Yamato vs Iowa - WW2 Battleship League Grand Final - Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts

Hello and welcome to the final matchup of the WW2 Battleship League! In this epic showdown, we have the Yamato, the pride of the Japanese fleet and one of the largest and most heavily armed battleships in history, facing off against the Iowa class battleship from the United States.
These two ships are some of the most iconic and powerful battleships of World War 2, and we've worked with naval historian Drachinifel to ensure that they are as historically accurate as possible in our game. Join us as we see how the Yamato, with its massive guns and thick armor, fares against the impressive firepower and speed of the Iowa. Who will emerge as the ultimate champion of the WW2 Battleship League?
Don't miss this thrilling final battle between two of the greatest battleships of all time!

[@micuu1]

I'd love to see a Division '0' next, where Yamato joins ships that were never completed like Montana, Lion and Sovetsky Soyuz in their (theortical) late 40's fit.

[@cathyharrop3348]

Osprey publishing just put out a New Vanguard series book on the "Super-Battleships of World War II" by Mark Stille. Montana, Lion, H-class, A-150, as Sovetsky Soyuz (Soviet Union ). Fun read and looks like a good reference.

[@jaymorrison2419]

Agreed.

[@Shimpriv]

Yes. Most of them were either laid down and scrapped because of the war or at least already in the pipeline

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

I'd rather see a WWI Battleship League. With WWII spec Kongo (the worst ship in the WWII league) as the final boss. Div 4 is Von der Tann, Invincible, Karwachi, South Carolina, Dreadnought, Nassau, Espana, Minas Geraes, Rivadavia Div 3 is Agincourt, Wyoming, Kaiser, Moltke/Seydlitz, Courbet, Gangnut, Dante Alighieri, Courageous Div 2 is Tiger, Kongo, Iron Duke, Texas, Nevada, Derfflinger, Konig, Andrea Doria, Bretagne, Almirante Latorre Div 1 is Tennessee, Renown, Queen Elizabeth, R-Class, Bayern, Fuso/Ise

[@cathyharrop3348]

@@Atlasworkinprogress I wonder if you can even model Agincourt with UAD.

[@gargravarr2]

1. USS Iowa - 2 points - 3/3 played 2. Yamato - 1.75 points - 4/4 played 3. USS NorthSouth CaroDako - 1.33 points - 3/3 played 4. Bismarck - 0.5 points - 4/4 played 5. HMS Vanguard - 0 points - 4/4 played Congrats to USS Iowa for winning this year-long league, and thanks to BrotherMunro and Drachinifel for all their hard work!

[@randaldavis8976]

Let Drach design a battleship with the same budget as Iowa and do a best of 5. Millie wan'ts to play too.

[@cathyharrop3348]

Thanks for powering through this division in one go. It was fun watching, but it hurts that the big guns are so nerfed.

[@totalwar1793]

Ikr :(

[@richardeastman9846]

Four sisters Iowa BB61, New Jersey BB62, Missouri BB63, Wisconsin BB64. Thanks for another great show, Brother Munro.

[@colinwalker6804]

I’m Team Iowa for the win!

[@Niels_Larsen]

Thank you, and to Drach, for this great series. It has been very enjoyable, even with AI shenanigans. If a series like this, comes around again, like a cruiser or pre Dreadnought division. I have two points of evaluations. 1. Most of the ships had a crew complement far below what they should have (often below half). The crew quarters dictate that, just to be aware of when you build them. 2. To the best of your abilities try to replicate the ships accuracy figures. The examples: in the last division both KGV and Richelieu got heavy accuracy penalties because of their turrets, and in this division Yamato for her big guns. That's just how the game works, but it could be compensated with, as you have suggested, better trained crew. Otherwise no complaints. You made some really good replicas, the amount of work you have put into this project is no less than admirable and inspiring. So once again thank you.

[@dougjb7848]

However, if you upskill the crew to improve gun accuracy, you’re also giving them advantage in damage control etc.

[@deanoliv2880]

Wish the ai responded more to the loss of angle on the turrets. Good video though!

[@RememberReach777]

Time to do a run with the Alaska. See how far it would get in each division.

[@ToddLawrence23]

We know that Vanguard won the league.

[@richgweil]

it's not a Battleship League fight without a ram. :)

[@peternicks7049]

I'm a mite worried bout the apparent battleship ram.

[@basilfox8316]

As well as your noted issues with the game dealing with Yamato's big guns, some of Yamato stats were wrong, you gave it a 16inch belt where it had a 16.1inch belt (Musashi had a 16 inch belt) and it's conning tower was 19.7inches.

