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We don't. Haven't in many years.

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Kills are 100 points. Assists are the percentage of damage you contributed to the kill, so if you were responsible for 68% of the damage to take down the plane but someone else got that one rivet that needed blown, you'd get 68 points. Common scoring system.

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This should be a real thing.





http://www.armyrecognition.com/Amerique_du_nord/Etats_Unis/vehicules_a_roues/LAV-25/LAV-AD/LAV-ad_Air_Defense_Armoured_Vehicle_US_Army_11.jpg

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The mitchell myth is just one of many.



As the US navy proved near the end of WW2, sinking ships with airplanes was nearly impossible in combat with properly designed fleets.  Sneak attacks and/or dumb luck were required (see also:  Midway)

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FCS died.



So we are stuck with strykers for eva.  chobham armor was a big change for armored vehicles.  so was reactive armor.  ATGMs caused a big change.



8 wheeled lightweight armored personnel carriers aren't a revolution.  they aren't even an improvement.



We wanted to drive a revolution with FCS and failed.  Same thing with Comanche.  Software and bolt on additions are the improvements now, but you can do that with any chassis.



active protection has promise.



You can't just shit a revolutionary technology.



you want something lightweight and survivable against land mines and shape charges.  well.  say "hello" when you find it.

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FCS died.

So we are stuck with strykers for eva.  chobham armor was a big change for armored vehicles.  so was reactive armor.  ATGMs caused a big change.

8 wheeled lightweight armored personnel carriers aren't a revolution.  they aren't even an improvement.

We wanted to drive a revolution with FCS and failed.  Same thing with Comanche.  Software and bolt on additions are the improvements now, but you can do that with any chassis.

active protection has promise.

You can't just shit a revolutionary technology.

you want something lightweight and survivable against land mines and shape charges.  well.  say "hello" when you find it.

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snip

Actually, smaller ships did have the radar controlled guns necessary. Radar was on ships as small as PT boats.  The Mk33 and Mk37 gun fire control radar systems were installed on destroyers, cruisers, and battleships from the beginning until the end of the war. Specialized destroyers were built with radars specifically to control Combat Air Patrols, which was the most effective method of air defense during the war.



Never said they didn't have radar as well, especially later.





Arguably, the St.Louis/Atlanta/Cleveland-classes were better for carrier air defense than a BB for the simple fact that you could crew two of them for one BB and they cost less than 1/2 of a BB.



Once again, you and other always bring up crew size and cost.  "What difference does it make". Like the Navy is shy about spending money.
In other words, you could have two light cruisers specifically outfitted for AAA that could be in two places, or one BB that did AAA as a side-job that could only be in one place. One BB or two CLAAs as the light cruisers were known, would both have 4 radar gun fire control directors. It is the number of fire control directors that is the important part. A CLAA would have two, centerline. Meaning it could track targets to port or starboard, two targets at a time. A BB could track four targets, but only two to port or two to starboard. Which is great against a multi-axis attack, but limited in a stream raid.  



Cool, get all those too and toss them in the TF for when BB's go shoot dirt.  Win all the way around.



If you really want to talk bang for your buck, you need to talk destroyers. Although, each destroyer only carried one radar gun fire control director, you could have 10 destroyers for every one BB. Ten radar gun fire control directors in 10 different locations or four radar gun fire control directors in one location. Destroyers were a bargain.



Good thing they were cheap, something like 76 got sunk in WW2. Then again, even the Infantry uses people as meat shields, so if destroyers fill that roll more power too them.



All three classes had 40mm bofors and used the Mk51 optical director to aim them. Of course, BBs had more guns and directors of this type. And, of course, being on one ship, they only had so much reach. Bofors being a relatively short range weapon. You wouldn't want to approach a BB with its 20 quad 40mms, but because the 40mm's effective range was relatively small, the enemy could fly outside this "bubble." If you wanted to protect another ship with a 40mm, you'd need to get close to the ship you want to protect. Once you do this, you effectively mask your batteries that face the ship you want to protect. It doesn't do much good to put rounds into the ship you want to protect, after all.



On the flip side, without survivability it doesn't help if the ship sinks.   Lots of give at take.



snip

Where the rubber meets the road is where people put their money. No battleships were ordered after 1940. There were plenty of destroyers, light cruisers, and carriers ordered.



BB-65 and BB-66 were supposed to be Montana-class battleships, but they were recast as Iowa-class for the reasons you mention, to escort the carriers. But even that reasoning wasn't enough to save them.



In fact, even for the BBs ordered, if they weren't far enough along, were delayed in their construction because they weren't high enough priority.

BB-65 and BB-66's construction was put on hold after Midway. Their construction re-started, but given a low priority. BB-65 ended the war 22% finished.

BB-66 suffered a more indignant fate. She was moved out of the way so LSTs could be produced. Work on BB-66 stopped for two years during the war.

snip



Really makes you wonder what life would be like had we treated the Wa Navel treaty like everyone else.



The battleship wasn't obsolete in WWII, well up until 1944 at least. But the writing was on the wall. They cost too much, it took too many people to man one, they could only be in one place at one time, and the range of their offensive firepower was limited.

