Yamato Class Battleship - Ships

Ships

Although five Yamato-class vessels had been planned in 1937, only three—two battleships and a converted aircraft carrier—were ever completed. All three vessels were built in extreme secrecy, as to prevent American intelligence officials from learning of their existence and specifications; indeed, the United States' Office of Naval Intelligence only became aware of Yamato and Musashi by name in late 1942. At this early time, their assumptions on the class' specifications were quite far off; while they were correct on their length, the class was given as having a beam of 110 feet (34 m) (in actuality, it was about 127 feet (39 m)) and a displacement of 40,000–57,000 tons (in actuality, 69,000 tons). In addition, the main armament of Yamato-class was given as nine 16-inch (41 cm) guns as late as July 1945, four months after Yamato was sunk. Both Jane's Fighting Ships and the Western media also misreported the specifications of the ships. In September 1944, Jane's Fighting Ships listed the displacement of both the Yamato and the Musashi as 45,000 tons. Similarly, both the New York Times and the Associated Press reported that the two ships displaced 45,000 tons with a speed of 30 knots, and even after the sinking of the Yamato in April 1945, The Times of London continued to give 45,000 tons as the ship's displacement. Nevertheless, the existence of the ships—and their supposed specifications—heavily influenced American naval engineers in the design of the Montana-class battleships, all five of which were to be built to counter the firepower of the Yamato class.