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Throd wrote:

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Both the Royal Oak and Barham were completely shattered by 3 German torpedoes each. Based on that IMHO they were unlikely to survive even a couple of Long Lance hits. RN AA is suspect on all it's vessels. As said, its carrier planes are outclassed. The Japanese planes would probably regard the fleet as a juicy target. The BBs probably wouldn't meet until the odds had changed drastically.
You make it into Japanese controlled waters but would it come out again?

British battleships from the Great war period that were not modernized up to WW2 standards is not very fair as a comparison. No battleship of the 1910-1915 period design could have survived such a number of torpedohits, as the US fleet also discovered at Pearl Harbor, where its ships were sometimes sunk by even less than three hits. (USS Utah, although not an active ship, I know, USS Nevada, USS California, and even USS Oklahoma, who already was doomed after only two hits and started listing severly. Only USS West Virginia needed more, since she sank on an even keel, meaning she was filling with water steadily everywhere from the impactholes in her sides. At sea, all these ships would have been lost, no matter how.) The only other old battleship loss to torpedoes is comparable (Conte di Cavour, although heavily modernized before the war.)

Only a few modern battleships could take more, if propperly managed, especially the German ships are noticable, as are the modern British Kiong George V class ships, AFTER the defect of the powersystem was proven by HMS Pribnce of Wales' loss. The US New generation in theory was acceptable as well, but unproven during the war.

You also seem to forget something about AA capacity. The UK were already at war for three years and did augment their AA capacity as good as they could with the limmited resources available. It certainly was ascceptable for the time, compared to most other Allies, especially the new Ally the USA, who were completely unprepared for a modern war in the first year. (AA was completely inverior to most other navies, since the heavy AA was not backed up by reliable medium and light weapons. The USN 1.1 inch mounting was troublesome and prone to failure, especially during battle, more than once and the M-2 .50 cal MG was lacking power to stop a modern aircraft from attacking. The British 2pdr and 20 mm guns were much more usefull and especially the Dutch stabalized 40mm twin mounting, which was soon copied by both USN and UK. On a ship to ship comparison by the end of 1941, start of 1942, a USN ship was not a good choice to fight with against an enemy with airsupriority. (Actually a British vessel with Mediteranean wartheater experience was the best choice, since these ships had combatexperience against aircraft and sometimes more than their share of combat itself.)

As a warplan, there is no way to combat the IJN in these early stages of the Pacific War effectively, with the materiel available over all the Allies combined. The Kido Butai was unchallanged and had no equal yet, untill the new breed of carriers and aircraft came along. In normal surfacebattles, the IJN could always rely on its very long ranging land based bombers and reconplanes, with no equal on Allied side. The Allies were also too scattered over the entire world with concentrations in India/Ceylon, Java, USA West Coast and to a lesser sence Australia, preventing it to operate as a single unit. Best way to fight is to avoid contact with the enemy the first year in a direct confrontation and use other means to weaken it (submarines especially.)