Yet, it was still used into the 90's, and would have probably been used in Iraq in 2003 had the Navy not said there was a replacement almost ready... that's still almost ready.

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So the last time 30mm came up it was talking about A-10's 30mm guns not being that great for CAS against troops, because while being big chunky rounds, the AC didn't pack enough because it was designed for a different role, and many said that it would benefit from a smaller round and higher capacity.

In this thread, the opposite is being discussed.  


So is it a difference in platform and method of delivery?  Rate of fire slower for the Stryker so the larger caliber losing ammo doesn't hurt as much?

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that was the active protection I was referring to.  But it still doesn't help you from a 120mm Sabot.

If the solid state laser technology continues to improve, that may indeed be a revolution.

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Clearly the answer to all the problems is to bring back the M8 Greyhound.  


It's smaller, cheaper and takes a smaller crew.   For every Stryker produced multiple greyhound could be made instead.

The lack of passenger capacity can be offset by loading troops in the M20 variant.


Bam, problem solved, problem staying solved.

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Soooooooooooooo


Why doesn't Glock make an armored vehicle?

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The AF got rid of them for the same reason we boneyarded 10 year old C-27As.  Italian airplanes have zero logistics support and are unreliable maintenance hogs.  Basically the ferrari of airplanes for all the wrong reasons.

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Never said they didn't have radar as well, especially later.

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Also funny how one of those ancillary roles was escorting Carriers since they couldn't do a good job of it themselves, and smaller boats didn't have volume of fire, or radar controlled guns to protect from air threats.

Once again, you and other always bring up crew size and cost.  "What difference does it make". Like the Navy is shy about spending money.

Cool, get all those too and toss them in the TF for when BB's go shoot dirt.  Win all the way around.

Good thing they were cheap, something like 76 got sunk in WW2. Then again, even the Infantry uses people as meat shields, so if destroyers fill that roll more power too them.
On the flip side, without survivability it doesn't help if the ship sinks.   Lots of give at take.

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Steel can also be used to build things like destroyers, which unlike BBs can conduct anti-submarine warfare operations and escort convoys.

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Even with the threat of German surface ships, very rarely were convoys attacked by them. It's also worthy of note that convoys, due to the slow speed of the ships, didn't need fast battleships for surface escort. Nor did the British ask for battleships for convoy escorts, but they sure did ask for 50 old four-piper destroyers for convoy operations.



Here's a question, what did we lose more ships to?

1. German surface ships convoy raiding

2. German submarines during the Second Happy Time



It's #2, and the reason was a lack of destroyers and anti-submarine ships in general. That prevented effective convoy operations up and down the East Coast. Imagine if, instead of building battleships that took three years to produce, we had spend the time, money, and resources (including dry dock space) producing destroyers instead. We could have had a lot more destroyers by January 1942, perhaps enough to implement some convoys on the East Coast.



Even during the war there was a resource crunch. If it wasn't a resource crunch we would have kept building BB-65 and BB-66, but we didn't. We cancelled their construction to build other things, notably LSTs. We built far more than 175 Fletchers, we also built Gleaves, Gearings, and Sumners. Still we had to build Destroyer Escorts because Destroyers weren't building fast enough.



I'm not sure why you're bringing up the Glorious. The British attitude towards airborne scouting was deplorable at that time. As for the Duke of York sinking the Scharnhorst, it was the cruisers, notably Belfast and Norfolk, that successfully screened and protected the convoy. And The Duke of York may have played a part in his sinking, but destroyers and over 20 torpedoes had just as much or more to do with it. And besides, I said that battleships weren't totally obsolete until 1994.

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That's sort of the key right there, combined arms.  Duke of York turned the assault into a flight, and the other elements of the task force finished the job.  WWII was still a transitional war and I think battleships had a role in that kind of war.  Plus, at the end of the day we only built 10 new battleships (12 if you count the Alaskas), among a couple hundred or so destroyers, over 500 DE's IIRC, 9 light carriers, 17 or so fleet carriers, etc.  I don't think it was a huge resource drain for us.  In England, where resources were much more limited they did halt battleship construction in favor of the lighter ships, resulting in a delayed commissioning of the last couple KG V's.  In regards to the convoy problem, that was more of a lack of strategic thought that a resources issue.  Heck, King didn't even attempt to use convoys despite British warnings at the beginning of the war.  
 

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One of the reasons King didn't listen to the Brits was didn't have the resources to form convoys in 1942. That's the point. We were busy building a two-ocean navy focused on major combatants, not the small combatants. What did we find ourselves short of? Destroyers, destroyer escorts, and landing craft.

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We had more than enough escorts, when you consider the actual British experience was that a convoy with 1 or 2 virtually useless escorts was still preferable to individual sailings, under virtually all conditions.  Quite simply, the Navy didn't think other people's experience mattered, the same way that, eventually, the Army and AAC had to re-learn from the British Army and RAF (and in some ways, refused to do so until after the war, if at all).  The US was pretty much the king of NIH syndrome in WW2.  OTOH, we did adapt the Oerlikon, Bofors, 6Lbr and assorted other weapon systems.