re: Japan vs Nazi Germany (hypothetical alternative history)

quote:

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Is it because the Yamato had bigger guns? Seriously, didn't the Bismark have like 16" and the Yamato 18"? Is that the difference?

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The real big ship fight would have been between the Yamato and the Iowa (or maybe even the South Dakota for that matter). Just to throw my hat in real quick because I love naval warfare:

The Bismarck only had a 15".
The Iowa, however did have 16" with amazing shells that almost made up the difference in comparison with the Yamato's 18". The two, Iowa and Yamato's, artillery were very comparable to each other; spouting almost identical velocity and range. The advantage went to Yamato in pure payload weight by about 500 lbs. The Bismarck had only two real advantages; Accuracy and rate of fire. That said the Yamato and Iowa could fire from 40k-45k yards away, while the Bismarck could only fire from 38k and had a very low weight to it's projectiles by about half of the other two vessels.

In other words, the shell's could be said to have been vastly more important than the Battery itself.

....and that's just talking about their main armaments. Truly, if it was the Yamato vs. Bismarck in open water....the Yamato probably wins it fairly handily.

Side note: I used to go here all the time for info on ships LINK. It has a great deal of valuable info, and the guy who wrote it has a genuine love and unbiased nature towards the facts behind the ships.