[central_va]

Nothing beats 16 inch guns for shore bombardment.

[DoodleDawg]

Nothing beats 16 inch guns for shore bombardment.

An airplane can bombard the shore as well as hundreds of miles inland. And with precision guided bombs it can do it more accurately than a battleship can.

[tanknetter]

Nothing beats 16 inch guns for shore bombardment.

Funny enough, there was a study in the late 1970s or early 1980s showing that the "best" option for naval gunfire support were the automatic 8" guns of the Des Moines-class heavy cruisers. The 16" shells had better weight and penetration, but were complete overkill in terms of penetration and could by no means saturate a target.

Thats why the USN was developing the cluster munition shell for the Iowas.

The study also concluded that, ironically enough, after the Des Moines/8" automatic combination, the next best option were the 12" guns of the Alaska-class large cruisers. Which were pretty much white elephants during WWII and scrapped in the late 50s or early 60s.