Would the United States answer with 18-inch guns?

Would losing the standard battleships to Yamato and Musashi make the United States arm the Montanas with an 18-inch gun?

Perhaps not the Montanas, but the defeat could drive a new American battleship class toward an 18-inch/50 or larger gun.

The viewer asks whether Yamato-class battleships destroying the American standards would push the Montana class toward the tested 18-inch/48 gun. The Montanas might not receive that change, but a following class, imagined here as a new Texas class, could pursue an 18-inch/50 or still larger weapon. Designers might reopen the Tillman battleship studies and even question whether Panama Canal limits should continue to govern the ship. Extending a built-up gun would be difficult and its quality uncertain, yet American wartime industry could attempt it if enough money followed a shocking fleet defeat. The same demonstration of battle-line effectiveness would also strengthen pressure to keep battleship production alive after the war.