The Yamato Trap: What Japan’s Mega-Battleships Should Teach Us About the Future of the U.S. Navy

February 10, 2026

by Michael Robbins, AUVSI President & CEO

In the late 1930s, Japan built two of the most formidable warships ever conceived. Yamato and Musashi were floating proof of industrial power and a theory of victory—giant, heavily armored battleships that could outgun any rival in decisive surface combat. But they were masterpieces built for a style of warfare that was already becoming obsolete.

I spoke at two important events recently – a hearing held by the National Commission on the Future of the U.S. Navy and at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy’s event on AI, Allies, and Maritime Warfighting – about the future of the U.S. Navy, shipbuilding, and autonomous maritime systems. At both events, I used the Yamato-class battleships as a cautionary tale that should instruct how the U.S. Navy approaches the future of shipbuilding.

The lesson is timeless: technological evolution can rapidly make even the most impressive platforms irrelevant. The rise of airpower and the aircraft carrier quickly rewrote the range equation, compressed the kill chain, and rendered battleships nearly obsolete. Heavy armor and big guns could not compensate for being out-ranged, out-scouted, and struck repeatedly by forces that no longer needed to close the distance with their own ships.

The Navy must learn from this lesson. It cannot focus solely on building the most impressive platforms based on today’s technology; it must build the most decisive fleet for the future battlespace. Low-cost, high-tech, asymmetric warfare capabilities can now challenge even the most exquisite ships and submarines. Maritime actors – powerful nation-states, rising powers, terrorists, pirates, or mercenaries – equipped with advanced technologies are now credible threats in any maritime environment.  From the USS Cole bombing to Ukraine’s effective employment of unmanned maritime drones against the Russian Black Sea fleet, tactics and technology iteration on the edge have been evolving for decades. The U.S. Navy’s responsiveness, with the long-lead time of traditional programs of record and extended construction delays, has struggled to keep pace.

That’s the Yamato trap the Navy faces today: concentrating combat power and national investment into a handful of platforms whose design and acquisition cycles are hindered by antiquated processes, inconsistent Congressional funding, shifting requirements, and shipyard delays. By the time new platforms are delivered, their relevance to the current battlespace is questionable at best.

This is not an argument against aircraft carriers, destroyers, or submarines. It is a case for a hybrid fleet with an aggressive mix of high-low systems that can team together to survive contact, sustain a campaign, and ultimately adapt faster than an adversary’s learning and building cycle. We must invest in immediate capacity to build, operate, and sustain a massive autonomous fleet to add desperately needed distributed mass and resiliency to the manned fleet’s order of battle.

Robots don’t bleed. Autonomous surface and subsurface platforms can push sensors forward without pushing sailors into the most dangerous operating environments. They can serve as decoys and deception assets that complicate enemy targeting, allowing crewed assets to move into ranges otherwise denied. They can create distributed “magazines” by carrying payloads and enabling fires in ways that do not require a crewed ship to be the point of vulnerability. Robot ships can perform high-risk missions, including mine countermeasures, contested ISR and logistics, chokepoint monitoring, at a tempo and scale that would otherwise be impractical given the lack of available crewed platforms, and sailors to undertake the missions. In short, autonomous maritime systems protect our sailors from harm, but they also extend our Navy’s operational reach at a time of increasing demands.

As we head into another important industry conference focused on the future of the U.S. Navy – USNI WEST – industry, Congress, and the U.S. Navy must move beyond talking points. We must fund, build, acquire, and field autonomous surface and subsurface systems at scale to integrate into our fleet. Prioritize scale and resilience. Plan for adaptability in design and production to allow for warfare agility as technology and tactics evolve. And most importantly, relentlessly demand speed from Navy decision makers and shipbuilders, and consistent funding from Congress.

Yamato and Musashi were powerful weapons of war delivered too late. They symbolize a failure to recognize that what seems decisive could soon become obsolete. The United States cannot afford to repeat that mistake with our future fleet.

Michael Robbins is the president & CEO of AUVSI, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to uncrewed systems, autonomy, and robotics. He is also an Officer in the United States Navy Reserve. This opinion editorial does not reflect the view of the United States Navy or the Department of War.