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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Iowa explosion
Message-ID: <5886@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 25 Apr 89 03:20:42 GMT
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)


>Unfortunately, 5" guns in the best the Navy has today in terms of
>conventional surface gun power.  I recall several years ago that a
>155 mm VLG (vertical load gun), which was considered far superior to the
>old 5 inchers had been cut from the budget.  Too bad...

Friedman's book on US naval armament has drawings of a still more useful
project that was killed a decade or so ago:  an 8-inch gun turret designed
to drop into the same space as the current 5-inch turrets.  The intent was
to retrofit existing ships.  The Marines, who like the idea of heavy shore
bombardment, were quite unhappy to see it go.  It takes yet another prize
for procurement decision-making stupidity, too:  it was killed partly because
of accuracy problems, after a laser-guided shell for it (which was meant
all along as the solution to said problems) was killed to save money!

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu