Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: maniac%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George W. Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Iowa explosion
Keywords: Iowa
Message-ID: <6456@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 11 May 89 01:25:22 GMT
References: <6272@cbnews.ATT.COM> <6322@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 32
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: maniac%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George W. Herbert)

In article <6322@cbnews.ATT.COM> rti.uucp!duncan@rti.rti.org (Stephen Duncan) writes:
>To replace the bombardment capabilities, the 203mm upgrade to the 127/54s
>could be resurrected, replacing the twin 127/35s currently left.  At
>20 rounds per minute, 3 of these could approximate the 3 406mm lost.  With
>the Army's 203mm rocket assisted projectile, its range would also

Yeah, but they scrapped the project.  It would be difficult to bring it back
now, and expensive.  I do like the MLRS idea below, but it has a 
problem...

>approximate the bigger guns. A second alternative is to use the 225mm
>MRL of the Army.  These fire cluster munitions out to about 30,000 yards.
>About 10,000 yards less than the 406s.

This would, of course, require a whole new loading and launching system
to be designed.  It might be easier not to, and put any improvements into
somethin like MLRS on small yachts, a cheaper and easier to deal with idea
than working it into a battleship.

>On a different note, why have the 40mm guns been removed from the BBs?
>I would think that replacing them with newer guns, such as the twin
>40/70s in the DARDO ciws, would be in line, but wouldn't any extra
>firepower help against incoming missiles?

No reason to.  They won't stop reliably anything that the armour won't and
they require lots of crew, something the navy is running low on.  If they
were going to do it, they's add more Phalanx, but they allready have 4 and
don't need any more.