[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.

[central_va]

Anything bigger than the pathetic 5 inch gun is a good shore bombardment weapon.