Talk:Daihatsu Landing Craft (Type 89 Medium Tank & Landing Force)/@comment-26350588-20160318190915/@comment-5046483-20160320015603

Just an FYI, the Japanese SNLF was part of the army, not the navy despite being called the Special Naval Landing Force. But yeah, as the war progressed warships were increasingly relegated to the shore bombardment and fleet AA roles as airpower essentially meant the end of big gun battleships duking it out.

A single carrier air wing (it's a group of wings dammit not a wing of groups, that makes no bloody sense!) can, and did on several occasions as the Italians found out, eliminate several capital ships in a very short amount of time. This was especially true in the Pacific theatre where very few 'naval battles' as the OP puts it took place. Almost every engagement was carrier on carrier, land based aircraft attacking task forces or carriers slaughtering impotent battlegroups from hundreds of miles away. In fact, more than anything else, the Pacific theatre of World War II shaped warfare as we know it today with carriers as the ultimate expression of military might and marines making the majority of first land assaults.