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.