The comment acknowledges diminishing returns when armor is sacrificed for only a few additional knots, but points to a fleet-wide secondary effect. Operating completed Lexington battlecruisers would have justified a larger force of fast oilers. Those auxiliaries would improve the operational reach of the wider fleet rather than serving only the battlecruisers. Pairing fast gun ships with the two large Lexington-derived carriers could also have produced an early high-speed task-group core.
Notable Point · 21:51-22:35
Lexington construction could have accelerated fast fleet oilers
Even a questionable speed-for-armor trade might have generated valuable logistics infrastructure for a faster US fleet.