The Largest Naval Guns in History — The Japanese “40cm”/45 Type 94 Naval Gun.The l

The Largest Naval Guns in History — The Japanese “40cm”/45 Type 94 Naval Gun.The largest caliber gun ever mounted on a warship, the Type 94 naval gun was an 18.1 inch (45cm) behemoth that was mounted on the most powerful battleships in history.  By contrast, the mighty Bismark was armed with relatively puny 15 inch guns, while most British and American battleships typically were armed with 14-16 inch guns.  Called the “40cm/45 Type 94 Naval Gun”, they were labeled as 40cm guns (15.7 inch) in order to keep the gun’s real size a secret.  At best it could fire twice a minute, lobbing 3,000 lb shells at a velocity of 2,600 feet per second with a maximum range of around 26 miles.  The massive guns themselves weighed over 147 tons.  27 Type 94 guns were produced, of which 18 would be manned on battleships.  9 were mounted on the Yamato while another 9 were mounted on the Musashi.  With these guns, the Yamato and Musashi were the most powerful battleships ever built in human history, displacing almost 70,000 tons.  Again by contrast the puny Bismark was around 50,000 tons.  The Yamato class battleship was the pinnacle of battleship innovation.  Unfortunately for the Japanese it was an obsolete innovation by World War II.  Whereas the battleship was the dominant warship of World War I, by World War II the battleship proved extremely vulnerable against the aircraft.  Both the Yamato and Musashi were sunk by American carrier based dive bombers and torpedo planes. -- source link

More pics about