Navy Musashi while participating in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, as part of Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force, lost to American carrier aircraft the still incomplete Shinano was torpedoed ten days after her commissioning in November 1944 by the submarine USS Archerfish and Yamato, also ravaged by carrier planes, in April 1945 during Operation Ten-Go. The class carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship, nine 460-millimetre (18.1 in) naval guns, each capable of firing 1,460 kg (3,220 lb) shells over 42 km (26 mi).ĭue to the threat of American submarines and aircraft carriers, both Yamato and Musashi spent the majority of their careers in naval bases at Brunei, Truk, and Kure-deploying on several occasions in response to American raids on Japanese bases.Īll three ships were sunk by the U.S. She was assigned to the combined fleet and sailed to Truk to replace her. Musashi was commissioned at Nagasaki on 5 August 1942, and was assigned alongside her sister Yamato and Nagato and Mutsu. A third hull laid down in 1940 was converted to an aircraft carrier, Shinano, during construction.ĭisplacing 72,000 long tons (73,000 t) at full load, the completed battleships were the heaviest ever constructed. background: The IJN Musashi is the younger sister of the legendary Yamato and the middle sister of the Yamato class.

The Yamato-class battleships (大和型戦艦, Yamato-gata senkan) were two battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), Yamato and Musashi, laid down leading up to World War II and completed as designed.

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