was the second of two dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Launched in 1915 and commissioned in 1917, she initially patrolled off the coast of China, playing no part in World War I. In 1923, she assisted survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake. Yamashiro was modernized between 1930 and 1935, with improvements to her armor and machinery and a rebuilt superstructure in the pagoda mast style. Nevertheless, with only 14-inch guns, she was outclassed by other Japanese battleships at the beginning of World War II, and played auxiliary roles for most of the war. By 1944, though, she was forced into front-line duty, serving as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Shōji Nishimura's Southern Force at the Battle of Surigao Strait, the southernmost action of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. During fierce night fighting in the early hours of 25 October against a superior American and Australian force, Yamashiro was sunk by torpedoes and naval gunfire. Nishimura went down with his ship, and only 10 crewmembers survived. Description The ship had a length of between perpendiculars and overall. She had a beam of and a draft of . Yamashiro displaced at standard load and at full load. Her crew consisted of 1,198 officers and enlisted men in 1915 and about 1,400 in 1935. During the ship's modernization during 1930–35, her forward superstructure was enlarged with multiple platforms added to her tripod foremast. Her rear superstructure was rebuilt to accommodate mounts for anti-aircraft (AA) guns and additional fire-control directors. Yamashiro was also given torpedo bulges to improve her underwater protection and to compensate for the weight of the additional armor. In addition, her stern was lengthened by . These changes increased her overall length to , her beam to and her draft to . Her displacement increased nearly to at deep load. Propulsion The ship had two sets of Brown-Curtis direct-drive steam turbines, each of which drove two propeller shafts. The turbines were designed to produce a total of , using steam provided by 24 Miyahara-type water-tube boilers, each of which consumed a mixture of coal and oil. Yamashiro had a stowage capacity of of coal and of fuel oil, giving her a range of at a speed of . The ship exceeded her designed speed of during her sea trials, reaching at . During her modernization, the Miyahara boilers were replaced by six new Kanpon oil-fired boilers fitted in the