re: #134 Targetpractice

And that’s what it is, a solution in search of a problem. Much like those battleships we spent years and millions to design and build, only to white elephants we had to spend even more money protecting. And it all ended up being pointless because the Japanese spent the time to research and develop methods of bypassing the safeguards we put in place. By the time we’d dragged the bastards from the bottom, repaired them, and put them into service, we’d become an all-carrier navy and battleships never fulfilled the purpose they were designed for.

That overlooks the useful service battleships provided in WWII, both in terms of AA protection for carriers (the South Dakota’s 40mm Bofors guns did the Kido Butai’s air group immense damage at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands) to shore bombardment. And it must also be pointed out that in the third phase of the Battle of Guadalcanal, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the USS Washington shelled the HIJMS Kirishima into a crippled wreck.

So your post is a serious oversimplification, enough of one to degrade its accuracy.