yea, sorry to keep drawing this off topic, I'll stop after this, but just furthering the point after reading up even more about it myself. The Americans lost 6 ships of 37k long tons worth of ships, while the Japanese lost 26 ships of 307k long tons. Conclusion: Battleships alone are almost worthless. They need support, they need radar, they need radio communications (or satellite nowadays), ect. ect. Really the Americans barely even could be considered to have won, they mostly confused the Japs into thinking they were a bigger more superior force than they in fact were, and as a result the Japanese withdrew right as they most likely could have wiped the Americans out.