Interwar navies practiced long-range fire extensively and had considerable confidence in it despite imperfect results. In a visual engagement, spotting the enemy first could give a ship time to establish range and train its guns before being detected in return. An autoloader would exploit that window by placing repeated salvos in flight before the opponent responded. The result approaches a naval hit-and-run attack in which detection and firing tempo matter as much as nominal gun power.
Notable Point · 1:12:27-1:13:21
Autoloaders and a long-range first strike
Pre-radar visual detection combined with autoloading could let a battleship launch a dense salvo sequence before the enemy had even found and engaged it.