Would it be a correct statement to say that in a battleship vs battleship engagement, the Yamato's would simply annihilate any other battleship in history with ease?
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A website called The National Interest did a nice piece about this question and they had Yamato slug it out with the Bismarck and Tirpitz, here is a piece of it:
As the clouds of war gather, Bismarck, Tirpitz, and a collection of smaller vessels (two heavy cruisers, six destroyers) abandon Tsingtao for the German naval base at Truk. With Kido Butai (the Japanese carrier force) engaged elsewhere, the Imperial Japanese Navy assigns HIJMS Yamato and HIJMS Musashi (with a similarly constituted support group) the task of catching and destroying the German ships.
The German squadron has a three-knot speed advantage, which it uses to try to pull away from the Japanese and avoid the engagement. However, the Japanese have a clear geographic advantage; the existence of relatively close bases means that they can station squadrons of older, smaller ships along potential channels of exit. Rather than fight with a collection of older battleships led by HIJMS Nagato, Admiral Lutjens decides to try his luck with the cream of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lutjens wants to engage before dark, when he knows that the Japanese will have a significant tactical advantage, despite German radar.
The Germans open fire first, when it becomes apparent that they cannot escape the fight. Lutjens decides to attack before Japanese cruisers and destroyers can close into torpedo range; German intelligence is well-apprised of the capabilities of the Type 93 torpedo, designed to destroy and disable capital ships at a distance. Bismarck opens fire on Yamato and Tirpitz on Musashi, with Bismarck scoring an early hit on the Japanese flagship.
Before long, the Japanese begin to reply with their 18.1” guns. Both the Germans and the Japanese have excellent fire control, but the contest is unequal. The fifteen-inch guns of Bismarck and Tirpitz fire at a greater rate than the Japanese guns, but even when they hit, they do relatively little damage to the vitals of the Japanese ships (although they extensively scar the upper works). By contrast, the 18.1” hits begin to do serious damage immediately, plunging into the German ships at great range. Large and with effective subdivisions, neither German ship suffers lethal damage. However, before long both Bismarck and Tirpitz begin to lose speed, cutting off any chance of escape.
The battle between the smaller ships also begins to go the Japanese way. After a flurry of shellfire on both sides, the Japanese ships open up at range with their twenty-four-inch “Long Lance” torpedoes. Three German ships suffer hits, with a cruiser and a destroyer shearing out of line. Japanese gunfire slows the rest of the line, allowing several of the IJN’s support squadron to detach themselves and concentrate on the German battleships.
Increasingly accurate Japanese fire devastates the upper works of the German ships. With their speed advantage gone, the Germans find themselves in a slugging match with far larger, more heavily armored opponents. The Japanese advantages soon tell, and fire from both German ships becomes sporadic and inaccurate. The destroyers Yukikaze and Isokaze brave the secondary armament of the two German behemoths to close within torpedo distance, hitting both targets.
At this point, the situation becomes academic. The German ships lose the capacity to meaningfully engage the Japanese, and are subjected to withering fire from the battleships. Yamato and Musashi (both of which have suffered significant damage to their upper works and secondary armaments) close to point blank range. The remaining Japanese cruisers and destroyers, having disposed of their German counterparts, open up with their own guns and fire their remaining torpedoes. Still, both German battleships remain shockingly resistant to the damage inflicted by the IJN.
Two hours into the engagement, an explosion rocks Tirpitz; the crippled battleship soon capsizes and sinks. The Japanese concentrate their fire on Bismarck, which has slowed to a stop and ceased firing. An eagle eyed Japanese sailor onboard Yamato sees a German officer strike the ships colors, and miraculously, the order goes out across the fleet to cease firing. A boarding party from Yukikaze embarks upon the crippled German ship, followed by damage control parties from the rest of the Japanese squadron.
With the assistance of the surrendered German crew, the Japanese manage to get the fires and flooding under control. Yamato takes Bismarck under tow until tugs arrive. Although officially taken into IJN service, Bismarck never returns to combat status; the expense and difficulty of refit prove too much for the Japanese. Most of her crew survives the war, however.
Wrap
Although large and capable of absorbing enormous battle damage, Bismarck and Tirpitz simply did not compare favorably with any other navy’s fast battleships. Yamato and Musashi, the largest and most powerfully built ships in history (although perhaps at some disadvantage relative to the American Iowas) utterly outclassed the German ships, and would have defeated them easily.
More importantly, the imperial ambitions of Kaiserine Germany are worth remembering. Both US and Japanese policy in the Pacific in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (particularly the U.S. seizure of the Philippines) kept German regional ambitions firmly in mind. Japan entered the Great War against the Central Powers as a coalition partner; if the coalition had broken up, Tokyo might still have found reason to quarrel with Berlin.
