Through the Spy Glass: Musashi

Another humongous monster has recently joined the lineup of warships in our Legendary waters. Meet Musashi, Yamato’s famous sister ship and our newest campaign reward! 

One of the two biggest battleships ever built, Musashi was a formidable creation commissioned in 1942. The Yamato class was to comprise as many as five ships, and three were completed. The third was converted from a battleship hull into aircraft carrier and support ship Shinano and sunk in 1944 as a result of an American submarine attack. Shinano became the largest ship in history to be sunk by a submarine. Musashi was part of Takeo Kurita's fleet, but he won’t be our pick to aid the behemoth. Read on to find out what Commander build we suggest for the ship!
A lot of events involving the Japanese higher-ups revolved around Musashi: Emperor Hirohito himself visited the ship with his staff, and she was used to transport the remains of Admiral Yamamoto to Japan, among other notable events. However, despite her size and might, Musashi did not manage to alter the course of the war in the Pacific theater. The end of her warpath came during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, when she suffered numerous bomb and torpedo hits from American aircraft and swiftly sank.  

Just like Yamato, our warrior follows a very simple code—crush your opponents with untamed firepower. Bringing the largest caliber in the game—460 mm (18 in)—means that you can outmatch virtually all extremities of other warships you encounter. These great out-of-the-box stats, paired with an HP pool and torpedo protection that’s among the best in the game, are just begging for further improvements. Beware though—having such powerful guns and a solid hull is guaranteed to come with drawbacks, as Musashi falls behind the competition in terms of speed, maneuverability, anti-air defenses, and concealment. She is also about 10% less accurate than her sister ship Yamato.

Takeo Takagi, in our books, provides the adequate skills to sharpen Musashi's weapons. His Phoenix base trait will improve the amount of HP restored by the Repair Party. Then, you may pick:

• No-Fly Zone to dissuade and fight back enemy carriers, as Musashi comes with very limited AA defenses.
• Gyrating Drillbits to further increase the damage of its crushing salvoes at the cost of some speed.
• Marksmanship to compensate for an average accuracy.
• Reaching Out XXL for hitting distant targets.
• And finally—Fight Fire with Fire—because the bigger they are, the harder they burn, and in this case, we're going to be quite big and need to limit that burning. 

As for Inspiration, this time, we got inspired (pun intended) to share our picks:

• Angelo Iachino's Go Away, giving extra precision against all types except carriers.
• Paolo di Revel's Time Is of the Essence—who doesn't like their guns to reload faster?

Go big, sharpen your sword, and turn the tide!