The Montana class was not designed from detailed knowledge of Yamato, yet it still provided an American answer to the kind of concentrated firepower Japan was building. Twelve 16-inch guns gave the ship a formidable battery without relying on an 18-inch weapon. In the game model, similar gun-elevation limits give Montana's 16-inch battery a slight maximum-range advantage over Yamato's 18-inch guns. This is a functional comparison rather than a claim that American designers copied or directly countered a known Japanese specification.
Notable Point · 51:31-53:27
A response to Yamato without advance knowledge
Montana can be treated as a functional answer to Yamato even though the American design was not based on detailed knowledge of the Japanese ship.