Here is a piece written by the US Naval Fire Support Association. They advocate bringing back the big 16" Navy guns in a Iowa Battleship configuration. Well OK maybe they are a bit biased but you have to admit it, these guns really kick ASS.

[url]usnfsa.com/articles/techdata/td1.htm[/url]

The 16" guns probably shot their last rounds in anger in the Gulf.  It is too expensive, manpowerwise, to have the BBs.  Look at the DD21, half the crew of a current DD, what do you think the reason for requiring a crew half the size of current ships was?

I just wonder if they don't have a point when they compare the costs of the projectiles.

Tomahawk Land Attack costs 1.8 millon.

I don't have article up any more but the 16" shell was 8,000? with a kill zone of 10,000 square meters per shell.

raf,  The Iowa is now mothballed in Suisun Bay near Benicia, CA.

I'd be very suprised if the DD21 hits the seas in its present form.  There is the little matter of the [i]Cole[/i] bombing and the damage that was inflicted on her. If she was a DD21 with only a 100 person crew, could they have saved her?  I think when the investigation is going to be completed the answer will be NO.

And in spite of the "Land Attack" tag they put on them they are really a ASW destroyer to replace the Spruance's.  Thing is we dont need new ASW only ships, as streatched, hanger equipped version of the DDG51's would be better.
If you want dedicated ASW platforms, buy more SSN's...

The kicker is that all four battleships could be refurbished with new missile launchers and new, long range ammo for the 16in guns for the price of [i]one[/i] DD21.

As for recrutement problems, well perhaps bringing the BB's back might address that too?
Make them coed, give the job of manning the 16" battery to the Marines- since few in the Navy understand bagged charge guns anymore, as the Iowa accident clearly demonstrated, and anyway the reason those guns still exist is for support of amphibious landings.  The whole 16in system, from the RPV's through the FCS to the gun crews ought to be Marine crewed. They would have a vested interest in doing the job right.
I think beween these mesures, and perhaps laying up a couple more of the useless FFG7 class frigates, they could get the 6000 men and women to man the 4 Iowas.

Besides for all this talk of "manpower shortage" if Congress said "Well gee Navy, this budget doesnt look as bad as we thought, well let you have a 13th carrier" you think they would say "Gee, thanks but no thanks, we cant find 5000 people to man a extra carrier, sorry". Riiight..

This "manning problem" is BS, the Navy doesnt want anything that has to do with supporting Marine forced entry operations.  The Navy hierarchy is dominated by Aviation and Submarine officers who grew up during the Cold War and cannot concieve of anything other than fighting the Battle of the Atlantic III.  They do not consider providing firepower to Marine forced entry ops is a high priority, or if they do they egotisticaly beleve that it can be supplied entirely by carrier avation, totally ignoring the Time/Speed/Distance problems involved when the carrier is 200mi+ out to sea and has a severe shortage of tanker aircraft to maintain a "cab rank" of on call orbiting aircraft. This hoists the burden off on each MEU's small detachment of Harriers, which can only handle so many calls.

Actually its not just the Marines that need NGS, the Army does too. A lot quick reaction forced entry scenerios envolve combining the nearest MEU and CVBG with the Rangers and the Ready Brigade of the 82nd Airborne. The Rangers and Airborn jump near the nearest large airport while the MEU seizes the nearest harbor and they try to fight toward each other and the Airborne can then use the MEU's reserve supplies to live off of if fighting is intense, while they all wait for a MEB or the 3rd Infantry Division or both to arrive by sea. But until they have secured a airfield- one that has a adaquate supply of jet fuel too- the A-10s cannot arrive, and untill they do we dont have much that can defeat well dug bunkers except the battleships guns.  The result is a window of vulnerablity of several hours during and right after that initial entry where heavy casualties could be sustained.

Would it be possible to build a new ship, more automated, with say 12" guns for fire support?? Maybe it could be strong enough for close support and have advanced radar/computer systems, that would be costly to retrofit on an Iowa class. They could also have state of the art propulsion...........

I had a book that described the Iowa class in good detail, from WWII to their reactivation during the Reagan years. A few configurations were proposed including replacing C turret with a hangar/VSTOL deck. The author went on to explain that the Marines refused any configuration that reduced the number of 16" rifles; they wanted each and every tube available for gunfire support. Basically, few conventional weapons can erase the landscape like a 1900lb. HICAP shell. Besides the 36 weapons mounted on the four IOWAs, many more barrel liners were still in storage.

It's true that battleships are expensive to man and operate, but compared to what? The book (and I'll be damned if I can find it) listed comparisons of an IOWA's broadside tonnage versus missile cruisers and carrier airwings. The numbers were pretty compelling. Then there's the 12.25" side plating. What would've happened had a suicide attack such as the Cole sustained occurred against an IOWA? Scorched and buckled side plating and one or two flooded compartments?

