What if the German Battleships where used in:

Meant to say Surigua rather than Samar although the latter showed that determined light forces could still inflict damage on heavies.

 

Given the actual leaders you are 100% correct. My comments were based on the idea that someone more competent than Goering was making policy decisions. While this would not instantly provide the appropriate aircraft many problems could have been solved and usefull air actions executed. Bombing the ports & and dropping mines in the sea lanes would have been a big help.

The lack of Luftwaffe cooperation you describe illustrates the overall bankruptcy in stratigic thinking of the senior nazi leaders.

 

Think of the engineering challenge for the Brits in removing those wrecks and salvaging all that steel!

 

I thought the Germans did bomb the ports. Arial mining of sea lanes is not a particularly useful operation especially when you can't drop a lot of mines and need to move through the same lanes yourself. Choke point mining such as the Germans conducted at port entrances is more effective.

 

Surigao Straight is hardly a good comparison. The straight itself is fairly wide and does not present the kind of close maneuvering that would occur in truly coastal waters. But, the US light forces there did not distinguish themselves. Of 132 PT boats present most did fire all of their torpedoes and they failed to get a single hit. The US destroyer line for the most part just shadowed the Japanese as they were well aware that they were about to run into the main gun line.
The main gun line battleships and cruisers demolished the Japanese in about 15 minutes of fire. The Japanese, in return, never hit anything.

A better comparison might be the Resolution's bombardment of Boulogne in October 1940. The British made this attack against a defended port at night. The operation was planned and carried out with great care. The battleship was well supported by cruisers and destroyers.
The German coastal defenses, lacking radar, were surprised and took nearly 30 minutes to respond. By then the port was in flames. The British withdrew after about an hour of bombardment to ensure they were out of range of easy retaliation by the Luftwaffe come daylight.

 

DD's just shadowed the Japanese??? The Fuso was broken in two and the Yamashiro had taken one to three torpedos before the battle line opened fire, two of the Japanese DDs were also sunk by that time and a third was retiring minus a bow.
See for example the write up at:
LEYTE GULF - The Battle of Surigao Strait (D Llewellyn James)

 

Ok, drop more mines closer in to the harbor entrys. I'll not niggle. My point is there was very poor support & cooperation with the Navy by the Luftwaffe. A proper combined effort would have been much more productive than fighting two seperate uncoordinated wars.

 

That would be nice but the Luftwaffe was short of aerial mines, down to lack of adequate planning.