Gordon wrote:

Then you start over doing the same thing only using willie peter (white
phosphorus) and you burn up what you flattened.

Ah yes, dropping white phosphorous onto unarmed women and children,
something to be proud of.

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:17:04 -0500, cavelamb
wrote:

wrote:
On 16-Aug-2009, cavelamb wrote:

wrote:
That was the accuracy back in WWII. In Beirut they were hitting houses.
But the main thing is it is very hard to sink a battleship. Most
antiship
missiles today will not penetrate there thick hide.


They don't have to penetrate the hull to disable the ship.

And can you explain how that might work?

The superstructure is still vulnerable.

That's where all the sensors, antenna, and weapons are located.

Take out the electronics and the ship is combat ineffective.


It was quite common during navel battles, WW II, for ships to be
rendered unable to fight either offensively or defensively and not
sunk. In fact, I believe that most large warships that were sunk were
first damaged to the extent that they couldn't fight and then shelled
until they sunk.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

On 17-Aug-2009, cavelamb wrote:

wrote:
That was the accuracy back in WWII. In Beirut they were hitting
houses.
But the main thing is it is very hard to sink a battleship. Most
antiship
missiles today will not penetrate there thick hide.


They don't have to penetrate the hull to disable the ship.

And can you explain how that might work?

The superstructure is still vulnerable.

That's where all the sensors, antenna, and weapons are located.

Take out the electronics and the ship is combat ineffective.

Dead wrong:
1. The superstructure is not vulnerable, it is 12 inches thick.
2. They carry spar and emergency antennas.
3. All they need is GPS and a data link with an AWACS to take out ANYTHING
in range.

wrote:
On 17-Aug-2009, cavelamb wrote:

wrote:
That was the accuracy back in WWII. In Beirut they were hitting
houses.
But the main thing is it is very hard to sink a battleship. Most
antiship
missiles today will not penetrate there thick hide.

They don't have to penetrate the hull to disable the ship.
And can you explain how that might work?
The superstructure is still vulnerable.

That's where all the sensors, antenna, and weapons are located.

Take out the electronics and the ship is combat ineffective.

Dead wrong:
1. The superstructure is not vulnerable, it is 12 inches thick.
2. They carry spar and emergency antennas.
3. All they need is GPS and a data link with an AWACS to take out ANYTHING
in range.


Hi Joe,

It is true that armor would keep bullets out, but an Exocette with go
through that like so much cardboard.

It's the main thing that Admirals (and Navies!) have nightmares about.

Shaped charges "cut" through armor rather than trying to penetrate by force.
Battle tanks use "reactive armor", high explosive panels to "repel" such
attacks. The counter to that is to simply fire two rounds. The first one
pops the reactive armor, the second kills the tank.

Ships are too lightly built and too weight dependent for such devices.
And they only work once, so the second mouse does indeed get the cheese.

To defend itself a modern surface vessel needs to control the airspace for
100 miles around it. (Most of these kind of air launched missiles have a 40 to
60 mile range)

A battle ship, with great big guns, is still just another sitting duck target.

It depends entirely on the air group coverage provided by the aircraft carrier
for it's survival.



(quote)

The Exocet missile is a French-built anti-ship missile that has been in service
since 1979. The Exocet missile can deliver a 165 kg explosive warhead to a range
of 70-180 km. A sea-skimming missile, the Exocet stays close enough to the water
that it can be difficult to pick up on radar. There are several versions of the
Exocet missile that can be launched from submarines, surface vessels, or
airplanes. Several hundred of these missiles were launched by Iran during the
Iran-Iraq war, and a few were launched by Argentina against United Kingdom ships
during the Falklands War.

Tuned for doing the greatest possible damage to ships, an Exocet missile can
travel at 315 m/s (1134 km/h), meaning it hits most targets within a few minutes
from launch at most. This speed is slightly under the speed of sound, which
prevents the Exocet missile from creating an easily detectable sonic boom.
Beginning its flight solely based on inertia, in mid-flight the missile turns on
an internal radar navigational system that helps it hone in on its target.

In 1982, during the Falklands War, between Argentina and the UK over the
Falkland Islands off the southeast coast of Argentina, several Exocets were used
to devastating effect on the UK Navy. Super Entendard warplanes equipped with
Exocet missiles managed to sink the HMS Sheffield, a destroyer, on 4 May, and
the 15,000 tonne merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor on 25 May. This made Exocet
missiles world-famous. In the UK, the term "Exocet" became shorthand for a
devastating attack.