Here's a pretty cool 16" gun:

[img]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/024/sy/YF/7e/OA83052.jpg[/img]

This was one of many coastal defense guns dating from WW1. Now on display at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Ordnance Museum.

I really miss those big battleships. Talk about "Gunboat Diplomacy". I read somewhere that those 16" guns were capable of MOA accuracy at 20 miles. Anybody want to do the math on that one?

The figure I remember is that an IOWA was capable of placing a 16" shell into an area the size of a football field from 20 miles. Sounds like MOA to me! And that's for a ballistic flight; no lasers or terminal guidance. There was supposed to be an extended range, rocket assisted projectile with a 50 mile range. Had they gotten such a projectile operational, it's no stretch of the imagination to make it laser guilded. A 16" shell coming right at you? Ouch!

That's incredible... MOA at 20 miles is 352".

Some of the info in the article is good, but some of the information is incorrect.  I assume that the author is from the Navy and should have run some of the fire support issues by the consumer of the fire support.

Personnel issues are one of those things Congress has the final say in.  In the long run what the navy has ended up doing is sending ships to sea undermanned and making sailors do back to back and more time at sea.  Putting women on BBs is not a workable solution, since these are 1940 (actually 1900s) tech vessels.  There is nothing light on them and there are no facilities for women.  

The two of the selling points of the DD21 is that most of the weapons are it are NSF weapons vice ASuW/AAW/ASW and its low crew overhead.  Damage control, supposedly was taken into account, and comparing ability of a crew of a future vessel to be able to do damage control on future or past vessel is not a real accurate one.  Technology changes, what was necessary a few years ago may not be necessary a few years from now.  And if damage control is an issue that is one of the biggest reasons, among hundreds of others, that women don't belong on current fighting ships, most cannot do current damage control methods.

Forced entry via amphibious assault while still within the repertoire of the Marines is the least preferred method of attack.  If the enemy has time to fortify the amphibious assailable zone, one of two things will happen. We would stand there all day and attack with unlimited fire power or as we saw happen in the second war in the pacific, the enemy had the time to build fortifications that could survive everything including direct hits from 16" guns.  In the long run, OMFTS and STOM will not have us attacking into the teeth of an enemy defense, but at his weakness and centers of gravity.

Once you start going inland you start to see the limitations of NGF and see the transition to NSF.  There is just a limit to the range and accuracy of guns.  Combine this with the fact to get longer "in range" they have to go in close to shore.  Something that makes them more vulnerable to the big nemesis of the USN, the naval mine.  The only solution you see is the adoption of missile based systems like the LASM and tactical tomahawk. Now these bring up additional issues of cost and ability to pass menstruated target location to the firing platform.

Another big problem is the rise in the primacy of the ICM round.  ICM is not normally used in "close support."  Because of the increase in lethality of the munitions and inability to bring the round close.  One thing most need to remember is that 16" guns are normally not in the direct support role, but general support to the division.  Using a 16" would move danger close to 1000 m from friendlies with HE.  If the primary load out is ICM (either AP or DP) you the danger close out to 2000 m.  Not something that the average Marine is going to be able to use in the close fight.

It is important to remember that the 1900lb 16" HC shell has only 145lbs of "Compisition B" in it.

It was designed in WWI for use against other ships as well as fortified coast defense batteries and has VERY thick walls as a result. It was never intended to be used with a airburst fuse agaisnt troops in the open. When the battleships were reactivated a new 2240lb shell, copied form a never used WWII AP shell, was introduced and it is a modern, thin wall design that could hold about four times as much explosive as the old HC round could and had 3miles more range. Only 200 of these rounds were made,- and these were filled with M46 DPICM bomblets for use against SAM sites.  In todays money it would cost about 12,000 a round for this new ammo.

Built and test fired, but never fielded, was the EX-141 13"/16" disguardng sabot round, which was basically a 1000lb Mk 83 GP aircraft bomb body fitted with a plastic sabot to fit the 16in bore.  The handful of hand assembled proof rounds had a longest range of 34 miles with the service cartridge.  With a base bleed gas generator fitted it should have made 50mi.

Never tested was a 11"/16" sabot, to be constructed with left over shell bodies from the Army's 280mm "Atomic Cannon" program of the 1950's. This was planned to attack high value targets at 50+ miles range, and would have been fitted with a guidance tail section and some form of guidence- probably laser using technology from Copperhead. It would of had a secondary anti-warship mission. The plans for the unguided version of this round are on USNFSA website posted above.  If you look at them and then go to [url]fas.org[/url] and look up the ATACMS missile you will find that the two are very close in payload and performance.

The longest ranged 16" shell that acutally exists in numbers is the 2700lb Mk VIII APC round, designed expressly to sink Yamato class battleships. With supercharge these rounds have reached 27 miles- however they contain only about 17 pounds of explosive in their tail.

