"Gordon" wrote in message
m...
Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:52:31 +0100, Andy Champ
wrote:

Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:02:15 +0100, Andy Champ
wrote:

Reagan recommissioned a couple of battleships. While it seemed crazy
they performed very well for shore bombardment duties.
It was crazy. They performed well for a battleship but not compared
to modern precision guided munitions. Accuracy at typical range was
something like plus or minus 400 feet, close enough to scare your
target but not necessarily destroy it.

Odd, I thought I recalled them being used a cruise missile launchers
among other things...
[snipped]

The New Jersey was used extensively in Nam because of it's pinpoint
accuracy. Once a spotter walks the battleship onto the target, its all
over.
The way it worked was a spotter (often a small single engine, unarmed
plane (bird dog)) would tell the battleship the coordinates of the next
target. The BS would fire one round and the spotter would radio back a
spot. It often took only two or three spots and that was all she wrote.
Even our little 5 inchers were deadly accurate but you had to have either
a spotter or the target had to be visible so your rangefinder could input
to the computer.
The shells for 5 inch and up used powder bags separate from the
projectile. The powder bags were weighed and powder temp recorded and the
computer adjusted for these figures. The gyro stabilized everything.
So the spotter says I've got an NVA village and here are the
coordinates. You pop in a round. The spotter says thats good, fire for
effect. So you send in some high explosive set for a 50' air burst, you
send in another with slightly different range and bearing, and you do this
until the village is leveled. Then you start over doing the same thing
only using willie peter (white phosphorus) and you burn up what you
flattened.
Not as accurate as a cruise missle, but then GPS wasn't even a thought at
that time.
Gordon

One of my former bosses used to get put ashore in Vietnam to climb hills and
spot from there.
Said it took him a couple of days to get where he was going and not so much
to get out (downhill).
Hoges in WA