Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!cbnews!bucsb!brianb@bu-cs.bu.edu
From: bucsb!brianb@bu-cs.bu.edu (Brian Bresnahan)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: article submission
Message-ID: <6072@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 29 Apr 89 01:24:12 GMT
References: <5977@cbnews.ATT.COM> <6034@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Boston Univ Comp. Sci.
Lines: 49
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: bucsb!brianb@bu-cs.bu.edu (Brian Bresnahan)

In article <6034@cbnews.ATT.COM> sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Stuart Warmink) writes:
>From: sw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (Stuart Warmink)
>
>In article <5977@cbnews.ATT.COM>, brianb%bucsf.BU.EDU@bu-cs.bu.edu (Brian Bresnahan) writes:
>> 
>> The exocet was designed to hit the belt of ship and sink it, not burrow
>> into it and cripple it.  You are going to do much less structural damage
>> with a hit through the deck, and the exocet does not have the explosive
>> punch to kill a ship that way.
>
>No sea-skimming missile hits below the waterline, so it is unlikely to sink
>a ship that way. They *do* home in towards the central command & control
>centers as stated by a previous poster.
>
Right they hit the belt of a ship, and it puts a hole in side of the
ship.  As I said above, its intent is to cause structural damage.
All the data I have seen on the Harpoon and Exocet, tells me
that they aare designed to hit the broadside of the ship, they do
not home in. Every photograph I have seen of a ship or target hit by
a seaskimmer was hit in the hull area, not in the upper part of the
ship.

>Exocet does not "pop-up" as far as I know, unlike the Harpoon, which does.
>The resaon it does is not to evade enemy fire; in fact, by "popping-up"
>it exposes itself more!

The only system capable of hitting seaskimmers as they make their
final attack are the Close In Weapon System, like phalanx.  These
system fire without much human interference, and they use automatic
fire control systems, and the pop-up servess to confuse these systems.

Manually operated weapons are not going to stop missiles very often
(ask the royal navy), and as the point where the seaskimmer pops up
is well inside the range of defensive missiles. 

[question to moderator, I see a reply to my article here, but I never
 saw the original?]

[mod.note:  It sometimes happens.  News articles sometimes get lost
in the shuffle, I'm told. - Bill ]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Brian Bresnahan
brianb@bucsf.bu.edu
engf0ic@buacca.BITNET