The Imperial Japanese Navy learned that the heavily armoured warship was the decisive element in naval warfare during the First Sino-Japanese War, and it believed that that doctrine was confirmed as valid during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Despite heavily investing in aircraft carriers during the 1920s and 1930s, it continued to believe in the primacy of the battleship and built the largest and most powerful battleships ever constructed, the Yamato class, during the 1930s. The Pacific War proved them wrong as the United States Navy sank all but one of the Japanese battleships during the war, mostly with aircraft.
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