[Vigilanteman]

Interesting and entirely possible. I didn't realize the sister ships were built in different naval yards, so I looked it up. Kure (near Hiroshima) turned out a lot more volume. The Mitsubishi naval yard in Nagasaki had the reputation for better quality. Ironically, it still does. I used to work for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in a previous life.

Kure still turns out the gunboats and lesser naval craft; Nagasaki the more high tech stuff. So I stand corrected.

However, I still think the nature of the missions, their fuel and their crew size also played a large role.

[skeeter]

I agree. It also may be that the Musashi had the better trained crew, as they were some. She certainly had a great damage control team by IJN standards.