The Yamato had the largest guns ever mounted on a warship. 18.1 in barrels that could fire 3,200 lb shells 26 m. Each shell was taller than a man, wider than a telephone pole. The explosion could create a crater 30 ft deep. And in four years of war, these magnificent guns sank exactly one ship, a destroyer.

Let me tell you how the most powerful battleship ever built became the most useless. Here’s the brutal mathematics. The Yamato cost 137 million yen in 1940. Enough to build 1,000 fighter aircraft. Japan built two of these monsters. That’s 2,000 fighters they didn’t build. In the entire war, Yamato’s main guns fired at enemy surface ships exactly once.

 360 shells fired at escort carriers off summer. Hits zero. A destroyer and destroyer escort were hit by secondary batteries, not the main guns. The 18-in guns had a problem nobody talks about. They were too powerful. The blast over pressure was so massive it damaged the Yamato’s own systems. Firing a full broadside knocked out radio communications, destroyed spotting aircraft on deck, and gave crew members permanent hearing damage through steel bulkheads.

 The ship literally hurt itself when firing. But here’s where it gets interesting. The maximum range was 42,000 yd, 26 mi. Sounds impressive. The curvature of the Earth meant targets disappeared beyond 30,000 y. The Yamato couldn’t see what it was theoretically shooting at. Japanese optics could track targets to 27,000 yd in perfect conditions.

 In combat conditions, smoke, rain, movement, effective range was 18,000 y. Half the gun’s capability was useless. Now, let’s talk about accuracy. At 20,000 yd, the probability of a hit was 0.2% 2% per shell. Not 2%, 0.2. The Yamato needed to fire 500 shells to statistically score one hit at long range.

 Each barrel could fire two rounds per minute. A full broadside took 30 seconds to reload. In perfect conditions, landing one hit took 45 minutes of continuous firing. An American destroyer captain who faced Yamato at Samar reported, “The splashes were magnificent. Columns of water 200 ft high, spectacular and terrifying.” Also, consistently 300 yd away.

 Their fire control couldn’t track us at 25 knots. The fuel consumption was catastrophic. Yamato burned 300 tons of fuel oil per day at cruise speed. At combat speed, 600 tons, range at full speed, 3,000 m. Japan’s fuel situation by 1944 meant Yamato sat in port. The guns that could theoretically control the Pacific were immobilized by fuel logistics.

 Each main gun salvo used as much steel as a zero fighter. Nine shells equaled one fighter plane that Japan desperately needed. But perhaps the most damning statistic, Yamato spent 1,200 days commissioned. It was in actual combat for 10 days. That’s 0.8% of its service life. The rest was hiding from American submarines, conserving fuel or fleet in being, existing as a threat rather than fighting.

 Here’s what made the guns truly useless. Air power. Yumato’s anti-aircraft capability was laughable initially. 24 5-in guns that couldn’t track dive bombers. By 1945, they added 162 anti-aircraft guns. It didn’t matter. 400 American aircraft attacked on April 7th, 1945. Yamato took 11 torpedo hits and six bomb hits in 2 hours.

 The 18-in guns fired anti-aircraft shells, 3,200 lb shells exploding in the air, hoping to hit aircraft. They shot down three planes. Maybe the crew knew the truth. One survivor testified, “We called Yamato Hotel Yamato. Excellent food, air conditioning, and we never fought. Our great guns were decoration. We’d polish them, maintain them, dream about using them.

 When we finally did, we were already sinking. The final mission, Operation Tango, was explicit suicide. Yamato was sent to beach itself at Okinawa and become a coastal battery. Fuel for a one-way trip only. The 18-in guns would finally have stable firing platforms and pre-erveyed targets. Command knew Yamato would never reach Okinawa. They sent it anyway.

 3,55 men died for a propaganda gesture. Let’s compare effectiveness. The USS Washington with 16in guns sank the battleship Kiroshima in 8 minutes at close range. The USS Massachusetts destroyed the French battleship Jeanbart with 16in guns. American battleships provided shore bombardment for every major invasion.

 Yamato bombarded shore positions once at Samar accidentally while trying to hit carriers. The math is undeniable. Two Yamato class battleships cost as much as six fleet carriers. Those carriers could have launched 1,000 aircraft. Instead, Japan built two ships with guns that couldn’t hit moving targets, couldn’t be fueled, and couldn’t survive air attack.

 The final irony, Yamato was sunk by aircraft from 11 carriers. Each carrier cost less than Yamato’s main battery. The torpedoes that killed her cost $1,000 each. The shells for her 18-in guns cost $50,000 each in modern equivalents. She was killed by weapons 1/50th the cost of her ammunition.

 The Yamato’s 18-in guns were engineering marvels that fired 360 times in anger and changed nothing. The most powerful battleship ever built proved that power without purpose is just expensive noise before you sink.