Slashdot Mirror
Paul Allen Helps Find Sunken Japanese WWII Battleship Musashi Off Philippines
mpicpp writes with news about the discovery of a sunken Japanese battleship by Paul Allen and a team of researchers. Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen and his research team have found a massive Japanese World War II battleship off the Philippines near where it sank more than 70 years ago, his representatives said Wednesday. The apparent discovery of the wreckage of the Musashi, one of the largest battleships in history, comes as the world marks the 70th anniversary of the war's end. Allen and the team aboard his superyacht M/Y Octopus found the ship on Sunday, more than eight years after their search began, Allen's publicity agency Edelman said in a statement. Detailed images captured by a high-definition camera mounted on the underwater probe confirmed the wreckage as that of the Musashi, it said. Japanese experts said they were eager to study the images to try to confirm the ship's identity. Allen's team found the battleship in the Sibuyan Sea, using an autonomous underwater vehicle in its third dive after narrowing down the search area using detailed undersea topographical data and other locator devices, the statement said. "The Musashi is truly an engineering marvel and as an engineer at heart, I have a deep appreciation for the technology and effort that went into its construction," Allen said.
Discuss.
There was always that off beat chance the battleship is hiding in some isolated bay, continuing the war, not knowing the war had ended, like some soldiers of the Imperial Army in that part of the world. . This discovery will put many people at ease.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
... a Microsoft executive discovered something.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
According to at least one expert interviewed by Japanese public broadcaster NHK:
"Judging from the location, it must be the Musashi," the head of a private museum specializing in the battleship Yamato, Musashi's sister vessel, said the details in the images matched those of the Musashi, which was the only battleship that sank in the area.
If anything, I'm surprised it took this long to find it. I don't think the water is unusually deep there, or at least, not in comparison to other famous sunken ships.
Ah... the Yamato-class. Largest battleships ever built, but largely obsolete before they ever went out to sea.
For those unfamiliar with the history of the class, the Yamato-class vessels were Japan's final generation of large battleships, which entered service from 1941 onwards. Their 18-inch guns were the largest to be mounted on any battleship during WW2. Four ships were commissioned, but only two - Yamato and Musashi - were completed as battleships. A third, the Shinano, was converted into a carrier, while the fourth was cancelled.
The two ships that were completed as battleships (Yamato in particular) were of immense symbolic value in Japan during WW2. In addition to this, they consumed vast quantities of fuel and required specialised ammunition that was rarely available in sufficient quantities. For the above reasons, both Yamato and Musashi were held back from the major Pacific Theatre battles until late 1944 (by which time it was probably too late for them to have any impact anyway).
They were, in essence, the best WW1 warships ever made... except that they were deployed during WW2. The age of the dreadnought-style battleship was on its way out by this point and the era of aircraft carrier dominance had begun. Even if Musashi and Yamato had been deployed for key battles such as Midway and Guadalcanal, it's unlilkely they would have made much difference.
But they are, nevertheless, spectacular ships. In visual terms, they epitomize the classic battleship profile - long, low and dangerous, with very large guns. Their symbolic value has lasted long beyond the war; the Yamato remains something of a national symbol (albeit a controversial one, with links to the far-right) in Japan and has lived on in popular culture through the sci-fi franchise Space Battleship Yamato (adapted as Starblazers in the US).
And as for the specifics of this story; there's not much detail given, but I suspect that the challenge was not so much finding the wreck as conclusively identifying it. There are no shortage of Japanese WW2 wrecks in that part of the Pacific; the problem is sorting out which is which in the face of scant records.
Ironic because it was probably did in by a BSOD
Table-ized A.I.
The Philippines should float it, renew the 18" barrels, add a few missle tubes, and move it to about 10-20 miles from some of China's islands under adverse possession and fill it with concrete.
