http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Musashi
A brief news story told of the discovery this week of the WWII Japanese battleship, Musashi, in 3000 feet of water off the Philippines. The search was funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
Mildly curious about this--I had never heard of the ship, I looked for some details.
It turns out that the Musashi, flagship of the Japanese fleet, was only one of two Yamato class ships ever built. These two ships were the most powerful and fearsome battleships ever built. At its launch, the Mushasi generated a 3 foot tsunami in Nagasaki harbor, flooding homes and capsizing fishing vessels.
This ship carried nine 18-inch big guns (the largest ever mounted on a naval vessel). That 18" is the diameter of the projectile, and could launch armor-piercing shells over 25 miles.
In addition to the nine big guns, this floating fortress also mounted 164 other guns of various sizes, along with 7 catapult-launched float planes. At the waterline, armor was 16" thick steel. Space within the hull was divided into more than 1000 water-tight compartments.
At the time construction began on the Musashi (1938), the notion that such a beast could be vulnerable to carrier-based aircraft had not been considered (a fanciful notion not really proven until well into the war).
Wikipedia.org said:
Bob
