#8: Yamato: The Largest Battleship That Ever Sailed
Yamato's nine 18.1-inch guns were the largest ever mounted on a warship, firing 3,220-pound shells, each one literally heavier than a small car, up to 26 miles. At 72,000 tons fully loaded, she was the heaviest battleship ever built, displacing more than some modern aircraft carriers. Her construction was so secret that the drydock at Kure was hidden behind massive sisal curtains.
Despite her overwhelming specifications, Yamato fired her main guns at enemy surface targets only once, at the Battle off Samar in 1944. She spent most of the war in port, too valuable and too fuel-hungry to risk casually. On April 7, 1945, Yamato was sent on Operation Ten-Go, a one-way suicide mission to beach herself at Okinawa and fight as a shore battery. She never got close. Nearly 400 American aircraft swarmed her in a two-hour attack, hitting her with at least 11 torpedoes and six bombs. She rolled over and exploded, killing 3,055 of her 3,332 crew. Yamato's fate proved that the age of the battleship was over, naval warfare now belonged to the aircraft carrier.
