The U.S. Navy’s Iowa-class and Japan’s Yamato-class embodied different answers to the same problem: survive enemy gunfire ...

Although battleships were supplanted by aircraft carriers by the end of World War II, they remain a testament to a bygone era of warfare—and a symbol of their nations’ might.

The largest ever mounted on a warship, each gun could fire 3,200-pound (1,460 kg) shells over 26 miles (42 kilometers).