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Product Description
The 51 cm/45 Type 98 gun was a massive naval weapon designed in the late 1930s by the Imperial Japanese Navy. Due to the destruction of the majority of official documents at the end of the war, information on such projects is scarce at best, however it seems that two such guns and one mount were ordered from Kure Navy Yard in 1941. They were partially assembled but no further work took place due to the war. The fate of these guns is unknown, they were likely destroyed before the armistice was signed. There is a possibility that the guns were of a different calibre than that suggested by the name, as the Japanese did with the 46 cm (called the 40 cm/45 Type 94 to disguise their actual size), however this is a remote possibility to consider given the 51 cm (20'') calibre is the practical upper limit of gun size that can be reloaded within time frames not measured in rounds per minute or rounds per hour; therefore a larger calibre is unlikely by how unwieldy it would have been, and one of the reasons no larger gun was ever seriously considered by any naval power. (Source: NavWeaps)