1. The Lexington class battle cruisers were not completed as battle cruisers because of the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. Along with sending large numbers of early dreadnought and pre-dreadnought battleships to the scrapping yards, it forbade building new battleships and battle cruisers. So the US could not have "gone ahead with the Lexington-class battlecruisers".
2. Battle cruisers were a design idea that sounded good hypothetically, but in real life usage did less well:
* At the WW1 Battle of the Falkland Islands RN battle cruisers Inflexible and Invincible did well against the obsolescent German armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. This was the fight for which they were designed. Inflexible and Invincible had armor adequate to protect from the German's 210 mm main guns, while their 12" guns both out-ranged those of the German ships and could penetrate their armor.
* At the WW1 Battle of Jutland: RN battle cruiser Indefatigable was sunk by German battle cruiser Von Der Tann's 280 mm guns; RN battle cruiser Queen Mary was sunk by 280 mm and 305 mm shells from battle cruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger; German battle cruiser had to be scuttled after the battle due to hits from RN battle cruisers Lion, Inflexible, and Invincible; RN battle cruiser Invincible was sunk during the battle by 280 mm and 305 mm shells from German battle cruisers Lützow and Derfflinger.
* HMS Hood was basically an uprated battle cruiser. Hood was sunk very quickly by Bismarck.
* The Japanese Kongo class were built as battle cruisers (14" guns), and uprated to the point they were called battleships. Hiei was crippled by 8" guns from USN heavy cruisers (= mission kill) and later sunk by USN planes and scuttling; Kirishima was sunk by the 16" guns of USS Washington.
My point is not what I know, but that battlecruisers were of limited use. Intended to hunt down armored and light cruisers, and to scout ahead of the main battle line, they were a success as cruiser hunters, but in real life the scouting role tended to result in engaging with guns heavier than what their armor could defeat.
The article failed to mention several things:
* While the IJN did have the 4 Kongos, they also had the two battleships of the Fuso class and two more of the Ise class. These were as old and slow as the USN's Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Tennessee class BBs.
* Similarly, while the USN's 16"-gunned Colorado class BBS were slow, so also were the IJN's 14"-gunned Nagato class.
* The IJN and USN both built fast battleships: the IJN's 2 Yamato class battleships; the USN's 2 North Carolina class BBs, 4 South Dakota class BBs, and 4 Iowa class BBs.
* Many of the USN's slow BBs did engage the IJN's two Fuso class battleships at the Battle of Surigao Straight, though both were seriously damaged (Fuso may already have sunk) by USN DDs' torpedoes by the time the USN battle line opened fire.
* As slow as the USN's older BBs were, they were still much faster than the islands they were used to bombard, and robust enough to shrug off kamikaze hits.
* The Lexington class CVs served well, in developing carrier doctrine, and in battle. Lexington was not sunk easily, at Coral Sea, and Saratoga survived to be sunk at Bikini Atoll in the A-bomb tests.
* The IJN also converted a battle cruiser (Akagi) and battleship (Kaga) mid-construction to aircraft carriers, which also served to develop IJN carrier doctrine.
