Navy submarine in early 1944 and was forced to return to Japan for repairs. While she sortied several times in 1943 in unsuccessful searches for American forces, she primarily was used to help transfer forces and equipment between Japan and various occupied islands.

The tide was turning for the IJN, which simply lacked the air cover to adequately protect her.

When she was commissioned in 1942, Musashi was modified to serve as the flagship of the Combined Fleet, but the IJN never fully utilized her or Yamato. Those were the most powerful guns ever installed on a battleship, and while these may have matched the United States Navy’s 16-inch 50-caliber Mark 7 guns at long ranges, in close-range engagement the penetration power of the Japanese guns was believed to be unsurpassed. These would prove to be the most heavily armored warships ever built, while each would also be armed with 46 cm (18.1-inch) naval rifle guns. Named after the former Japanese province of Musashi, she was one of three Yamato -class battleships constructed for the Imperial Japanese Navy beginning in the late 1930s. The efforts to find the wreck site had begun 11 years earlier and were based on four different sinking positions in the Sibuyan Sea, including both the “official” Japanese and U.S. Almost half of the Musashi‘s 2,399-man crew was lost. Allied forces sunk the Musashi on October 24, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, considered the largest naval battle of World War II and quite possibly the largest naval battle in history. The 73,000-ton (66,224 metric tons) Musashi and sister ship Yamato had been the largest battleships the world had ever known. Japanese naval historian Kazushige Todaka confirmed its identification. Octopus, at a depth of approximately 3,280 feet (one kilometer) in Philippine waters.

The sister ship of the Yamato was discovered by Allen’s team aboard his motor yacht, the M.Y. Battleship Musashi – The Yamato’s Sister Ship Met a Similar Fate – In March 2015, following years of meticulous historical research and seafloor terrain analysis, a team led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced that they had found one of the most impressive battleships ever built, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Musashi.

World of warship wiki musashi