Musashi FOUND

[Villanova U]

Good old Paul Allen.

I'm not sure what took so long. This was one of the biggest ships ever built.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31724995

 

[LizReed]

Good stuff. I liked it.

 

[NickleDimer]

If I had a couple billion in the bank, I wouldn't be on a boat looking for war losing battleships.

 

[Villanova U]

Would it change your mind if this was the boat you were on? Octopus is Paul Allen's personal yacht, which is what he used to find the war losing battleship, and it was at one point the largest superyacht in the world.

 

[NickleDimer]

No - being on a boat is f-ing horrible. They should only exist for fishing and cheap shipping consumer goods manufactured by oppressed populations.

 

[Chimpat]

Cool article. Found this part interesting,,,,,,

Coming under sustained US aircraft attack in her final days, the Musashi defended itself by firing its huge anti-aircraft weapons into the sea "to make huge geysers aimed at knocking down American torpedo bombers", the WW2 Database website says.

 

[Villanova U]

I guess the invention of airplanes and aircraft carriers pretty much made battleships obsolete overnight. Imagine being on the biggest and most powerful battleship in the world and your only defense against a bunch of planes is to shoot your enormous guns into the water with the hopes of knocking 1 or 2 of them down.

 

[TheDean]

Originally posted by Villanova U:
I guess the invention of airplanes and aircraft carriers pretty much made battleships obsolete overnight. Imagine being on the biggest and most powerful battleship in the world and your only defense against a bunch of planes is to shoot your enormous guns into the water with the hopes of knocking 1 or 2 of them down.

Your first statement is true but by WWII battleships had a significant anti-aircraft armament. They weren't firing shells from 16-inch guns "into the water."

They had AA guns like this which could fire 585 pounds of ammo into the air every minute with an automatic loading system.

And it took a hell of a lot of planes to take out a ship (Kamakaze attacks notwithstanding since that was a unique Japanese strategy).

From 1942 onward the U.S. averaged 170 lost planes PER DAY.

This post was edited on 3/5 11:25 AM by TheDean

This post was edited on 3/5 11:28 AM by TheDean

 

[cleanwave]

Musashi was sunk during the Battle of Leyte. Largest naval battle in history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leyte_Gulf