![]() With Kido Butai (the Japanese carrier force) engaged elsewhere, the Imperial Japanese Navy assigns HIJMS Yamato and HIJMS Musashi (with a similarly constituted support group) the task of catching and destroying the German ships. We also assume that they represent the early stages of German fast battleship design, meaning that the more powerful ships will remain in the Atlantic.Īs the clouds of war gather, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and a collection of smaller vessels (two heavy cruisers, six destroyers) abandon Tsingtao for the German naval base at Truk. The long-legged German battleships, designed for raiding, would take to Pacific service well. We will assume for our purposes that Germany would construct ships akin to the Bismarck and Tirpitz, and then deploy them to the Far East (in a shorter Great War, Germany might well have retained the naval base at Tsingtao). Yamato and her sister carried about twenty-two thousand tons of armor in modern (“all or nothing”) configuration. The Yamatos, on the other hand, displaced about seventy-two thousand tons, armed with nine 18.1” guns in three triple turrets and capable of twenty-seven knots. The Bismarcks carried about nineteen thousand tons of armor, albeit in an archaic configuration by World War II standards. ![]() ![]() Bismarck and her sister Tirpitz displaced about fifty thousand tons, with a speed of roughly thirty knots and an armament of eight fifteen-inch guns in four twin turrets. Apart from the Iowas and HMS Vanguard, the Bismarcks and the Yamatos were the two largest classes of battleships ever built. ![]()
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