We had developed our Navy to an effective and massive fighting force by then.
But luck never hurts either.
USS submarines Dace and Darter early on fired on Jap Admiral Kurita’s main Fleet (5 bb, 12 cv and 15 dd) and scored hits the on 3 ships , amazingly one was Kurita’s Flagship. It sank so quickly Kurita almost drowned and had to swim for some time. Not being a young man it likely had a telling effect on him later and might have contributed to losing his nerve right as a significant victory was at hand after he had finally defeated Taffy 13.’ (among other mistakes like issuing a vague order of “general attack” and having his command ship maneuver out of the fight to the degree he lost what control of the battle that he had left)
The Defeat of Taffy 3 was a pyhrric victory; it used time the Japanese couldn’t afford while giving them a bloody nose, and they knew the absent American fleet would crush them. Because they have such a cautious culture in which risk is frowned upon, they simply wouldn’t believe they weren’t falling into a trap. They didn’t have time to analyze the fact that the planes that attacked them were bearing the wrong ordinance (weapons for supporting the land forces instead of attacking ships), and they didn’t believe the forces throwing themselves desperately against them weren’t doing it as part of a larger scheme.