Concept 2: Design A-150 'Super Yamato'

Concept 2: Design A-150 'Super Yamato'

“If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a “peace conference”, you can be sure his government has already placed it's orders for new battleships and airplanes” - Joseph Stalin

Nationality: Japanese
Year of Concept: 1938, design near complete in 1941
Number built: 0, 2 planned.
Weight: 70,000 tons, approximately
Length: 263 metres
Beam: 39 metres
Speed: 30 knots (55.5kph)
Complement: Unknown. Yamato had approx 2760 crew.
Armament: 6x 510 mm (45 calibre guns), lots of 100 mm (65 calibre) guns

Background: Ah, battleships. The obsolete, but still remembered, queens of the sea. Having been around in some form since the late 1800s, to provide naval superiority to any fleet, they started to fade out in use after World War 2, after, well, aircraft and missiles started to be developed and improved on.

Now, of course, their role has been taken over by aircraft carriers, but that doesn't mean we can't take a look at what would have been a true wonder produced by Imperial Japan... two years after World War 2 ended. Must take a bit of time to bang those things together.

The battleship came about as the Age of Sail ended, because a metal ship with a flimsy little sail on the top looks ridiculous, and because the ironclad looked cooler. As any Civilization player knows, the step up from wood to iron to steel is an amazing one to undergo, and it was the same in the real world, with many innovations coming into play, from explosive and incendiary shells, to the French navy's Redoutable, which was the first battleship to use steel as it's main material.

Then there was the Dreadnaught era, named after the HMS Dreadnaught, and the two world wars.

But eh, if I wanted to ramble on, I'd fill this article full of battleship pictures and fawn over them like some sort of schoolgirl.

Why should I be afraid of it? And what was it for?

“The more evil the regime, the more ludicrous the planned and designed weapons and equipment.” - Myself. Although I can replace it with an actual quote if needs be.

Now, of course, everyone knows the Battleship Yamato, despite it's lack of actually being used in anger, only firing at American forces during Leyte Gulf in 1944, and at American forces again at Kyushu while en route to Okinawa where she was sunk during Operation Ten-Go while on a suicide mission that involved beaching herself and her escort ships, and blowing anything that moved to hell.

However, she had magnificently large cannons, the largest guns fitted on a warship, of which I'll avoid using that term again, since it makes me feel like I'm talking about a woman with ample assets. She was bristling with lots of shot and shell, along with her sister ship, Musashi, which would have made taking one on in head to head combat interesting to say the least, since she could throw a 1.36 ton shell over 40 kilometres.

The Japanese wished to top this, by countering the American's reply to the Yamatos with the Super Yamato, which was planned to hurl a 2 ton shell with her main armament, and a bunch of smaller shells with her secondary 100mm anti-aircraft guns, with armour so vast that Japan would not have been able to make it in single plates.

Unfortunately, in 1941, the design work went from battleships to alternate ships, like aircraft carriers, cruisers, etc, and the two Super Yamatos were never rolled out, nor were the other two Yamato class ships. The third Yamato-class, Shinano, was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction, and became the dubious honour of being the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine, 10 days after she was commissioned.

Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces on the battleship USS Missouri, after the atomic bombings, after which, the navy set fire to almost everything Yamato related, which is a shame.

In a sense, the end of the war was an end to the battleship class as well, and the name Yamato faded from memory.

If you exclude the anime, the diesel engine manufacturer, the transport company, the the toy manufacturer, the... let's just say that the name hasn't really faded from use.

There may not be many, or any, battleships serving today, but that doesn't mean that the very idea of a huge ship, crewed by thousands, blasting everything from the air, the water, and the land, isn't a majestic one, unless you're the ones being blasted.

Sources:
Wikipedia: Yamato-class battleship
Wikipedia: Design A-150 battleship
Wikipedia: Dreadnaught
Wikipedia: Battleship
Wikipedia: 40 cm (45 Type 94 naval gun)
Wikipedia: Japanese battleship Yamato
Wikipedia: Japanese battleship Musashi
Wikipedia: Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano
Wikipedia: Operation Ten-Go