Which battleship was more powerful: Japanese Yamato or Bismarck?

Question

Which battleship was more powerful: Japanese Yamato or Bismarck?

Answer 1

Depends on your definition of power. Yamato carried bigger guns but was slow. Bismark was actually a pocket battle ship so was smaller and faster. More able to get into and out of trouble. Both are at the bottom of the sea, so I guess it is mote point.

Answer 2

It was the Yamato.

Answer 3

Yamato

Bigger guns, more armor, more AA.

The crew is also a huge factor.

Answer 4

The Yamato and her sister ship the Musashi are considered the most powerful battleships ever built. The threat of the Bismark was not in that it was the biggest, but how the Germans were planning to use it. The Bismark was to be deployed as a surface raider, sinking merchant convoys. And nothing short of other heavy capital ships would have been able to defend against it, and the Royal Navy simply didn't have enough battleships to use them as convoy escorts. In fact the Royal Navy has several ships that were arguably more powerful than the Bismark, including the King George, which sank the Bismark. The Japanese ships were never used in a traditional ship engagement, both were sunk by aircraft long before they got close to combat range of other ships. One of them, I think the Musashi, was even used as a massive Kamikaze weapon, intending to beach herself and keep fighting against the US invasion fleet. But it never made it to it's objective, having been sunk by US carrier aircraft well in advance.

Answer 5

Yamato.

Answer 6

Yamato had nine 18inch guns; Bismarck had eight 15inch guns.  Clearly, Yamato had much more firepower than Bismarck.

>Bismarck did not have the designation of HMS (His Majesty's Ship at the time); that belongs to warships of the British Royal Navy.  In terms of speed, Bismarck was only marginally faster than Yamato, but did have better fire control systems; Bismarck's gunnery would have been more accurate, but Yamato's firepower would have won out in the end.

>Yamato's last cruise was intended as a kamikaze mission, to be beached at Okinawa and bombard the American forces there.

Answer 7

H.M.S. Bismarck.

Yes, the Yamato was larger and had bigger guns, but was as slow as molasses. The Bismarck could have run rings around it.