hello! Hello everyone! Thanks to my friends for pointing out my typographical error in the last article, I really benefited a lot. As pointed out earlier, this number currently aims to introduce modern weapons, but because two fan friends both requested an article about ships of World War II. So today, let us discuss the Yamato-class battleship.
As the largest warship built in the history of mankind except for the aircraft carrier, I believe you all know her. It is said that after the end of the First World War, the world's five major naval powers signed a "Five Nations Treaty on Limiting Naval Arms", which has another famous name-Washington Naval Treaty. But by the mid-1930s, everyone knew that Japan was becoming more and more bloated. Coupled with the appeasement policies of European and American countries, the idea of tearing up the contract gradually became the idea of the book. Finally, at the signing ceremony of the London Naval Treaty in 1936, the arrogant Japanese representative refused to sign and announced on the spot that he would withdraw from the Conference on Disarmament. Since then, this crazy empire finally kicked off the last stumbling block on the road of wanton expansion, and began a large-scale army expansion.
What about the imaginary enemy of Japan at that time, it is naturally eagle sauce. The Japanese Ministry of the Navy believes that it cannot compete with the US Navy in terms of the number of combat ships, so it is determined to concentrate its efforts on building giant battleships to offset the number of US navies with the quality advantages of a single battleship's larger tonnage, stronger artillery, and thicker armor. Advantage. So the Japanese Navy Department seized the period of no arms restrictions that began in 1936 and invested in the crazy Navy Arms Race .
In fact, as early as 1932, Japan began the design work of Yamato-class battleships, and it is hard to think of quitting disarmament. In March 1935, the first complete design proposal was submitted. In March 1937, after 22 repeated revisions, the final design of the Yamato-class battleship was formulated and subsequently approved.
On November 4, 1937, four months after the outbreak of the war of aggression against China, Japan began construction of the Yamato-class battleship, the first ship of the Yamato-class battleship, at the Kure Naval Factory in Kure City, Hiroshima Prefecture. . It is worth mentioning that, as the absolute main force against the US and British navies in the future, the construction of Yamato must be carried out under 绝密State. From the construction of the hull, to the launch of the hull, to the docking and outfitting, and finally to the sea trial, any leak of these links will lead to abandonment of all previous efforts. But after all, it is a huge ship of tens of thousands of tons, it is not easy to avoid people's eyes. The Japanese have racked their brains for this, and have spent their money. Since this is not the focus of this article, it will not be detailed here.
On August 8, 1940, the Yamato battleship was launched. In October 1941, the Yamato had its first sea trial. On December 7, 1941, on the day of the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor incident, the Yamato battleship ended its trial period and returned to the mainland for intensive processing. Finally, on December 16, 1941, Yamato was completed and officially incorporated into the Japanese Joint Fleet. The construction lasted 4 years and 10 months. This indicates that the Japanese Navy has successfully built , the largest battleship in human history, , and put it into use. This news really shocked the world at the time, and this record has been maintained to this day.
The second Musashi was also started on March 29, 1938 at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Nagasaki Shipyard. Japan also adopted extremely strict confidentiality measures during the construction process. The picture below is a photo of
Yamato’s first appearance to the public. The dock is still in use today, but of course it will not be used to build battleships.
And the more interesting one is the third ship of the Yamato class-Shinano . Construction started by Yokosuka Naval Shipyard on May 4, 1940, and was suspended in December 1941. The Shinano, which was half built in 1942, was turned into an aircraft carrier. So Japan had the largest and thickest armored aircraft carrier in the world at that time. This also caused a panic among the top U.S. military. This panic continued, until it was caught when it first went to sea.Several torpedoes of the submarine sank instantly. This is quite a bit of the shadow of the Beiyang Navy of the year, and it is also the good ship destroyed by the dilapidated combat system.
Next we will focus on analyzing the Yamato, the most powerful ship of this class.
This ship is 263 meters long and 38.9 meters wide. With a full-load draft of 10.86 meters and a displacement of 72,810 tons, it was even larger than the domestically-made aircraft carrier that entered service some time ago. It was the well-deserved first battleship at that time. There are 2415 crew members. It is driven by 12 heavy oil-fired boilers and 4 steam turbines, with a maximum speed of 28 knots and a range of 7,200 nautical miles.
The most talked about is her main gun and armor. The picture above shows the huge shells of Yamato.
Yamato is equipped with three triple-mounted main guns with a terrifying caliber of 460 mm. The maximum range of the nine super-large-caliber main guns can reach 42050 meters (45-degree elevation angle, using armor-piercing shells), and the airborne time is more than 90 seconds. The range is 40,700 meters at an elevation angle of 40 degrees, 35826 meters at 30 degrees, 27916 meters at 20 degrees, and 16,843 meters at 10 degrees. The gun is equipped with three kinds of shells, namely 91 type 460 mm armor-piercing shells, three-type anti-air shells and high explosive shells. One armor-piercing projectile reached two meters long and weighed 1.5 tons . The total armor weight of
Yamato’s equipment has reached an unprecedented level of 22895 tons , accounting for 33% of the ship’s normal displacement. Among them, her vital parts such as the ammunition bay, main engine, and boiler compartment were concentratedly arranged in the middle of the battleship, in a defensive zone protected by heavy armor belts (extending from the front end of the front main gun to the rear end of the rear main gun). The side armor of the defensive zone extends from the midship waterline to the bottom of the battleship. The thickness of the main armor belt at the upper waterline is 410 mm (Vickers hardened steel), and the thickness of the side strake below the main armor belt It is 75-200 mm (decreasing from top to bottom). The top armor of the defense area is laid on the middeck of the battleship, with a thickness of 230 mm (homogeneous nickel-cadmium alloy steel with molybdenum added). The front and rear ends of the defensive zone are protected by 350 mm thick armored walls. The command tower located at the bridge of the Yamato ship is also a key protection area. The side walls and top armor are 500 mm thick, and the communication lines that extend from the conning tower down to the main defensive area are protected by heavy armor of 300 mm thick.
