[reg45]

Of course, the reason that no one had yet sunk a battleship from the air  —  in combat  —  was that no one had yet tried.

WRONG. On both points. At the Battle of Taranto, in November of 1940, the British sunk an Italian battleship and damaged two more - from the air with slow Swordfish biplanes.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Could that be described as ‘combat’ though? Its not really that hard to torpedo a stationary ship in port. Its a whole other issue to try and do it at sea when it is zig-zagging and your plane is facing anti-aircraft gunners from the ship and its escort at full battle stations.