American wartime mass production did not mean disposable quality

Does the image of Japan being beaten by ten identical American ships built yesterday reflect Pacific War reality?

Partly, but it understates American quality: US industry produced good ships in exceptional numbers rather than trading quality for volume.

The joke that Japan faced repeated copies of a ship the United States had built yesterday captures the scale of American production. It becomes misleading if speed and quantity are taken to mean poor construction. US warships were generally well built as well as numerous. The decisive industrial advantage was infrastructure capable of reproducing that quality at scale. American planners did not have to choose between a small excellent fleet and a large disposable one.