What if - Different Operation Heaven Number 1 (Ten-Ichi-Go)

[Eternity]

So this morning reading an article about the IJN Yamato's final sortie from an American Admiral's perspective and got thinking (Dangerous I know!). So I thought this: Yamato sortied with one light cruiser and 8 destroyers and that force pretty much consisted the complete list of operational and fuel-able ships of the IJN in April 1945. The navy did however have other ships that for want of fuel, crew, munitions (??), damage etc could not sail. IE the Nagato and Sakawa. Mostly I know fuel was the issue OTL, but NOT for this).

What if fuel, crew, provisions etc were not an issue to the IJN and they sortied with ALL available and operational ocean going warships (Some like Nagato would be patched to operational status) - I believe the fleet would consist of:

IJN Yamato (BB, Flag)
IJN Nagato (BB)
IJN Haruna (BB)
IJN Ise (BB/CV, Full compliment of Aircraft)
IJN Hyuga (BB/CV, Full compliment of Aircraft)
IJN Amagi (CV, No aircraft)
IJN Katsuragi (CV, No aircraft)
IJN Haguro (CA)
IJN Tone (CA)
IJN Yahagi (CL)
IJN Sakawa (CL)
IJN Kitakami (CL)

Not too sure what IJN DD's were still active in April 1945, but assume that those available sortie with the larger ships.

Now, with the above assumptions in place (Munitions, fuel etc) but no aircraft for the true CV's, what would the outcome be? Some ships would be bound to survive the aerial attacks that OTL sank Yamato, so would more aerial attacks be launched or would the savaged fleet be intercepted by the US battle line?

 

[Alanith]

They'd be sunk by massed aerial strikes. Anything that by some miracle of the Kami manages to make it through that, ends up facing a dozen battleships superior in every way save sheer armor and mass (in the case of the Yamato) or just plain superior for basically anything else.

 

[Eternity]

While I do realize that the aerial strikes will do severe damage, what about timescale? I know that at the time the US BBs were steaming for Yamato (In case the aircraft didn't finish her), so how long until the US surface force intercepts the IJN ships? Few hours or the next day?