My information is 19 torpedo hits and 17 bomb hits. Of course we don't know whether Musashi would have stayed afloat with just 18 of the torpedo hits, I suspect probably not. What happened in the Musashi sinking is that both flanks of the ship were targeted by torpedo bombers, so the large number of torpedo hits achieved counter flooding long enough to sustain the ship on an even keel while more torpedoes and bombs hit.Steve Crandell wrote: There is no proof of that. Musashi was hit by about 19 torpedoes. That doesn't mean it would take 19 torpedoes to sink Musashi. The aircraft are not going to stop attacking as long as the ship is still a target, even if it is in sinking condition, which in any case would be unknown to the attackers.
The Americans did learn from the experience with sinking Musashi and targeted just one side of the Yamato. That ship consequently was destroyed with far fewer hits as the overkill factor was reduced.The post war investigators suggested that it would take four topedoes on the same side of the ship to sink a Yamato class battleship.
Well Bismarck took three torpedo hits from the Swordfish, one torpedo hit from Norfolk and one torpedo hit from Rodney and remained afloat in the face of all the shellfire damage on 27 May. Thats five torpedoes before Dorseshire put in the final two torpedo hits and Bismarck's crew opened the sea valves to scuttle.I can't recall any instance where a battleships survived more than a very few hits and survived. Can you?
Tirpitz took some colossal underwater mine explosions and stayed afloat. And on the Channel Dash Scharnhorst survived two mine hits in succession and survived..