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The were battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) constructed and operated during World War II. Displacing at full load, the vessels were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed. The class carried the largest naval artillery ever fitted to a warship, nine 460-millimetre (18.1 in) naval guns, each capable of firing shells over . Two battleships of the class ( and ) were completed, while a third () was converted to an aircraft carrier during construction. Due 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—before participating in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, as part of Admiral Kurita's Centre Force. ''Musashi'' was sunk during the battle by American carrier airplanes. ''Shinano'' was sunk ten days after her commissioning in November 1944 by the submarine , while ''Yamato'' was sunk in April 1945 during Operation ''Ten-Go''. ==Background== The design of the ''Yamato''-class battleships was shaped by expansionist movements within the Japanese government, Japanese industrial power, and the need for a fleet powerful enough to intimidate likely adversaries.〔 After the end of the First World War, many navies—including those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Imperial Japan—continued and expanded construction programs that had begun during the conflict. The enormous costs associated with these programs pressured their government leaders to begin a disarmament conference. On 8 July 1921, the United States' Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes invited delegations from the other major maritime powers—France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—to come to Washington, D.C. and discuss a possible end to the naval arms race. The subsequent Washington Naval Conference resulted in the Washington Naval Treaty. Along with many other provisions, it limited all future battleships to a standard displacement of and a maximum gun caliber of . It also agreed that the five countries would not construct more capital ships for ten years and would not replace any ship that survived the treaty until it was at least twenty years old.〔Friedman, p. 182〕〔Garzke and Dulin, p. 4–5〕 In the 1930s, the Japanese government began a shift towards ultranationalist militancy.〔Willmott, p. 32〕 This movement called for the expansion of the Japanese Empire to include much of the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia. The maintenance of such an empire—spanning from China to Midway Island—required a sizable fleet capable of sustained control of territory.〔Schom, p. 42〕 Although all of Japan's battleships built prior to the ''Yamato'' class had been completed before 1921—as the Washington Treaty had prevented any more from being completed—all had been either reconstructed or significantly modernized, or both, in the 1930s.〔Willmott, p. 34; Gardiner and Gray, p. 229〕 This modernization included, among other things, additional speed and firepower, which the Japanese intended to use to conquer and defend their aspired-to empire.〔Gardiner and Gray, pp. 229–231, 234〕 When Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1934 over the Mukden Incident, it also renounced all treaty obligations.〔Garzke and Dulin, p. 44〕 Japan would no longer design battleships within the treaty limitations and was free to build warships larger than those of the other major maritime powers.〔Willmott, p. 35〕 Japan's intention to acquire resource-producing colonies in the Pacific and Southeast Asia would likely lead to confrontation with the United States,〔Schom, p. 43〕 thus the U.S. became Japan's primary potential enemy. The U.S. possessed significantly greater industrial power than Japan, with 32.2% of worldwide industrial production compared to Japan's 3.5%.〔Willmott, p. 22〕 Furthermore, several leading members of the United States Congress had pledged "to outbuild Japan three to one in a naval race." Consequently, as Japanese industrial output could not compete with American industrial power,〔 Japanese ship designers developed plans for new battleships individually superior to their counterparts in the United States Navy.〔Garzke and Dulin, p. 45〕 Each of these battleships would be capable of engaging multiple enemy capital ships simultaneously, eliminating the need to expend as much industrial effort as the U.S. on battleship construction.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Yamato-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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