[GALLERY] Japan's ambition for the largest "super battleship" in history.

IJN Zipang – the 500,000-ton super battleship that Japan envisioned before World War I – is considered one of the most ambitious warship designs in history.

Just before the outbreak of World War I, a visionary Japanese naval officer proposed plans for what could become the largest battleship ever built. Called the Zipang, this super-battleship was envisioned to have a displacement of up to 500,000 tons – far exceeding any ship that had appeared then or since.

Because it was probably unheard of, it's no surprise that the idea was quickly dismissed. But the concept itself was both strange and fascinating. IJN Zipang was conceived as an entire fleet in one ship.

The brainchild of Navy Lieutenant Commander Hidetaro Kaneda, IJN Zipang went down in history as one of the most ambitious ships ever conceived. With a displacement of half a million tons, the ship was designed to possess firepower equivalent to an entire fleet in a single battleship.

To put it into perspective, at that time, an average battleship weighed only about 25,000–30,000 tons. It would also far exceed the famous Japanese Yamato-class super-battleships, which had a displacement of around 72,000 tons.

That means Zipang would be about seven times larger than Yamato in terms of weight. If it had ever been built, it would have even predated Yamato by several decades. According to the design, the ship would have been up to 295 feet (90 meters) wide and over 2,000 feet (609 meters) long. For comparison, the largest warship ever built, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was only 1,122 feet (342 meters) long.

However, these specifications were not arbitrary. Kaneda argued that the enormous width was necessary for the ship to maintain stability in the Pacific Ocean. 295 feet (90 meters) also happened to be the average wavelength of ocean waves in that area. But size was only the beginning of the story. Such a large hull could theoretically allow the Zipang to carry more than 100 heavy guns, with potential calibers up to 20 inches (51 cm).

The ship was also envisioned to be highly maneuverable, with a potential top speed of 42 knots – an extremely ambitious design. Japan wasn't the only country dreaming of giant warships. Most famously, the United Kingdom had the ambition of the colossal aircraft carrier HMS Habakkuk.

Measuring approximately 1,969 feet (600 meters) in length, this colossal ship was envisioned to be constructed from a mixture of wood pulp and ice called "pykrete." The project was ultimately abandoned, but the idea was to create an "unsinkable" vessel to counter German submarines in the Atlantic theater of war.

The first thing to note is that the IJN Zipang was never a serious proposal by Kaneda, but rather more of a "thinking experiment." He hypothesized that Japan should focus its limited resources on a smaller number of larger, more powerful ships instead of many smaller, weaker ones. In that sense, the IJN Zipang was the ultimate conclusion of this line of thinking.

Today, that idea might sound crazy, but you need to put yourself in the mindset of the naval designers of that era. Before the era of aircraft carriers, dreadnoughts – later battleships – were the centerpiece of any major navy. With their massive guns and thick armor, whoever owned the largest ship theoretically controlled the seas best.

Ultimately, fate decreed that it would remain merely a "thought experiment," but the IJN Zipang is still one of the most intriguing warship concepts ever conceived. A 500,000-ton vessel like that would have required the world's largest dry dock at the time. It would also have demanded enormous cranes, massive steel production capacity, and a commensurate transportation system.

Military Times, JPX

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