Fish in a barrel or not, none of that except slowing down actually made Yamashiro an easier target. So, no, you don’t get to dismiss West Virginia’s performance out of hand like that.
And once again you’re citing the failure of the ship to hit a destroyer-sized target. Which is what Sendai is, frankly. Yeah, didn’t mention that she was trying to swat a destroyer group with her main battery, huh? I don’t think any battleship did well swatting destroyers with the main battery, it’s why so many navies still stuck 6” guns on their battleships.
And don’t cite Second Narvik, please, the British destroyers did most of the legwork against their German counterparts and only one 15” shell hit a ship.
You do know American battleship doctrine, at least prewar, emphasized medium range (17k-21k yards) as the decisive range, that they planned multiple tactics and maneuvers to help close through the long-range band (full-fleet about-face, destroyer attack backed up by cruisers, potentially even a well-timed air strike) and only practiced extreme-range gunnery for disruption, to get the range early, and maybe get a golden BB? They did not plan to stay at long or extreme range, that was a Japanese thing.
Again you seem to be somewhat unrealistic and too much crediting a mediocre USN large gunnery practice in reality, continuing to quote artificial stats and theoretical circumstances. Fact remains: DD's are certainly not much smaller targets than a cruiser in WW2, still being between 100 and 150 meters in length, compared to a cruiser roughly between 150 and 200 metes, depending on the class of ship involved, while most BB's were around the 200 to some 220 meters, most of the time, except the newer ones, which were not available in large numbers in Japan to start with. This meaning: if a BB cannot engage, with a reasonable change of at least straddling it, a DD with main guns at long to medium range, it also cannot engage a cruiser, of BB! This is the main flaw in USN Battleships through the entire war period, as the USN did neve have experience in real naval battles before WW2, with modern Dreadnought type BB's and only could do theoretical testings, without the experience gained by nations whose navies did clash at sea with Dreadnought type ships in the Great War. Doctrine is nice to have, experience tells much more.
So your statement is flawed by stating an Iowa, or other modern USN BB cannot engage a ship that is 113 meters long (Kagero class), or even a Naka class cruiser of 153 meters, meaning the shelldispersion of the 16 inch is more than 153 meters at least, which is horrible to say the least, as that would indicate guns that are completely incapable of landing a shell where it was planned to be. It is a know fact the USN 16 inch/50 Mk.7 (121.519 tons (including breech)) was affected by the light construction of the barrel, causing significant droop and resulting in flexing when fired, compared to the not used heavier barrel of the 16 inch/50 Mk.2 (128.15 tons), originally build of the Lexington and canceled South Dakota classes of the early 20's. Also note the British 15 inch/42 Mk 1 did score a sollid hit in the first salvo fired at 29,000 yards and HMS Warspite's fire was compact and straddling the target (as was Malaya's untill getting out of range) from the beginning, something that is hardly said about the performace of USN BB gunnery in the war. At Truk both USS Iowa and New Jersey were shooting at ships already damaged by airatacks (DD Maikaze hit by rockets from stafing fighters, Auxilliary's Katori hit by a torpedo from carrierplanes and Akagi maru hit by multiple torpedoes and bombs, sinking shortly after the Iowa and New Jersey started shooting, though she was not the target for the BB's!) Both targets for the BB's (Katori and Maikaze survived the BB's misserable gunnerypractice, only to be sunk by veteran cruisers
USS Miniapolis and New Orleans, mwho did score hits at least.)
As for Oldendorff's line, The USS West Virginia shared hits on the Yamashiro and Mogami with USS Callifornia, Tennessee, Maryland and Mississippi. USS Pennsylvania also present was unable to engage at the time, due to blocking of sight and out of date electronics.
Quote:
Six battleships formed a battle line; the Pearl Harbor veteran
West Virginia was the first to open fire a minute later, scoring at least one hit with 16-inch (410 mm) shells in the first 20,800-meter (22,700 yd) salvo,
[38] followed by
Tennessee and
California. Hampered by older radar equipment,
Maryland joined the fight late,
Pennsylvania never fired,
[39] and
Mississippi managed to fire exactly one salvo—the last of the engagement.
Yamashiro increased speed to 15 knots in an attempt to escape the trap,
[45] but she had already been hit by two to four torpedoes, and after two more torpedo hits near the starboard engine room, likely fired by the
USS Bennion,
[46] she was listing 45 degrees to port. Shinoda gave the command to abandon ship, but neither he nor Nishimura made any attempt to leave the conning tower as the ship capsized within five minutes and quickly sank, stern first, vanishing from radar between 04:19 and 04:21.
This would suggest the fire from Oldendorf's line did score a number of hits on an already badly damage and flooding BB, unable to do crippling damage to her, or sink her outright. If you take into acount Yamashiro already had severe flooding due to earlier torpedohits, (also flooding the aft magazines, reducing her guns to only 6 main 14 inch riffles), only capable of barely 15 knots and in confined waters, it is surprising the vastly superior numbers of large calliber guns on Oldendorffs line did so surprisingly little, other than mostly cosmetic damage and setting fire to her supperstructure. Two things might have played into this: The Oldendorff group was supposed to be supporting against groundtargets, so the loadout of ammunition might have been in play here, or the gunnery was not too compact, due to allied forces at close range in the way, as the DD's and cruisers also were in the same area at this time, meaning friendly fire a serious likelyhood.
Basically WW2 period USN BB' gunnery was: "Fire enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick". This is certainly true, as in an unequal fight with vastly superior numbers it will work, though it is not economical. Only a power with a worldclass industrial-, economical- and manpower backing it can do things like this, which is why the USA were so impotant in WW2 in the first place.