How about mentioning that Washington closed to within 7700 m of Kirishima - point blank range[*]
Duke of York opened fire on Scharnhorst at 10,900 m - pretty close to point blank.
Which was my whole point in response to your remarks about maximum range accuracy. No surface action was ever fought or planned at maximum range. The weapons were not as inaccurate as you claim they are, not at maximum range, and certainly not at the ranges they were actually employed at.
Washington got 9 hits on Kirishima for 75 main gun rounds fired at Kirishima (rounds were also fired at other targets)
Modern examinations suggest that she got 20 main battery hits, which is the figure Hornfischer quotes. Where did you find the 75 shots fired figure? I was looking for Washington's after action report, there used to be a USS Washington memorial page that had it, but it seems to have disappeared; all I could come up with was the total number of shots fired in the entire engagement.
As for the Japanese destroyer - it never was hit by the battleship. It got away.
Yes, she did; but there was still a first salvo straddle at extreme range. Actually multiple straddles, there's a write up of that engagement somewhere and the Iowa was using a combination of radar fire control and aerial spotting. The destroyer had a speed advantage and so escaped that way, which begs the question of why no aircraft were available for a strike, but such details are presumably lost to history for an insignificant engagement that has no name.
but again, just like Bismarck, it took torpedoes to finish the job.
Kirishima was done in solely by gunfire, the aforementioned link disputes the notion that she was scuttled. Of course, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter does it? Gunfire was enough to mission kill any warship afloat, in short order, and sustained gunfire would leave them a floating wreck even if the engineering plant remained functional. Bismarck was doomed even without the torpedoes and/or scuttling, as was Scharnhorst. One might even say that South Dakota was mission killed by inferior shells (mostly 5" and 8" hits to her superstructure, her armor defeated the one 14" round that found her, on the aft barbette) although poor damage control (she really was a bad luck ship) played a role as well. Then of course there's the example of what 5" shells managed to do to Japanese cruisers and battleships off Samar.