> At 10:07 AM 8/27/98 -0700, Bruce Alan Macintosh wrote:
As an AEgis Cruiser Driver, I must Disagree with Bruce. While a cruiser may be
limited to its ability to affect events ashore with a 5 inch gun, there are
weapons systems coming online to change that. As listed in Jane's a cruiser
can carry 8 Harpoon Missiles and the Standar Missile,
normally used for anit-air missions, are actually quite capable of
damaging a ship. I may not get a catastrophic kill with these, but I'm certain
to get a mission kill. A Standard Missile is very fast...
Gort, Klaatu barada nikto!
Regarding surface-to-surface damage, isn't the 5" gun carried a rather
potent little weapon? I dont' know the details, but I thought it was an
automatic weapon with nice (okay, so not missile range) range that could chew
up a modern surface combatant without too much trouble. After all, these ships
are not heavily armored any more.
On Thu, 27 Aug 1998 12:27:54 -0700 "Phillip E. Pournelle"
> <pepourne@nps.navy.mil> writes:
A 5 inch gun is a fanatstic weapon...it can engage air targets (or at least
oput up some nice flak to distract the target), very nicely chew up a surface
combatant, and put out the roughly equivalent firepower of a towed artillery
battery against a shore target with a range of ammunition. I understand the
USN is developing some rather flash ammo wiuth ridiculous ranges, but whether
we poor provo Navies will get it (or can afford it) is another matter.
The 5 inch gun-Dont leave home without it....I don't.