In addition, she is also equipped with a considerable amount of anti-aircraft firepower. In the picture above, you can clearly see the densely packed antiaircraft guns on the side of Yamato. There are six 155mm secondary guns in two triple mounts, 30 double 127mm anti-aircraft guns, 45 triple mounts, and 21 single mounts 156 25mm cannons. These firepower salvos must be a spectacle.
However, no matter how thick the armor, no matter how powerful the naval gun fire, can not save the decline of an entire empire. Her sorrow is here. Although we feel disgusted by the actions of the Japanese invaders, we also regret the Yamato from a purely military perspective.
On March 26, 1945, the U.S. Army began to land on Okinawa. Japan dispatched a large number of suicide planes to attack the US fleet. At the same time, it attempted to dispatch a fleet of surface ships, including the Yamato, to support the Japanese forces in Okinawa. The Joint Fleet Command expressed opposition, but the Japanese Navy Command insisted on dispatching the ship. On April 5, the Military Command formally issued the "Tianyi Operation" order for the "Yamato" to attack. On April 6, 1945, 10 warships of the 2nd Fleet with the "Yamato" as the flagship (and 1 cruiser and 8 destroyers) set sail from the Tokuyama anchorage in the western Seto Inland Sea under the command of Lieutenant Admiral Masiichi Ito.
In fact, all officers and men of the Second Fleet and the Navy Department are very clear that the Yamato cannot successfully reach Okinawa. This is a jade-breaking mission. The purpose is to prevent the ship from falling into the hands of the US military and to act The role of motivating the whole army. In our opinion today, this approach is quite absurd, but at the time it was the only choice of the Japanese Navy, and ultimately the only destiny of the Yamato.
So, in the early morning of April 7, 1945, the American submarineThe fleet was discovered off the southwestern sea of State Island, and Yamato ushered in the last battle of her short career.
At 12:30, Yamato began to be bombed by US carrier-based aircraft, but successfully repelled the most invading enemy aircraft and suffered minor damage. However, as of 14:17, the U.S. military had dispatched as many as 386 aircraft, attacking in several waves. Yamato suffered a fatal blow.
Two 225 kg bombs penetrated the rear main deck and exploded, destroying the 155mm secondary artillery and the preparatory firing command post at the rear of the battleship. Two medium-sized bombs hit the rear firing command post and the No. 2 secondary artillery, and the anti-air radar was damaged. A torpedo hit the front port side. Six torpedoes hit the center of the port side. At 14 o'clock it was hit by 3 medium bombs. 5 A torpedo hit the starboard center. 5 The starboard main engine can only provide a speed of 12 knots. The port side is now tilted 6 degrees.
Finally, at 14:23, a big explosion occurred in the ammunition depot of the Yamato ship’s 3rd main turret, and the battleship flooded into the sea immediately, making repairs impossible. As a result, Captain Yuga Yusaku Ozuo ordered the abandonment of the ship. In the subsequent rescue, only 276 of the more than 2,000 people on the Yamato ship were rescued, and Captain Yuga Kosaku, Second Fleet Commander Seiichi Ito, and hundreds of surviving sailors all died on the ship.
Many military fans like to compare her with the Iowa class of the United States, and this class of ship we have also analyzed in the previous article. The editor believes that compared with the advanced battleships of the United States, the naval guns of Yamato-class battleships have disadvantages, and the gap in weapon systems is even greater. First of all, the performance of the heavy 460mm main gun system on the ship is indeed average. In addition to its slightly greater power, the accuracy and rate of fire of are far behind the Iowa-class 406mm main gun . In contrast, it is a more rational decision for Western countries to use smaller caliber and lighter artillery to achieve similar combat capabilities.
and Yamato is proud of its air defense firepower is full of loopholes .
At that time, American battleships were generally equipped with radar-guided automatic shooting systems. The radar marked the enemy’s shooting elements on the display screen. Each anti-aircraft gun was equipped with an electric mechanism that could rotate uniformly. All the antiaircraft guns in the bridge are controlled to fire in the same direction based on radar information. In contrast, the Yamato-class "13-type air-to-air probe" can only allow the operator to guess the direction and approximate number of the incoming enemy aircraft based on the sharp waves of the oscilloscope, and cannot shoot accurately at all. Most of the anti-aircraft guns on the ship are driven by human hands. A large number of visual observation stations are set up on the superstructure to observe the position of the enemy aircraft. The communication is in the form of oral transmission. However, there was a sound of gunfire in actual combat, and the shouts of the observers made it difficult for the gunner to hear the instructions.
In fact, during the sinking of the Yamato, only 57 American planes were hit, and only a mere 10 were shot down. This puzzling result is not accidental under in-depth analysis. Warships that blindly pursue displacement and large-caliber naval guns, even if they can participate in the naval battle with Iowa, are likely to be lost in the end. This is by no means a radical statement, but an inevitable theoretical analysis.
finally ends with a piece of Yamato’s last maneuver evasion as the end of this article. Today’s article is here, there is no way if you haven’t read it enough (●ˇ∀ˇ●). Next, we ceremoniously usher in a new link-the next round of voting. Our tank series has produced M1A2, Leopard 2A6, Merkava mk4, 99A and many other models. Friends who like it can choose the next content you want to see in the following voting. The editor will follow the vote. Write the results. You are welcome to correct any errors in this article, and I will listen carefully. The editor is alive. Friends who like, please pay attention, thank you for reading!
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