The armor picture is from the U.S. Naval Museum. This is from the upper front right corner of a WWII Japanese Yamato Class battleship's main 18" turret. Not from the Yamato itself. The Yamato and Musashi were the largest battleships ever built. The section in the picture may be from the Shinano. It was scheduled to be the third battleship in the class, but after losing 4 aircraft carriers at Midway, it was converted to an aircraft carrier. They had 18" main guns, larger than the 16" Iowa main guns. This 26" thick section of armor plate for the Yamato class battleships was found at the Kure Naval Base in Japan after the end of WWII and brought back to the US for testing. The damage is the result of a 16" US armor piercing naval shell during ballistic testing at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgreen, VA.
USS Missouri, but still a cool picture of horsepower.
The USS Iowa launched in August 1942 at a cost of $100 million and decommissioned in 1958 and mothballed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. As part of Reagan's 600 ship navy, the Iowa was recommissioned for $500 million in 1984 and served until 1990 when the collapse of the soviet union made the defense budget smaller. Oh, and the explosion in the Number 2 turret.
