A German "Brown Water" Navy

Ok, now you're changing your position. First, you asserted that battleships did not do well at the Battle of Surigao Strait. I pointed out that the American BB's did very well there. Then you claimed that, at Surigao Strait, Admiral Oldendorf's BB's were pulled out of position by Nishimura's Force, leaving Leyte Gulf and the transports wide open to attack. When that false notion was obliterated, you start talking about San Bernadiino Strait which was the concern of Halsey's Third Fleet. In fact, interdiction of San Bernadino Strait was not part of Oldendorf's mission, and had nothing to do wirth the employment of Oldendorf's old BB's which were charged primarily with NGFS of the Leyte landings and, secondarily, with the defense of the invasion transports at the beachhead.

The fact that Kurita's force was able to transit San Bernadino Strait and emerge east of Samar indicates that either Admiral Kincaid or Admiral Halsey failed in their primary mission of covering the invasion forces, but has no bearing on the fact that the American old BB's under Admiral Oldendorf did very well at Surigao Strait and were never "out of position" in defending the transports at Leyte Gulf. In fact, Oldendorf was in position to repel both Nishimura's and Kurita's forces; he managed to cross Nisimura's "T", and virtually destroy his force, and was in the unprecedented position of being deployed so as to be able to perform the same feat against Kurita, if he had tried to force the eastern entrance to Leyte Gulf later that afternoon.

Your comments make it obvious you don't have a clue about the forces involved, their orders, their movements, or the timing of the battles. I suggest you study the documents at this link; http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Leyte/OpAnal.pdf and the documents here; HyperWar: Return to the Philippines: Contents before embarrassing yourself further.

I stand by my original contention that the use of BB's at Surigao Strait does not support the idea that BB's never do well in what you describe as "close engagements". Further, I state categorically, Oldendorf's forces were deployed in such a manner that his BB's blocked both the southern and eastern approaches to Leyte Gulf.

 

[whew!] for a while there i thought you were going to wallop me with something blunt and heavy. but it turns out you still don't get the point with the japanese BBs at surigao strait, and the american response to nishimura. if we're still stuck there, no point going into kurita, kinkaid, ozawa and halsey.

or for that matter, close-in battleship action (especially at night.)

 

No, it's you who doesn't get the "point" of the Japanese BB's at Surigao Strait. They weren't there as "decoys" to draw the American forces away from Leyte Gulf. That was impossible because the geography of Leyte Gulf and Surigao Strait made it easy for Admiral Oldendorf to simultaneously destroy Nishimura's force and cover the eastern entrance against Kurita's attack. You may not agree with this, but I've cited numerous references indicating Oldendorf did exactly that, and at no time was he out of position to defend the transports.