Completing two Lexingtons as battlecruisers is proposed as an American missed opportunity despite the importance attached to retaining 16-inch battleships. The imagined wartime task forces would pair fast carriers with powerful fast gunships. Those escorts could protect the carriers from cruiser ambushes, a threat the Lexington design was intended to defeat. The suggestion is that such groups could have exerted strong control over large parts of the Pacific, although this remains a counterfactual judgement.
Notable Point · 1:39:45-1:40:30
Two Lexington battlecruisers could guard fast carrier groups
The proposed advantage of completing Lexington battlecruisers was a fast gun escort capable of protecting carriers from cruisers.