rue
Posted on 04/15/2005 2:27:55 AM PDT by Zero Sum
"There is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship." -- Retired Gen. P.X. Kelly, USMC
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Those words of the former Marine commandant resonate with me. In 1969, gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) saved my rifle platoon in Vietnam. During her six months in-theater, the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns were credited with saving more than 1,000 Marines' lives. The North Vietnamese so feared the ship that they cited her as a roadblock to the Paris peace talks. Our leaders, as they did so often in that war, made the wrong choice and sent her home. Now, 36 years later, Washington is poised to make another battleship blunder.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
They have speed as well---all the IOWA's exceeded 35 knots in service.
And while they a searching for a target worthy of the technolocal sophistication, platoon sized units armed with assault rifles are going to nove in and take possesion of the territory.
Yeah. And your point is???
;^P
Village People ping! "In the Navy you can live a life of ease...."
See post #126 on the Alaskas. They mounted 12" very similar to the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau.
I nominate the aircraft carrier. (How old is this quote?)
The ultimate "No Trespassing" device.
Fine. WHile you're busy programming your autonoumous robots to be autonomous, my old-fashioned, gun-armed, real-flesh-and-blood military will occupy your land and steal your riches. Afterwards, we'll reinstate commerce.
Youwould have failed because you cannot program a computer for every contingency and my human generals would have run tactical rings around your robots utilizing their Mark I, standard-issue brains.
Alaska and Guam were pretty ships though
rue
If I had the money, I'd by a battleship and a carrier and convert them (modernized upgrades) to keep the shipyards in tune with new technology, to give the US Navy some advanced ideas, and just to have some fun gosh darn it.
They all were reported to reach 37-38 knots when recommissioned in the 80's except Missouri who experienced severe vibration from a bent keel which she suffered when she grounded in Puget Sound in 1950. She could still do her WWII best of 34 knots.
An armed forces lead by Rumfield is just like the smaller, faster, cheaper NASA that can't do big missions any longer. Is that what we want? A military that can hide real good, but can't fight? Is that what Rummy is trying to build? Sure looks like it.
Non sequitur.
The only thing that humans do currently that current computers generally do not (or do worse) with the software we write is algorithmic induction. That is it, and that won't be true for long. It is not that computers cannot do it, but it is a difficult and relatively obscure theoretical engineering problem that was poorly understood until relatively recently. And humans are not particularly good at this either, though it is the specific ability that allows us to design machines and software even with our limited competence. Go ahead and look it up; very few programmers even know what algorithmic induction is even though it is the theoretical elephant in the room of software engineering and computer science.
When computer software starts implementing pervasive algorithmic induction, the human brain will be on the fast track to obsolescence.
How's about we re-activate the Demoines and the Salem? Automatic 8 inch guns and thirty three knots! Gorgeous ships too!
Regards,
>>Comparing the Yamato to the Iowas is a BAD way to try and make your point.
No, it isn't.
The point is that these ships were quite vulnerable to 40s-era aviation technology. I grant all your points; minor quibbles over relative technical minutia don't change the vulnerability of tube-based naval firepower, compared to the standoff capability of a carrier.
If you want to spend a carrier's worth of cash, spend it on a carrier, not a romantic hull from a bygone age.
That would be a good idea plus add heavy missile armament.
Lucky shot, also any Iowa class battleship would blow Bismarck and her sister ship out of the water in short order. Iowa class battleships saw lot's of action in WW2 and not one was ever seriously damaged.
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