page_title: Japanese battleship Musashi
section_title: Armament
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese battleship Musashi / Design and description / Armament
caption_attribution_description: English: Japanese Battleship Musashi taken from the bow (August 1942): Its Post-Treaty Battleship. Leadship Yamato laid down on 4 November 1937, and Musashi laid down on 29 March 1938. Displacement is 69,000 tons, main guns are 9 × 460 mm.日本語: 1938年3月に起工された戦艦武蔵（1942年8月の竣工後撮影）：無条約時代の新型大型戦艦は、1937年11月に1番艦大和が、次いで2番艦武蔵が建造された。排水量6万9000トン、46cm砲三連装砲塔3基装備。
context_page_description: Musashi, named after the former Japanese province, was one of three Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, beginning in the late 1930s. The Yamato-class ships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing almost 72,000 long tons fully loaded and armed with nine 46-centimetre main guns. Their secondary armament consisted of four 15.5-centimetre triple-gun turrets formerly used by the Mogami-class cruisers. They were equipped with six or seven floatplanes to conduct reconnaissance.
  Commissioned in mid-1942, Musashi was modified to serve as the flagship of the Combined Fleet, and spent the rest of the year working up. The ship was transferred to Truk in early 1943 and sortied several times that year with the fleet in unsuccessful searches for American forces. She was used to transfer forces and equipment between Japan and various occupied islands several times in 1944. Torpedoed in early 1944 by an American submarine, Musashi was forced to return to Japan for repairs, during which the navy greatly augmented her anti-aircraft armament.
context_section_description: Musashi's main battery consisted of nine 45-calibre 46-centimetre Type 94 guns mounted in three triple gun turrets, numbered from front to rear. The guns had a rate of fire of 1.5 to 2 rounds per minute. The ship's secondary battery consisted of twelve 60-calibre 15.5-centimetre 3rd Year Type guns mounted in four triple turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure and one on each side amidships. These had become available once the Mogami-class cruisers were rearmed with 20.3-centimetre (8.0 in) guns. Heavy anti-aircraft defence was provided by a dozen 40-calibre 127-millimetre (5 in) Type 89 dual-purpose guns in six twin turrets, three on each side of the superstructure. Musashi also carried thirty-six 25-millimetre (1 in) Type 96 light anti-aircraft (AA) guns in 12 triple-gun mounts, all mounted on the superstructure. The ship was also provided with two twin mounts for the licence-built 13.2-millimetre (0.52 in) Type 93 anti-aircraft machine guns, one on each side of the bridge.
  While the ship was under repair in April 1944, the two 15.5 cm wing turrets were removed and replaced with three triple 25 mm gun mounts each. A total of sixteen triple 25 mm mounts and twenty-five single mounts were added at that time, giving the ship a light AA armament of 115 guns.
caption: Musashi, August 1942, taken from the bow
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