Yamato: The Giant That Couldn’t Save an Empire” The Japanese battleship Yamato was the largest and most heavily armed battleship ever built. Commissioned in 1941, she carried nine 460 mm (18.1-inch) guns, the biggest naval guns in history, designed to destroy any enemy ship before it could strike back. But Yamato was built for a kind of war that was already fading. As aircraft carriers replaced battleships as the dominant force at sea, Yamato spent much of World War II held back to avoid air att