One thing I notice however is that the start off claiming that it is the most advanced battleship ever and of course had the most powerful guns. This is not entirely true. The Iowa was built with its primary purpose to defeat the Yamato and it includes many advancments over the Yamato to accomplish this purpose. Here are some of the main (though not all) advantages the Iowa has over the Yamato:
1. Except at near point blank range (relative to battleships that is), it is immune to the Yamato's 18" guns, and was designed to be to be able to stand up in the fight.
2. The 16" guns of the Iowa are actually more powerful than that of the Yamato's 18", and they were designed to penetrate the Yamato's massive armor. They were of such high velocity that the standing rumor was everyopne would vaporise on the ship from the pressures when they were fired. This was not an unfounded rumor though because unlike other battleships where the guns could be fired without fear of hurting the ship, that is not the case with the Iowa's 16" guns. Fire them too close to anything, uncluding the deck of the ship and you will severely damage it from the pressures created.
3. The Iowa can dish out 3 to 1 in output fire due to a mostly automated loading of the main guns - something done manually on the Yamato.
4. The Iowa has a fire control radar system to get shells accurately on target every time all the time, and from a great distance. The Yamato uses an optical method of targetting and would require a ranging shot even on its first voley.
5. The Iowa was faster an more manuaverable than it's Japanese counterpart.
The only sad part is, the two ships never met in battle so we will never know if the American ship was engineered well enough to defeat what it was designed for, since in battle, the best laid plans always fail.
-S
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