[Elsiejay]

Appealing to the naval surface warfare experts amng us:
Would their main battery 16-, 18- or 19-inch guns have been the primary weapon in a battleship-to-battleship slugfest, or would guns of lesser weight have been more useful? I assume the "big ones" were primarily intended for long-distance shore bombardment. N'est ce pas?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

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[Gator101]

I am by no means an expert (just love ships) but yes..the main guns were primarily built to kill other battleships. The secondary armament was built primarily to fend of smaller ships like torpedo boats and eventually aircraft when they came along. Being the longest ranged the main guns were also used for shore bombardment.

Interestingly enough deciding on using the main battery only for fighting other battleships was one thing that made HMS Dreadnought so revolutionary in 1906. Prior to that all the different shell splashes from different sized guns made fire control spotting rather difficult. After watching the Japanese and Russians duke it out in 1904 many of the world's navies realized it was the big guns that made the difference so why weigh down your ships with a lot of secondary armament at the expense of other things like armor.

[Tallguy]

Would their main battery 16-, 18- or 19-inch guns have been the primary weapon in a battleship-to-battleship slugfest, or would guns of lesser weight have been more useful?

The idea of the all-big-gun dreadnought was developed because of the superior accuracy & range of the largest caliber naval rifles. By WW2 the secondary armament began appearing, mostly to deal with high-flying aircraft, and small torpedo craft.