Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!iuvax!rutgers!att!cbnews!mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu
From: mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Iowa explosion
Message-ID: <5934@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 26 Apr 89 04:10:01 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. USA
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From: mchamp@wpi.wpi.edu (Marc J. Champagne)
1) Yes, New Jersey is an Iowa class battleship, along with Missouri
    and Wisconsin

2) When the New Jersey shelled Moslem militia positions in Lebanon, it
   was using 16"/45 caliber shells produced for the South Dakota class
   battleships instead of the 16"/50 caliber shells intended for the
   Iowa class battleships.  At the time, the New Jersey was still
   using an old analog gunnery computer with cams ground for the
   16"/50 shells.  This lent an inaccuracy of about 250 yards on the
   average, but the rate of fire was still sufficient to shut down the
   rate of Moslem 125mm and 76mm artillery fire coming from the hills
   around Beirut to a trickle (was something like over 1500 rounds/day
   prior to 16" bombardment).

   Please note also that the claims of hits on civilian targets were
   made by the people who were being shelled.....the Moslem
   militiamen.  I've seen pictures of PLO troops firing 40mm AA guns
   at Israeli warplanes from within the heart of the refugee camps to
   the south of Beirut.......they raised a stink when the AA guns were
   strafed or bombed to.  Unfortunately, it is rather common in that
   stretch of the woods to station military units within a "shield" of
   innocent civilians.......it's cowardly, but what can you do.  The
   guns had to be silenced.......


3) To put the accuracy issue to rest, the Iowas have been refitted
   with state of the art digital gunfire computers since the
   deployment off Beirut.  These computers can make high-accuracy
   predictions for either the /45 or /50 shells.  Even before this was
   done, the Navy stated that it would be more willing to use its
   shorter supply of /50 shells for missions demanding only moderate
   accuracy....like shore bombardment.   The /50s were being saved for
   anti-ship use or for bombardment of hardened targets.
   But with the new digital computers, that decision is now
   superfluous.  We can get equal accuracy from both the /45 and /50.


4) Is it a good weapons platform.  The answer is yes.  But I don't
   have time for a debate on it at the moment.  Suffice it to say that
   I supported the Navy's idea of bringing out the 3 Des Moines class
   armored cruisers we have in mothballs and giving them the same
   weapons fit.  More of the secondary armorment would have had to
   have been lost than on the Iowas to solve the topweight problems.
   But they would have made excellant fire support ships and task
   group leaders with their 16 Harpoons and 32 Tomahawks.
   Unfortunately, the budget crunch kicked in.....


Anyhow, I hope this helps clarify things for you a little.


					 Marc J. Champagne