[@sappersniper]

Agree, and maybe some way to compensate for not being able to accurately armour Yamato's deck, from memory 25% of Yamato's deck was 9 inches and the rest was 8 inches so brother and drach choose 8 inches for it, maybe it would have been fairer to go 8.25 especially given that the game mechanics were hampering Yamato in other areas, and that most of the damage Yamato was receiving in all battles was at long range.

[@Faravid829]

This is roughly how I expected these fights to go

[@pilfit]

Despite some of the problems, game bugs and poor design choices and division placement on the SD and NC and the design mistakes on the Iowa that really annoyed me... the series was fun. Some thoughts. I think a part of the problem with the last 2 divisions comes down to not just the game bugs but the choice to focus on the pen stat in the ship design actually making those bugs worse. By giving many of the ships silly long guns to get there pen stat up to where they should be and the assumptions about armor quality and what those mean for the pen stats. I think this threw way to many of the other stats off and pushed the ships outside the intended game balance, leading to increased oddness. I have done similar real world builds and pitted the ships against eachother but instead used the equipment loadouts the ships had instead of focusing on the numbers. if a ship has 16in 50s that is what the ship gets, if it has super heavy shells, that is what it gets. sticking to that kind of design in my exsperence gives you results that are actually much closer to reality. In my game I was only ever able to beat Yamato with Iowa by either exploiting the AI or just getting lucky. Anyway, fun series and I hope you do something like this again... maybe when the game is in a slightly better state.

[@novatopaz9880]

Honestly, the biggest problem with the game atm, is due to the modularity of the ship , and the fact that shells don't go and damage compartments they don't hit, you have to focus on rate of fire to sink ships. Because a compartment does not start flooding until it's holed, and structural damage reaches a saturation point. Penetration just needs to be enough to damage your opponents. And guns bigger than 12-16 inches take such a huge rate of fire penalty that they generally aren't worth the price. Though, when they do hit, their one hit potential is the greatest of any gun.

[@Psychobolic77]

I know it wouldn't have affected the outcome, but it's worth pointing out that ramming ships like a Roman war galley wasn't exactly historical doctrine in engaging these historical builds. It was funny, though.

[@issacfoster1113]

No USS Drach vs Iowa?

[@cathyharrop3348]

The game doesn't let you fight civil wars. If some other country had the right hulls and towers you could pull it off. Maybe Spain or China.

[@glauberglousger6643]

I’d love to see some paper ships, and extrapolations of those (Super Vanguard with 4 triple 17.3? inch guns... conquerer or thunderer, can’t remember) (Super Alsace with 5 quad 16 inch, or 6 quad of whatever super duper fires (Standard class Speed and armor Georgia with 3 twin 20.9 inch guns Yamato with Nelson style 20 inch triple turret gun setup (actually a thing because of course it is) H-44 (would probably die easily, but turtleback) There’s tons of weird stuff from quad gun North Carolina’s, mini Yamato variants (50,000 tons and 8 18 inch guns, 2 triple and a dual) Indefatigable (probably going to sink) British Lion class prototypes, KGV, German plan Z class (O), Scharnhorst upgrades, and some ancient stuff too

[@martinpalmer6203]

Think the Rangefinder is really wrong on Yamato, fitting a Stereoscopic would make a huge difference

[@funpolice4416]

Wasn't "treaty fudge" exactly the kind of battleship that Yamato was designed to pulp or even 1v2? Great fight, even with the wacky game mechanics.

[@Lonewolf-dy5yb]

Not really Treaty Fudge. 16" Super Heavy shells were a bit more powerful than the average Treaty Era battleship. Moreso it would've been things like Richelieu, Littorio, and Bismarck that it was designed to wreck, and more specifically it was meant to 1v2 US Standards, which were what Japan had reference for when designing Yamato.

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

@@Lonewolf-dy5yb Treaty Fudge is a combination of the North Carolina and South Dakota Classes. Not of Treaty Battleships in general. Really, she should have played in Div 2 with the other "Treaty" ships like Bismarck, KGV, and Richelieu. But it seems like she would have dominated there. As for the original question, Yamato was built to take on 2 Standard Class US Dreadnoughts, not the NC/SD 2 on 1. She could probably 1 v 2 a pair of Colorado Class ships 1 V 3 she'd have trouble with the sheer amount of fire coming her way. She might have been able to 1 V 2 North Carolina and Washington stat wise, but that's unlikely with just how insanely good the North Carolina class's gunnery was. Soft factors make it hard for her to win that fight.

