My 1970 Encyclopaedia Britannica says those big guns could hit a target with great precision at twenty-five miles. They could not. To do damage, a shell must land perpendicular to a ship's armor. At long distances shells come down in an arc. The chances of hitting anything become vanishingly small, and long-range hits necessarily deal glancing blows.
Battleships are vulnerable to torpedoes .
When they explode outside the hull, below the waterline, water focuses the explosion into the hull. And battleships did more damage blundering into friendly small craft than they did shooting at enemy torpedo boats. In 1921 British and American representatives met in Washington where they agreed to call a moratorium on capital ship building. The traditional military cried out its objections. Later, the conference was blamed for leaving us unready in 1941.