massive Japanese effort to establish — and protect — naval superiority in the Pacific against the Americans and their allies.
With the Yamato-class, Japan’s naval engineers tried to design and build a warship that could outmatch any adversary in firepower, protection, and operational range.
Given the known production advantage of the United States and, by extension, American allies, the Japanese sought to outmatch any one American battleship to offset deficits in sheer fleet numbers.
To that end, the Japanese mounted massive 18.1-inch guns on their Yamato-class battleships, the largest ever mated to a battleship, in addition to a robust armor package capable of withstanding many hits from the most powerful American naval guns.
The ships were massive and massively well-protected.
However, this immense size and armament came at a cost: the Yamato-class ships were slower and less maneuverable than some of their contemporaries. They also consumed significant resources when Japan’s wartime economy was increasingly squeezed by the Allied bombing campaign and a shortage of raw material resources, including the steel that went into weapons and the fuel that propelled ships across the ocean.
The Musashi: A Yamato-Class Battleship
The second ship of the Yamato-class, the Musashi, was laid down in March 1938 and commissioned in August 1942. Displacing nearly 72,000 tons — when fully loaded — the battleship carried a full crew complement of over 2,400 sailors, in keeping with the Imperial Japanese Navy’s desire to outclass opponents ship-to-ship, if not in terms of sheer numbers, the Musashi’s primary armament consisted of nine 18.1-inch guns arranged in three triple turrets, capable of firing 3,200-pound shells over 40 kilometers.
The battleship’s secondary armament included twelve 6.1-inch guns, twelve 5-inch dual-purpose guns, and an array of anti-aircraft weaponry, which was increased in the war’s later stages to counter growing threats from Allied aircraft.
Though robust on paper, the Musashi’s anti-aircraft weaponry suffered significant shortfalls, especially in terms of ammunition and aiming systems.
The ship’s 5-inch dual-purpose guns relied on time-fused shells, which were less effective against speedy aircraft than proximity-fused ammunition in service with the United States and other Allies.
Despite the ship’s positive aspects, the Musashi’s service was relatively short and severely curtailed by Japan’s shifting naval strategy in the face of Allied advances at sea and on land. Initially, the Musashi served as the flagship of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
The ship’s first significant deployment came in 1944 during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, where she acted primarily in a supporting role as Japan suffered catastrophic carrier losses.
An impressive collection of photos of the Musashi in action and under attack by American forces can be seen here.
The Death of a Massive Battleship
Musashi‘s most notable and final engagement occurred during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, part of Imperial Japan’s last-ditch attempt to disrupt the Allied invasion of the Philippines.
On October 24, while transiting through the Sibuyan Sea, she came under concerted attack by U.S. carrier-based aircraft.
In just a few hours, the Musashi sustained hits from American torpedoes and bombs, which crippled the ship’s engines and severely hurt her defenses.
The battleship — despite the crew’s best efforts to keep sailing — the Musashi was swamped and sank, taking over 1,000 of her crew with her.
This loss was a massive blow to Japan’s naval capabilities and indicated the role of air power in modern maritime warfare and the importance of mobile airborne fleets against vessels without a dedicated air defense.
Yamato-Class Battleships: A Photo Essay

Yamato-Class Battleship/Artist Rendition. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Battleship Yamato. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Yamato-class battleship Yamato. Image Credit: Creative Commons

Battleship Yamato. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Battleship IJS Yamato from World War II.

Battleship Yamato Blueprint. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.

Old Flint
January 16, 2025 at 12:43 pm
The Musashi never fired its main battery and the Yamato did only a few times. Finally trying to shoot down attacking aircraft with flechette rounds and failed to do even that. Both ships were useless dinosaurs, in the last half of 1944 and 1945 the Japanese did not have enough fuel available to fill them up and on its final mission, Yamato only had enough fuel to go a few hundred miles, which was all the fuel the Japanese had left. Even that didn’t matter since the Yamato was easily sunk almost within sight of Japan itself.
Both were beautiful ships though and building them in complete secrecy was a technological achievement
MR M A STOTT
January 17, 2025 at 12:14 pm
Musashi and Yamato had its secondary battery as 155mm or 6.1 inch barrels
Sam
January 17, 2025 at 11:59 pm
Please stop mixing metric and imperial measures. X inch guns with x lbs projectiles going x kilometers. Really?