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Old July 21, 2009, 10:19 PM   #48
booker_t
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Join Date: July 21, 2009
Posts: 797
Quote:
Still... the psychological effect of a dreadnought sitting off your coast and lighting up the sky as it lobs a Chevrolet-sized explosive at you is demoralizing.
...well, consider that we bombarded both the European shorelines and, more significantly, multiple Japanese (in WWII) and Vietnamese fortifications for weeks, and had basically no effect. We shot millions of tons of steel at some Jap targets and in the end, they would crawl out and be ready to fight off a ground invasion.

Unfortunately for the battleship enthusiasts, the Napoleonic style of warfare is no longer applicable. Hence the "island hopping" theory in the Pacific theatre, where instead of trying to overtake strongly held larger islands, Allied forces would simply maneuver around them, regardless of their strategic advantages. Fact is, islands don't move.

Even the erudite teachings and tactics of Jomini and Clausewitz need some revision for the modern battlespace, because of 1) the speed at which munitions can be delivered and 2) the wide variety of terminal effects those munitions can produce and 3) that cladded fortifications of our enemies are relatively impervious to dumb shells, even 100s of them.

Quote:
The plate in this photo is a face plate from a Yamato...26 inches of solid steel, now thats penetration.
Alas, 26 inches of steel might as well be paper mache for a large shaped charge jet with a signifcant HE charge behind it. Hence the development of active and reactive armor solutions, rather than merely hanging more and more armor on the platform.

Last edited by booker_t; July 22, 2009 at 07:32 AM.
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