The American Iowa class battleships are severely outclassed in armor and firepower by the Yamato's. The Yamato's turret armor and conning tower were entirely impervious to the 16 inch guns of the Iowas. And i'd imagine the 16 inch guns would have trouble penetrating anywhere on the Japanese ship, the belt armor was 410mm thick, making it nearly immune to the 16 inch guns. While the 18 inch guns of the Yamato wouldn't have too much trouble going through even the thicker parts of the Iowa. The Only advantages the Iowa has is speed and better radar.
Yamato would be anihilated before it would come in sight of any American battleship, due to their superior fire control systems coupled with radars
So you can hit the Yamato first before they hit you. What do you think happens then? They laugh at you because 16 inch guns cannot penetrate the 26 inch thick turret armor of the Yamato. Nor can they penetrate its Conning tower, or even the Belt armor for that matter, and even the deck is 8 inches thick, making it resistant to long range plunging fire. This may be an exaggeration, but I wouldn't be surprised if it would take at least 4 US battleships to out muscle a single Yamato class.Yamato would be anihilated before it would come in sight of any American battleship, due to their superior fire control systems coupled with radars
I think you overrate Yamato's armor. She was destroyed with airplane bombs IRL, I don't think 16" AP shells were less destructive.
I am not sure where you are getting your numbers from. A cursory glance of wikipedia suggests that the Belt armour of Yamato was 410mm at the waterline which could be penetrated at 15,000 yards (about 14km) by the British 14" gun of the KGV class. That is already at the edge of visual range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato-class_battleship#Armour Maybe you should have looked harder. Right there in the armor section "The armour on the main-turrets surpassed even that of the main-belt, with turret face plating 650 millimetres (26 in) thick.[6" Not to mention the 410mm belt of the Yamato was inclined, i.e. sloped. At that angle the effective armor has to be 500mm+. And no, British 14" guns will not be penetrating that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamat...File:Yamato-armorsheme-DE_-_magazines_cut.svg
That was cringeworthy.
Historically the side that started hitting first tended to win. In any case, I doubt Yamato had anywhere near the kind of immunity you ascribe to it, looking at penetration tables we seem to be at best talking about 10km immune zone, similar that Yamato was designed to have against her own guns.
And as far as penetration in general goes, at Tsushima Japanese scored the most decisive victory of the battleship age without penetrating much, if any, heavy armour plate. They whittled the Russians away with cumulative damage, fires and damage to less well protected and unprotected parts of the ship.
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There is no naval gun ever mounted on any ship that can penetrate the 26 inch thick turret armor or the 20 inch thick Conning Tower. Even the 410mm/16 inch belt armor would be resistant to any naval gun because its inclined/sloped/angled.
I'd be inclined to agree on the turret faces (wasn't there actually some kind of test on that?), but so what? If the director towers (not the heavily armoured conning tower) have been shot up, there is raging fire on decks obscuring every other optical sensor with copious smoke, the ship is down by the bows due to damage to the unarmoured bow section and is being slowed down due to wave action, and the crew has become demoralized due to receiving constant pummeling by the enemy without having been able to inflict appreciable damage in return, then what is the ship supposed to do? At that point is has been mission killed, it's not sinking but it's incapable of being an effective combatant.
For one or two hits, maybe. Consult with Bismarck's crew what happens when a ship is hit countlessly.
Thats a fair point, but when there is 18 inch guns firing back at the Americans and their 16 inch guns, id imagine in a mid range slug fest the America ships will be critically damaged long before the Yamato would be.
The US has vastly superior fire control. Those 18 inch guns are worthless if you arent going to hit anything.
How absurd. While the US ships did have world class radars...the Yamato had world class optics. In mid range it is more than capable of hitting its target.
You are just making up random non-facts now. The tests of the British 14inch gun were against deck armour which is sloped and the actual sloping makes limited difference. At 15k yards it would penetrate 452mm. More than enough to damage the ships structure and start disrupting its ability to operate as a ship.
So no, the Yamato would not annihilate any other ship in existence.
...and distance.
USS Iowa was faster than Yamato. She was able to keep distance out of sight range, while shelling back on the basis of radar coupled fire control system.
That's why it wouldn't develop into a midrange slugfest. The Iowa class ship would maintain range as best it could, using radar and superior fire control to score hits beyond the effective range of Yamato's own targeting systems. Unless Yamato scored a couple of lucky hits in return at those ranges, it would likely end up effectively disabled and badly torn up from bow to stern, although nowhere near to sinking, by the time the Iowa ran low on ammunition and withdrew.
I said the Japanese radar wasn't as good, not non existent. I doubt staying out of sight range was a viable tactic at the time, since It was almost never done by Battleships of the time period. When the HMS prince of wales caught up to the Bismark they eneded up getting to Point blank range for example.