AUV Finds Legendary Battleship from WWII
On March 1, after an eight year search, a BlueFin-12 autonomous underwater vehicle was used to find the sunken Musashi, the largest battleship in naval history, in the Sibuyan Sea off the coast of the Philippines.
After an extensive bathymetric survey to create terrain map of the sea floor, the BlueFin-12 was able to detect the wreckage on only its third dive.
Subsequently, a remotely operated underwater vehicle outfitted with a high definition camera was able to confirm the find as the Musashi and take video of the massive ship.
The Musashi, commissioned in 1942, weighed 73,000 tons fully loaded and was sunk by an estimated 19 torpedoes and 17 bombs in 1944 with nearly 2,400 crew onboard.
