Re: Not so vulnerable...
I did a perfect comparison between a vulnerable ship - although heavily armed, and one that wasn't. The British did a big mistake trying to match the Bismarck - a proper battleship, although with some fatal flaws as well - and the Hood, which was by design much more vulnerable. They were victims of their own propaganda.
As I said already, it would have been interesting to see the Iowa-class ships against the Yamato ones. But in the Surigao battle, the old - although some were rebuilt after being sunk at Pearl Harbor - US battleship with radar controlled fire - like the West Virginia, launched in 1921 - easily hit and destroyed the Japanese battleship before these ones were even able to obtain a firing solution. Even if your guns have a long range and heavy shells (but power doesn't depend on caliber only, as the Bismarck, again, shown), you still need to be able to get a firing solution on a moving target, and that requires some technology beyond the pure guns one. Would have the Iowa class been able to engage and hit the Yamatos before the latter could fire? Nobody will know...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