Recently declassified documents make it clear that at the time of the Falklands
War, UK military intelligence was very intimidated by the Exocet missiles,
worrying about a "nightmare scenario" where one or both of the Navy's aircraft
carriers in the area might have been sunk, making recapturing the Falklands much
harder. The cost difference between an Exocet and an aircraft carrier is huge --
several million dollars compared to dozens of billions of dollars. The
vulnerability of capital ships to anti-ship missile attacks has caused some
military strategists to question the value of these ships. Such questions play a
role in strategic planning in the United States, especially in context of a
possible war with China over Taiwan. Without an effective anti-missile system,
nuclear-tipped or conventional Exocets could likely sink much of the US Navy.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exocet

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark...4/slide27.html

Steve Firth wrote:
Gordon wrote:

Then you start over doing the same thing only using willie peter (white
phosphorus) and you burn up what you flattened.

Ah yes, dropping white phosphorous onto unarmed women and children,
something to be proud of.

Nope, they never survived the HE!
Gordon

On 18 Aug, 01:53, (Steve Firth) wrote:
Gordon wrote:
Then you start over doing the same thing only using willie peter (white
phosphorus) and you burn up what you flattened.

Ah yes, dropping white phosphorous onto unarmed women and children,
something to be proud of.

They still got their sorry asses whupped, though.

Ian

"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

On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:53:12 +0100, (Steve Firth)
wrote this crap:

Gordon wrote:

Then you start over doing the same thing only using willie peter (white
phosphorus) and you burn up what you flattened.

Ah yes, dropping white phosphorous onto unarmed women and children,
something to be proud of.


I certainly am. Death and Destruction go a long way.

Vote for Palin-Arhnold in 2012.




I'm Horvath and I approve of this post.

On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 22:25:22 -0500, cavelamb
wrote:



Hi Joe,

It is true that armor would keep bullets out, but an Exocette with go
through that like so much cardboard.

The ships taken out by Exocets weren't battleships. Destroyers are
unarmored and often have aluminum superstructures.
But I agree that *all* surface ships are vulnerable during all out war
with a major power in this air/electronics age.
I think Billy Mitchell proved air supremacy in the 1920's
Battleships were and are excellent bombardment delivery systems.
I seem to recall each 16" shell is about 2000 pounds - I looked at
Wiki and they say 1900-2700 pounds.
Big problem is the manpower required to deliver the explosives.
This gives some perspective,
"When firing two broadsides per minute, a single Iowa-class battleship
can put 36,000 pounds (16,000 kg) of ordnance on a designated target
every minute, a figure that can only be matched by a single B-52
Stratofortress of the United States Air Force.[47] A B-52 can carry up
to 60,000 pounds (27,000 kg) of bombs, missiles, and mines, or any
combination thereof."
Putting aside all the other delivery issues like shell capacity before
re-arming and how many B-52's that can equal, the 3 turrets require
300 men total to operate. That's just the gun crews.
A B-52 has a 5 man crew.
A battleship is hugely expensive to build and operate for what you
get.
Anyway, there's all kinds of ways of looking at it. I kind of see it
as 3-D aircraft and subs versus 2-D ships.
The 3rd dimension element is a big advantage.
Bottom line is the BB's are all gone.
Even in WWII their role was limited to mostly Pacific island
bombardment. Though their presence affected strategies of fleet
movement, the carrier task groups were where the real action was.
They were magnificent machines of destruction though. Not just the
guns, but the other engineering that went into them.
BTW, sci.military.naval used to have some pretty good discussions on
this kind of thing.
But as has happened in many other groups, the political bull****ters
have made it a chore to read.

--Vic

On Aug 17, 3:42*pm, 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...

They might have had some cruise missles also but that was secondary to
the big battleship guns. * A battleship is a very inefficient platform
for launching missles since the historical advantages were heavily
armored hulls and massive artillery, none of which is required for
missle launching since it can be safely done from hundreds of miles
away. * Cruise missles have an accuracy of about 10 feet or better vs
maybe 400 ft for a battleship's guns on a good day.


Nah, the battleship guns were quite accurate... many times in WW2 they
could blow open shore fortifications quicker & easier (and with a lot
less risk) than an attack bomber. It's been recorded that many ships
not only hit the target with great accuracy but then put another shell
thru the same hole. And that was with 60+ year old technology.
Nowadays they track the shell in-flight with the SPY-1 radar & AEGIS
system.... no need for forward observers.

Another point... 16" shells are relatively cheap & a battleship holds
a LOT (iirc the lower magazines can carry 800 per turret). It's a very
efficient fighting platform, especially considering the survivability.
Suicide bombers can blow themselves up against the side of the hull, a-
la Cole, all day every day.

The reason why the battleships are history is that they are out of gun
barrels. They had a huge stockpile of 16/45 gun tubes left over from
WW2 but nobody can make them any more. I think the USS IOWA & her
sisters are officially retired and placed as memorials, but the
machinery is still under nitrogen blankets, so they might just be able
to be recalled.

Regards- Doug King ...ex-BT1(SW)