Battleship Dream Battle: Japan's 65,000 Ton Yamato vs. America's Iowa-Class (Who Wins?)

Michael Peck

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Which battleship goes to the bottom? 

While both ships enjoyed certain advantages over each other, those advantages are so slender that luck would probably play as decisive role as firepower and armor.

It would have been the ultimate duel of dreadnoughts. In one corner, Japan’s Yamato, weighing in at 65,000 tons, the biggest battleship in history. In the other corner, Iowa, at 45,000 tons the pride of America's World War II battleship fleet. In reality, the two ships never met in battle. But what if they had, in a cataclysmic clash of seagoing titans?

(This first appeared several years ago.)

One researcher can offer an answer, or at least a very educated guess. Jon Parshall, historian and author of the superb Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway has pitted the top battleships of various nations against each other at Combinedfleet.com, the go-to site for information on the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Among the battleships he compares are Yamato and Iowa, based on five criteria: guns, armor, underwater protection, fire control and “tactical factors” such as speed and damage control.

It would have been the ultimate duel of dreadnoughts. In one corner, Japan’s Yamato, weighing in at 65,000 tons, the biggest battleship in history. In the other corner, Iowa, at 45,000 tons the pride of America's World War II battleship fleet. In reality, the two ships never met in battle. But what if they had, in a cataclysmic clash of seagoing titans?

(Recommended: Is it Time to Bring Back the Battleships?)