List of battleships of Japan
Previously, the Empire of Japan had acquired a few ironclad warships from foreign builders, although it had adopted the Jeune École naval doctrine which emphasized cheap torpedo boats and commerce raiding to offset expensive, heavily armored ships.
Combat experience in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 convinced the IJN that its doctrine was untenable, leading to a ten-year naval construction program that called for a total of six battleships and six armored cruisers (the Six-Six Fleet).
[2] To preempt further reinforcements before their own ships were completed, they began the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 with a surprise attack on the Russian base at Port Arthur.
The Russians had dispatched the bulk of their Baltic Fleet to relieve Port Arthur, which reached the Korea Strait in May 1905 and was virtually annihilated by the IJN in the Battle of Tsushima.
The magnitude of the victory at Tsushima caused the leadership of the IJN to believe that a surface engagement between the main fleets was the only decisive battle in modern warfare and would be decided by battleships armed with the largest guns.
[12] In 1919, American president Woodrow Wilson announced the resumption of the 1916 naval construction program and the Japanese ordered eight fast battleships of the Kii and Number 13 classes in response.
The treaty forced the IJN to dispose of all of its pre-dreadnoughts and the oldest dreadnoughts; the ships then under construction had to be broken up or sunk as targets.
During this period, opponents of the Washington Naval Treaty and its successors had taken control of the upper echelons of the IJN[14] and rebuilt the Kongō-class battlecruisers into fast battleships and modernized the existing ships.
Planning by the Navy General Staff for the post-treaty era began in 1934 and included five large battleships armed with nine 460 mm (18.1 in) guns; these ships became the Yamato class.
[17] The two Fuji-class (富士型戦艦, Fuji-gata senkan) ships, Fuji and Yashima, were the IJN's first battleships, ordered from Britain in response to two new German-built Chinese ironclad warships.
[22] In October 1908, Fuji hosted the American ambassador to Japan and some senior officers of the Great White Fleet,[23] and was later reclassified as a coast defense ship in 1910.
[24] The Shikishima class (敷島型戦艦, Shikishima-gata senkan) was designed as a more powerful version of the Royal Navy's Majestic-class battleship.
[60][62] Her crew declared for the Bolsheviks in October 1917,[63] but saw no action in the Russian Civil War owing to her poor condition, and she was ultimately scrapped in 1924.
[81][82] Iwami was built shortly before the Russo-Japanese War for the Imperial Russian Navy as Oryol (Орёл), one of five Borodino-class battleships.
[97] The design of the Katori class was a modified and improved version of the Royal Navy's King Edward VII-class battleships.
[100][101] In 1921, the sisters carried Crown Prince Hirohito on his tour of Europe where he met King George V.[102] Under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, both ships were disarmed and scrapped between 1923 and 1925.
Material shortages in Japan and the expense of construction led to a redesign that armed the sisters with four 12-inch and a dozen 10-inch (254 mm) guns.
[109] Satsuma would go on to serve as Rear Admiral Tatsuo Matsumura's flagship in the Second South Seas Squadron as it seized the German possessions of the Caroline and the Palau Islands in October 1914 in the opening months of World War I. Satsuma would later be refitted at Sasebo Naval Arsenal in 1916 and served with the 1st Squadron for the rest of the war.
[112] The sisters were armed with four 50-caliber 12-inch and eight 45-caliber 12-inch main guns,[113] arranged in the hexagonal layout used by the German dreadnoughts of the Nassau and Helgoland classes.
[117] The Fusō-class battleships (扶桑型戦艦, Fusō-gata senkan), Fusō and Yamashiro, were a pair of dreadnoughts built for the IJN during World War I.
Although they were extensively modernized during the 1930s, the sisters were considered obsolescent by the eve of World War II, and neither saw significant action in its early years.
Following the loss of most of the IJN's large aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, they were rebuilt with a flight deck replacing the rear pair of gun turrets to give them the ability to operate an air group of floatplanes.
[127][128] They participated in the Battle off Cape Engaño in late 1944, where they decoyed the American carrier fleet supporting the invasion of Leyte away from the landing beaches.
[130] Afterward, both ships were transferred to Southeast Asia; in early 1945 they participated in Operation Kita, where they transported petrol and other strategic materials to Japan.
[140] The hull of the second ship, Kaga, was converted into an aircraft carrier to replace an Amagi-class battlecruiser that had been wrecked by the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923.
[141] The carrier supported Japanese troops in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War and took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Rabaul in the Southwest Pacific in January 1942.
They were intended to reinforce Japan's "Eight-Eight fleet" of eight battleships and eight battlecruisers after the United States announced the reinitiation of a major naval construction program in 1919.
They were intended to reinforce Japan's "Eight-Eight Fleet" of eight battleships and eight battlecruisers after the United States announced the reinitiation of a major naval construction program in 1919.
Hiei and Kirishima acted as escorts during the attack on Pearl Harbor, while Kongō and Haruna supported the Dutch East Indies Campaign.
[155] Due to the threat of American submarines and aircraft carriers and worsening fuel shortages, both Yamato and Musashi spent the majority of their careers in naval bases at Brunei, Truk, and Kure—deploying on several occasions in response to American raids on Japanese bases—before participating in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, as part of Vice Admiral Kurita's Center Force.
