I was just wondering if Japan had considered buying or asking for German ships at the end of the war to promote their war and give Germany some capital. With all the hundreds of German ships I wonder if some of the ships found their way under Japanese control, since the war was over with Germany and some Germans that wanted the war to continue could have just handed their ships over to Japan. Interesting thought no?
My understanding is that Yamato means Japan in one fairly ancient but long-standing version of the nation’s name, associated with the Yamato People who became the dominant ethnic group in Japan many centuries before WWII, but that during the WWII period Japan presented itself as Nihon or the more nationalistic Nippon rather than Yamato.
So, naming the ship Yamato seems to be a reference to a long past era of classical Japanese civilisation rather than naming it for the Japan which existed in WWII.
A bit like Americans now naming a warship Independence, referring to a long past but still significant event.
Yamato had a full load displacement of 71,600 tonnes (metric) which comes out to about 79,000 tons (Imperial).
The comparison is correct with the Bismarck displacing 50,900 tonnes (full) and the Hipper displacing 16,700 (full) tonnes you could still add a German destroyer (about 3,000 tonnes) and still not quite have the displacement of the Yamato.
Mighty impressive but a colossal waste of resources.
Is there an element with the Yamato of building something so supposedly vastly more powerful than anything anyone else has that it would render the owner vastly more powerful and virtually immune from enemy response?
After all, up to WWII the arms race consisted largely of building hugely impressive capital ships to impress potential enemies.
Yet the real power was often in numbers rather than mass, such as the Americans building lots of submarines from the same materials and much more quickly than if the same materials were devoted to a huge capital ship, which subs then went on to do huge damage to Japan’s merchant navy and largely bring Japan to its knees.
Thats because of the limits the US and UK set on the number of battleships.
Japan was unfairly made to have less ships, so Japan tried to make up with quality and sheer bigness.
Also, the original Emperor, who’s descendant, is the current Emperor, comes from the Yamato Dynasty.
Hardly “unfair” - Japan voluntarily signed the treaty, because the US and UK made it quite clear that if they didn’t they would build more ships than the Japanese would anyway. Just because they didn’t like the result is nothing to do with fairness.
In any case, the results of the treaty favoured the Japanese over others - they only had the Pacific to cover, while the US had the Atlantic as well and the UK had both of those plus the Indian Ocean.
Ummm… if they had done so after surrender, that would count as Perfidy and is a very serious war crime. They had no reason to do so before surrendering - they needed the ships themselves, and in any case the Japanese Navy was significantly larger and more competent.
Were they to do so they would not be lawful combatants, so if they were captured by the USN or RN it would be entirely legal to execute them as Pirates.
In regards to Admiral Yamamoto, I was reading that he was adopted and can only wonder if his real parents knew of him and what he had become.
I also read that he was the onll foreigner awarded by Germany, the Knights Cross with oak leaves and swords, one of its highest medals, awarded to Germany’s most outstanding aces and military leaders.
The other issue in addition to the matter of perfidy would be that whatever available Naval vessels Germany had at VE day were effectively seized by the Allied Nations, not least of which the Soviets, who grabbed up the two most useful large hulls, towed them home and completed them as carriers.
There would have been no opportunity for Japan to acquire those vessels, any more than there was for either the UK or Germany to acquire the French Fleet, which was considerable.
Bear in mind, the nation with most wish to gain at VE day in naval terms was at the time the USSR, by virtue of not having begun WW2 with anything akin to a modern, standing Fleet.
Regards, Uyraell.
Some U boats tried to go to Japan, laden with technology which Japan was in need of.
And also the Uranium they got caught… but then, any good a bomb would do to japan…
i think japan should of just had produced a bunch of destroyers instead of one expensive floating hotel. I can imagine dive bombers struggling to hit small dodging ships.
Remember there was a limit on numbers.
What you have to understand here is that the japanese navy (IJN) had a doctrine, just like every other force did. Yamato and her sister ships werent built on a whim. At the time the Battleship was still the Queen of the navy for all nations. Japan withdrew from the Washington naval treaty and then followed the IJN doctrine for fighting its most likely enemy, the USA. The plan was to fight a decisive Naval engagement somewhere between Pearl and the Philippines.
The Yamato and Musashi fit right into this doctrine, they were designed to engage the US battleships in this decisive battle and win. They werent designed to fight alone, they would be part of a consolidated battlegroup. So the fact that they may not be able to take on a destroyer is insignificant as their escort cruisers and destroyers would be there to do that job. Thus, you have to realise that they were built for a purpose.
The fact that carriers overtook this doctrine is plain now, but wasnt in the 1930’s and it should be remembered.
Now onto the weird proposition that the Germans could have sold their navy to Japan. I have to ask this. How the heck would they get there? How would they get from Germany or Norway to Japan. This is just an idiotic proposition and I cant believe that anyone with common sense would even propose it.
Uh, duh, dig a tunnel under Germany through the Earth to Japan. Its so obvious FF, how couldn’t you see that? :shock::lol:
No, silly, Germany would put panzer tracks on the ships and send them to Japan via the north pole!
D’oh!
Not after 1936, when the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty limiting ship construction expired. Yamato and Musashi weren’t ordered until early 1937, after the treaty had expried, although design work began earlier following Japan’s 1934 decision not to continue the ship construction limitation treaties.
After 1936 Japan’s ship construction proceeded under great secrecy. The future Allies had no reliable intelligence giving accurate details of the IJN fleet.
Yup. I went to the Yamato Museum, where they had a 1/10 scale model.
Freaking huge. They actually got a shipbuilding company to make the hull!
The flooding system was pretty advanced too. So were the Soda machines on board.
Could you post a pic of the model please? I’d be right keen to see it.
Regards, Uyraell.
I’m not sure that a 1/10th model could fit on your screen. 
It must be about the biggest model, on any scale, ever made.
