was the lead ship of her class of two dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the 1910s. Although completed in 1917, she played no role in World War I. Ise supported Japanese forces in the early 1920s during the Siberian Intervention in the Russian Civil War. In 1923, she assisted survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake. The ship was partially modernised in two stages in 1928–1929 and 1931–1932, during which her forward superstructure was rebuilt in the pagoda mast style. Ise was reconstructed in 1934–1937, with improvements to her armour and her propulsion machinery. Afterwards she played a minor role in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Despite the expensive reconstruction, the ship was considered obsolete by the eve of the Pacific War, and did not see significant action in the early years of the war. Following the loss of most of the IJN's large aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, she was rebuilt with a flight deck replacing the rear pair of gun turrets to give her the ability to operate an air group of floatplanes; lack of aircraft and qualified pilots meant that Ise never actually operated her aircraft in combat. She participated in the Battle off Cape Engaño in late 1944, where she was one of the ships that decoyed the American carrier fleet supporting the invasion of Leyte away from the landing beaches. Afterwards the ship was transferred to Southeast Asia. In early 1945 Ise participated in Operation Kita, where she transported petrol and other strategic materials to Japan. The ship was then reduced to reserve until American airstrikes in July sank her. After the war Ise was scrapped in 1946–1947. Design and description The Ise class was designed as an improved version of the preceding . The ships had a length of overall, a beam of and a draught of at deep load. They displaced at standard load and at deep load, roughly more than the earlier ships. Their crew consisted of 1,360 officers and ratings. During the ships' modernisation in the 1930s, their forward superstructure was enlarged with multiple platforms added to their tripod masts to create a pagoda mast. Both ships were also given torpedo bulges to improve their underwater protection and to compensate for the weight of the extra armour. These changes increased their overall length to , their beam to and their draught to . Their