In my experience, building ships is so different…
I would recommend first getting a very good kit of something small and building it straight from the box without attempting to add any after market PE at all. I found that just doing that and getting it painted well was quite a challenge. Pick up a waterline series Japanese destroyer perhaps (or something else small that catches your fancy).
Then on the ship model you really want to make you’ll have a better idea of what the steps are.
Lets see. If I heard right, buy the 1/350th Akagi and all the PE possible and as many aircraft and 1/350th scale sailors as you can, there were probably a few thousand. Then paint them all a color, assemble over a weekend and detail when done. Yep sounds like an armor build strategy to me. 
I had the Musashi at one point and thought it was about the right physical size to comfortably build. I didn’t realize at the time that all the other 1/350th kits were so “tiny” by comparison. Armor kits are all for the most part about the same size. Not so with ships. The 1/700th are ridiculous. It is like building and detailing the fender on a 1/35th T55 kit. I am beginning to think the 1/200th kits are more my size.
It’s defintlely not something I’ll do frequently but I’ll add the odd ship, some jsut look really cool. I’ll likely add the tirpitz and a Japanese ship at some point
Yeah it’s crazy for sure. The Graf spee and Indy are exactly the same length at around 1.75 feet while the England is about 9 inches. 350 is the lowest I’ll go in ships, the 1/700 just don’t have the detail which is shame because a LHS has the 1/700 Texas but I’m not sure I want to do a 1/700
Before it was hauled off for whatever fate it gets, I could have visited in gavelston bay