[@Joze1090]

Bruv: Yamato wants to come in close so I'm going to stay at range Also bruv: sails straight towards Yamato at best speed to broadside her 🤣🤣

[@Moon_Cricket_Stinks]

Would like to see King George V be in the mix. She had alot of armor for her size. Or Nelson :)

[@BrotherMunro]

Check the earlier divisions, both those ships are featured!

[@ag7898]

For shits and giggles... can we get Blue v. Blue? I.e. Treaty Fudge v Iowa?

[@BrotherMunro]

Sadly no the game doesn’t let countries fight themselves

[@christopherthompson759]

I enjoy playing Ultimate Admiral but the latest bugs on the 1.1.0 beta is making it completely unplayable. Instead of moving to the location you have selected they are now immediately moving to the nearest ports that you have at the end of 1 or 2 turns. I have been enjoying the added features on the beta and I know that bugs are to be expected but this has happened on 2 different campaigns for me. I have reported any obvious bugs that I have come across but will be taking a break from the game for at least a couple of days til this particular bug is sorted.

[@avancenajoseph1131]

It's funny the way this game have flooding vessels list one particular side and Yamato's counterflooding capability does not exist hence her guns fell silent.

[@Ethan-iv8fs]

Gonna be a rough fight for Yamato

[@dougjb7848]

20:50 lemme guess: AI steers Iowa straight in and Yammie obliterates her, forcing a tiebreak which Yammie wins because the AI will steer both ships straight at each other. 25:50 called second round correctly. 33:00 Iowa surprised me, not driving straight in.

[@mickclark9722]

Just a note on Iowa displacement 63000 tons. Iowa weight 45000 tons standard and 55 000 full load. Also Yamato fired a 3,200 pound shell, where Iowa fired a 2,600 pound shell. Why did Iowa have super heavy shell?

[@beware3586]

The 16" shell was very long. Compared to other 16" shells of other BB's the weight from the 50 caliber guns the Iowa fired were much heavier. This improved the sectional density by a drastic amount. At long ranges the Iowa actually had better penetration values than even Yamato.

[@greener2497]

"superheavy shell" is a type of shell, not because it's just heavy, it's super heavy compare to other shells of same size (nelson, nagato, older us 16in battleship..)

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

Watch the design video, they go into detail on why Iowa is 63000 tons in game.

[@mickclark9722]

Iowa also had a 12in belt, they gave it a 15in belt. Would this give it a advantage over Yamato. Maybe they could have given Yamato 20in belt, and 80,000 tons.

[@Atlasworkinprogress]

@@mickclark9722 They gave Iowa a 15 inch belt because it was equivalent to her steeply angled 12 inch belt.

[@glauberglousger6643]

Yamato definitely struggled more than she should have in this division, then again, having historically accurate guns would’ve guaranteed (apart from lucky hits) a win so...

[@Nariko96]

i am Team Yamato... no matter What...

[@mikewright9908]

How about a round where the ships just HE spam each other 🤷‍♂️

[@notknightbean]

Iowa winning I didn’t expect. I figured yammy with her bigger guns and thicker armor would take it.

[@robertserafini560]

big guns ain't everything

[@adamsmyth1156]

Yamato was built to fight 2 standards....historically the Yamato Hotel and Conference Center was a White Elephant.

[@BrotherMunro]

I think the big difference was speed, it let Iowa dictate the range of the engagement (assuming her captain kept Yamato at arms length)

[@greener2497]

the yamato is handicapped in this tournament, mainly because of the game mechanic fucking up the 18in guns, yamato stats are also worse than it should because of some weird game rules.

[@robertserafini560]

@@greener2497 the us ships are also crippled so it basically evens out

[@gregdurando3987]

North South Carodakotalina

[@UnicornGamingRX03]

Such a shame that UAD is still a bugged game and many things to improve unless a better naval game is available to replace it. Wanted more of a closer fight but the ship listing over on the wrong side where they are being shot at is such a robbery to the fighting vessel.

[@martinpalmer6203]

agree, especially since Yamato did have top tier flooding control.

[@scottygdaman]

the point being ,,, video game and not so great video game vs. its self ? apologies to the past. Would be fun to kind of be something historical...

[@_NoName_314]

enjoyed the series enjoyed the bug reports didn't enjoy the bugs 😂 btw turtleback ships agains each other with the biggest guns possible to see if they all do only 1 damage per hit

[@dougjb7848]

32:10 every 16” shell Iowa fires should be going straight through Yammie’s main belt (and perhaps out thru the deck).

[@carlosmarquez5901]

Montana would wreck all of them, specially Lion, not Fair