Could Lexington's 8-inch guns serve as anti-aircraft weapons?

Were the Lexington-class carriers' 8-inch guns genuinely dual-purpose weapons?

Not in practical terms; their roughly forty-one-degree maximum elevation made them poor anti-aircraft weapons.

The Lexington-class 8-inch guns are sometimes described as dual-purpose, but the mounting's limits undermine that characterization in practice. Their maximum elevation was about forty-one degrees, far below what made later high-angle weapons effective against aircraft. The heavy battery therefore remained principally a surface-action system despite any broader design intention. This distinction explains why replacing it with 5-inch dual-purpose guns improved the carriers' defensive usefulness.