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From: boulder!snoopy!scottmi@ncar.UCAR.EDU (SCOTT MICHAEL C)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Wisconsin
Summary: Shelling Japanese shore targets
Message-ID: <1990Aug24.033950.188@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 24 Aug 90 03:39:50 GMT
References: <1990Aug14.033546.8342@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: University of Colorado, boulder
Lines: 34
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: boulder!snoopy!scottmi@ncar.UCAR.EDU (SCOTT MICHAEL C)




  The US *DID*, in fact, use battleships to shell shore targets in Japan at the
end of the war -- as far as I know, the twelve modern, fast ships were the ones
used - the North Carolinas, the South Dakotas, the Iowas, and the two Alaskas. 
The targets these ships shelled were apparently industrial ones.
  The advantages of doing this were obvious; it was impossible to intercept an
incoming 16" or 12" shell, and they came without warning, making the usual air-
defense precautions (getting people into shelters) problematical.  A 16" shell
of the type used in our modern battleships weighed 2600 lbs; more than the 
heaviest aircraft bomb then in use by naval aviation (Navy strike aircraft also
made large attacks against the Japanese home islands in the summer of 1945, 
and in doing so they sank the Japanese battleships Haruna, Ise, and Hyuga.  Theydamaged the battleship Nagato.  Several Amagi-class aircraft carriers were
sunk, as was the heavy cruiser Tone.  Industrial targets were also attacked.)
  The threat from Japanese surface ships was nonexistant (what remained of the
Japanese battleship fleet would have been easy pickings for the newer, more
powerful US ships.)  Even the submarine threat was discounted (prematurely;
Lt. Cmdr. Hashimoto was able to sink USS Indianapolis in August.  Nonetheless,  
no US battlehip was torpedoed - or even, I believe, attacked - while shelling
the Japanese coast.)







  
  --don't like snow, miss Deirdre, and wish I was still in Santa Cruz.