Much-feared Japanese WWII battleship sunk by air attack

Musashi and her sistership Yamato were the most powerful battleships afloat. Designed in the late 1930s for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), they carried nine 18-inch main guns in three triple turrets. Expecting that the United States Navy would have superiority in the number of battleships, they were capable of engaging multiple battleships at the same time. They also carried 6-inch guns for other surface targets and multiple anti-aircraft guns. Sixteen-inch armor plating was installed along the waterline, with eight-inch armor plating on the main deck and armor plating up to 25 inches thick protecting the gun turrets. With four propellers, it had a maximum speed of over 27 knots and a cruising range of over 7,000 nautical miles. Musashi was commissioned in August 1942, missing the IJN assaults that characterized the initial period of World War II. While designed and built as an attack weapon, Musashi was largely sidelined. The IJN learned from its success in sinking HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse off Malaysia on 10 December 1941 by torpedo planes and bombers, when those powerful warships were left without air support. It was thus justifiably leery about risking its biggest battleships unless supported by aircraft carriers. Homeported in Truk, where it served as the flagship of the Combined Fleet, it sortied toward the Aleutians in May 1943 to repel an expected US Navy attack on Japanese-occupied Attu Island which never materialized. It sortied again in October 1943 to repel an expected US Navy attack on Wake Island, which also did not materialize. In March 1944 off Palau, Musashi was struck by a torpedo fired by a US submarine, causing significant damage and requiring shipyard work back in Japan. To oppose the American landings in the Philippines in October 1944, the IJN planned to lure the American aircraft carriers away and then have Musashi and other surface forces attack in troop ships in Leyte Gulf. The US Navy, able to decipher coded Japanese messages, did not take the bait. On 24 October 1944, US reconnaissance aircraft spotted Musashi. Torpedo planes and dive bombers attacked. While most torpedoes and bombs missed their target or were ineffective, enough struck home to first disable and then sink Musashi, with a loss of half its crew of over 2,000 sailors. In March 2015, the wreck of Musashi was discovered by a team of researchers funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Using a remotely-operated vehicle, they located the wreck in about 3,000 feet of water in the Sibuyan Sea.