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The Fuso class was a battleship of the IJN , designed before the WW1.Their 14-inch (356 mm) main gun turrets were placed in an unorthodox 2-1-1-2 style (The Yamashiro having her third turret reversed when compared to the Fuso ) and with a funnel separating the middle turret placement. This placement was not entirely successful as the armoured section was needlessly lengthened and the middle guns had trouble targeting. However, Fusō's relatively fine hull form allowed her to obtain a speed of 23 knots (43 km/h) as completed.

Between the wars, Fuso and Yamashiro received major modifications, in common with all of the Japanese battleships in service. Fuso was lengthened by an additional 25 feet (7.6 m), the twin funnels trunked together, the original 24 mixed-firing boilers replaced by six new oil-fired Kampon boilers and the ships' control tops dramatically added to produce the characteristic pagoda foremast which typified Japanese ships of the period. Armour protection was both increased in quantity and improved in quality on both ships, especially over the machinery spaces and below the waterline, a response to British capital ships' experiences against torpedoes . The improvements included heavier armour belting over the midships machinery spaces, made possible by the opening out of these areas when the original boilers were replaced, and the addition of a torpedo bulge. The Fusos were capable of 25.4 knots (47 km/h) by the time these modifications were completed, a testament to the vastly improved efficiency of boilers in the 1930s.Despite these modifications, the IJN considered that the Fusos were inadequately protected and too slow to be of any great use, and thus Fuso and Yamashiro were both kept in the Inland Sea as a strategic reserve force (which, as it turned out, was unnecessary) at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack and for some time afterwards, mainly being employed on training duties.

Both ships of the class were sunk by US Navy forces at the battle of Surigao on 25 october 1944.

Specification Fuso class