Billionaires play Battleship with real battleships.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Why look for a destroyed death machine, just why? Surely there must be far more interesting and intellectually challenging stuff to search, like the lost civilisation of Atlantis supposedly an ice age civilisation wiped out by major global warming at the end of the last ice age. At least the water will be shallower on a couple of hundred metres or though there will be many metres of mud to deal with and the scattering from the tidal surf zone sure wont help matters much. Much more cross discipline and fun and a lot more people could play and discover.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Mr. Allen's publicity machine sure is running in high gear - this piece of news seems to be everywhere, as though it were the second coming of Christ. It's a nice historical discovery, but nothing earth-shattering. It might allow historians to tidy up one or two details, but that's about it. Much ado about nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kantai_Collection
I knew that you could. That's what this stuff is really about. The obscenely expensive yacht
Allen owns can be claimed as a business expense.
Allen is generally a pretentious douche who looks after himself and does little or nothing
which actually benefits the world. If you think what Microsoft brought the world is a benefit,
you would probably believe Hitler was a humanitarian.
What, did someone move it after it sank?
They did it with the Yamato:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9fUryAT8Sw
The 2010 live action reboot soundtrack was pretty badass:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2DEvTKWyfg
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
The real reason he did the survey was to look for the wreckage of a Nazi sub carrying slightly denser than normal gold,,,
Why is this interesting news? It is not like WWII happened thousands of years ago and not much known about it and that suddenly a mysterious ship was discovered that everyone has talked about yet never seen. *Everything* about WWII is known and recorded in archives somewhere. I am sure details of these Japanese warships, their design and where they sank is all available in some archive somewhere in Japan.
I read somewhere that the Yamato went out with only enough fuel in it to go somewhere, not come back (though logically it could have gone somewhere half as far and come back fine...). Did this sister-ship get arraigned for a similar trip?
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
...we wouldn't have gotten Space Battleship Yamato, one of the most epic stories ever written.
If one wants to understand the Japanese mentality, they can start with Space Battleship Yamato. The mixture of violence, romance, war, and the fact that the heros of the show would rather die than surrender to aliens, are some important aspects of the Japanese culture.
Finding it was nothing. Elon Musk is the real hero - he was the one who sank it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Tech guy finds sunken WW2 ship near the Philippines? Sounds familiar.. :)
Betcha that thing is stuffed full of Mirakuru
This seems way too similar to Cryptonomicon. Is there Nazi gold on that thing?
saraba chikyuu yo
tabidatsu fune wa
Uchuuu Senkannnnn Muuuuu Saaaa Shiiiiiiiii!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
There were only two battleship-on-battleship engagements in the Pacific, and neither Yamato nor Musashi were involved. However, Yamato did put its big guns on an escort carrier - the USS Gambier Bay, which sank shortly thereafter.
Fuck all y'all.
Come on Slashdot, isn't it time to edit this "first post" thread down to the bottom of the page?
"The Musashi is truly an engineering marvel and as an engineer at heart, I have a deep appreciation for the technology and effort that went into its construction," Allen said.
I do, too, but I have a deeper appreciation for the technology and effort that went into its destruction.
To those few of you left that served, I offer my sincerest thanks. You are truly deserving of being called 'The Greatest Generation".
When Yamato and Bismarck sank the turrets fell out. I wonder if the ship settled evenly. I've only seen isolated pictures of Musahi's hull so far... a 25 MM guntub, anchor, catapult.....is the superstructure intact. It did not suffer a catastrophic magazine explosion like yamato.
.
...that it's not actually the Yamato? What are they doing with it down there?
Jobs produced duds also: Lisa, Next, "Cube" Mac, round mouse, 1-button mouse, Apple-TV. The potential problem I see is that Apple may be afraid to gamble because if they fail with a product, then everyone will panic and say they "lost their edge when Jobs died".
It's not that they cannot find innovators, it's that they don't have enough margin to gamble due to expectations.
They should tell investors outright: "We have to gamble and have to fail to move forward. Jobs made mistakes, and we'll probably also make mistakes, perhaps even more while we are learning lessons it took Steve a lifetime to learn, but gambling is necessary to Apple's future. There will be duds."
Table-ized A.I.
8===D~~~, 8===D~~~, 8===D~~~. I want my 8===D~~~.