Operation Ten-Go, Yamato and 9 other ships were sent towards Okinawa in a desperate attempt to engage and destroy (or at least casualties to) the american fleet there. Before the japanese force were anywhere near engaging US fleet they became under air attack. In resulting battle 10 american aircraft were shot down, killing 12 americans while japanese lost Yamato, light cruiser and 4 destroyers. Japanese lost roughly 4000 men. The operation also involved kamikaze attack by 115 aircraft out of which 100 were lost while no US ships were lost and only one carrier was moderately damaged. The only other time Yamato saw any real action was at Battle off Samar where it engaged 'Taffy 3', a group of american escort carriers and destroyer escorts. Japanese misidentified these ships to be american main fleet. Japanese forces were far superior and threatened to destroy american troop and supply ships but Kurita lost his nerve as the obsolete and inferior destroyers courageously fought back with air support and sank 3 cruisers. Had Kurita pushed forward he could have achieved a devastating blow to US invasion of Philippines. I suppose the japanese fell victim to the all too common "big ship" syndrome that has at various times plagued countless nations. When you build something truly epic and you cannot replace it you suddenly lose all nerve to put it in harms way. And that alone may end up you losing the whole war. Hence why it's usually better to focus on things you can replace (even theoretically) so there won't be such a threshold to using them for what they were made for. I thought I said that - no matter how many casualties they caused to US surface forces, no matter if they could fortify their islands with mechs, by end of "44 their fleet is crippled and by "45 they simply cannot operate beyond acting as local air defense. And like I said, with all of the allies turning on the last remaining Axis power in "45, even Soviets might have took part in actual fighting against japanese if they thought they could acquire strategic islands and a piece of japanese main islands. And if US was able to swamp japanese while fighting against Hitler and looking at ratio of industrial capacity of 16:1 in favor of US (not accounting the capacity of any of it's allies), it is obvious that Japan was fucked since the moment they invaded China. Some people would claim that US forced Japan to attack Pearl Harbor by setting up sanctions. To those people, check out Rape of Nanking and hundreds of other incidents like it. To those unfamiliar with how it was back then, basically while japanese forced approached Nanking the national radio broadcasted sports-event like updates on two competing officers on their total tally of decapitated enemies. Yes, it was a 'sport' contest to chop off heads from unarmed prisoners. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest_to_kill_100_people_using_a_sword It was also reported that japanese troops in case of Nanking 'picked up in the rate of advance' against chinese defenders as the soldiers were eager to conquer the city knowing that once they succeeded it would be "free for all" in the city, they could do as they please with the civilians and it wasn't just a day or two, it lasted for 6 weeks of torture, killing and repeated rape of civilians, not sparing any children. So yes, I'm fucking pissed at anyone who claims that american sanctions against Japan were 'cruel' or 'injust' or that Japan had the 'right' to invade and occupy China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal This was one major naval ship to ship engagement, ship to ship engagements occurred at nights over a period of 4 days. Leyte Gulf was a silly battle in which americans had crossed the T for japanese fleet but the japanese foolishly advanced in line and were destroyed piecemeal.
Kübelwagen could be american if you captured one during the war. You can make it float if you also capture a welding kit and patch it up.
Nazis did have a separate "batshit crazy nutty geheimen projekts" department. Sometimes it paid off but mostly it didn't. It's funny that Indiana Jones movies have credibility in that nazis did indeed send out teams after mythical objects. Instead of battling it out in zeppelins with american archaeologists, instead they were simply sneered at, they didn't find anything and there were no epic boss fights. Sometimes Hollywood indeed makes for better entertainment than proper history.
Btw, by end of WW1 US navy was going to build like 100 Battleships, they could afford it and it would have tipped the naval balance so that US could send a fraction of the fleet to take out rest of the world's navies. Instead someone had the idea that that money could be spent elsewhere and naval treaty was signed. Otherwise nice but the US shot themselves in the leg with it - it limited the size of US fleet and virtually all axis powers cheated on it. Much good it did them but still. On the other hand it was good that US seemed weak. It is a daunting prospect that US was isolationist and if Axis powers were fearful of US military - they weren't, to the extent that Hitler had the bright idea to declare war on US on gutt feel. US didn't want to join the fighting in Europe, they were largely of the disposition "let europeans kill each other".