If you go through the whole FAS.org US Land Warfare systems page you will find that the 16" gun is the only unmanned weapons system that we have that can deal with North Koreas bunker and tunnel complexes along the DMZ.  Which are not built under sand like in Iraq, but dug into real bedrock of real mountains and covered with some of the most extensive anti-aircraft defenses in the world.  If you go to the Redston Arsenel website, you will find that the Army is only now begining to work on unitary penatrator warheads for the ATACMS and MLRS to engage these targets- and it remains to be seen wether they will be good enough.  Otherwise the B2's will be VERY busy come the next Korean War, cause they are the only things that can carry the correct bunker busting weapons and have a chance of escaping the air defese system intact- and we have only 20 of them.

Remember, the military hirarchy brought battleships out of hiding in the past, and with good results. It is highly unlikely that they will repeat this, claiming unjustifiable expense. Any differences between services may have some interesting conclusions. The fact that remains, some tecnologies are simply not easy to replace.....such as...sr71 mothball...u2 mothball (not for very long) fb11 mothball, where the commanding general made a statement to his units, that he may have very well made a "premature decision"...the "missle age" gave a false impression that conventional warfare was extinct....how many times this has been proven false, yet some high-ups still have the "cold war" mentality.....conventional warfare is here to stay...apparently the marines, as a group realize this....today`s economy politics, make defense spending a entity similar to medicare, in the minds of some of the washington "elite"....hope they wake up in time.........[smoke]

A question for you, Armdlbrl.  Were you ever in the Navy or the Marines?  It is pretty obvious that you detest the Navy.

Other than your dislike for the Navy, do you base the comments about how the Navy does not want to provide fire support for the Marines on any real facts?

As for your slamming of the sailors that have manned the big guns in the past, these 'incompetents' are the one's who were hitting a football field from 20 miles away and they have just as much knowledge of bag charges as anyone.  Your referring to the accident on the IOWA is bogus.  Do the occasional crashes by Marine pilots mean that they don't understand flying?  No, it doesn't.  Accidents can happen to anyone.

No I do NOT hate the Navy!  I think its being mismanaged, but that is all.  Why the hell is it that when someone is critical of one of the services some you go "Gee he must hate the Navy".  That is stupid.  If any group needs criticism its the military because of the numberr of people who will get killed if they screw up.  And when it comes to purchasing decisions they have, repeatedly, screwed up over the history of this country.

STLRN, what is the minimum safe distance for dropping a 1000lb aircraft bomb near troops? Is that also 1km or can they drop closer?

Question....What government entity/agency ISN`T being MISMANAGED?..........[dracula]

25,000 miles at 15kts is bad fuel mileage?
Also, you do know that in both the tanker war and the Gulf War we used them as tankers to refuel the ships providing air defense for the minesweeping operation. Both because of a general shortage of AO's and because so many oilers have been downgraded to USNS status with chartered civilian crews and couldnt be deployed in such dangerous waters.

Who in the Air Force says they dont want B52's? They were the ones who asked to keep them- till at least 2020.  For reasons similar to why the Navy should be keeping the battleship. Not enough B2's and the B1's are hanger queens, but we will keep using all of them, cause sometimes you just have to erase a grid square or two.  Look how many times the Air Force has tried to kill the A10, but are always forced by the Army to keep them in service.

By the way, what ever happened to the f4?......if the navy sees it proper to rehab a7/a8 types, why not f4`s?....Personally, I believe somebody missed the boat on this one...........[smoke]

It is not stupid to think that you hate the Navy.  Let's see:



As in my previous post, does an accident [b]clearly[/b] demonstrate that whoever was involved in said accident does not understand the subject matter that was involved in the accident?

and:



Those to me sound like slaps at the personnel rather than the management and also sounds like conjecture and opinion rather than fact.  How do you know what the Navy heirarchy is thinking?  Again, did you serve in either the Navy or the Marines?

Aegis crusers can shoot down SRBMs. In fact they have demonstrated a better ability at it then Patriot.  It would have to be a very big warhead, and it would have to be set to explode underwater.  It was noted as far back as the Able and Baker tests that nuclear airbursts dont hurt ships very much. Underwater shockwave are DEADLY to ships however.  But ships move They will be 15-20 miles away from where you thought they were when you fired the missile.  This is why even the Russians in the cold war rarely fitted nuclear warheads to their large carrier killing SSMs

Larry, who else would I be talking about, Admirals are running the Navy who dont want to get involved in dirty, brown water wars.  They have to be forced to do things about it  by the Congress and the President.  Its not just the battleships. Look at the [i]Cyclone[/i] class PC's for crying out loud.  Something with a shilouette that tall is supposed to infiltrate SEALS?  And just how many SSBN's do we need anymore?  But we have a great need for LPSSN's to carry SEAL and Marine Recon operators, but only two have been turned over for that role so far, and they are older Posiden boats that dont have much life left and a older sonar suite which means less survivabilty.

I suppose Larry your one of those who refuse to acknowledge the right of a US citizen to criticize how the military spends its money and uses its people if we werent in the military?  That we are simply to fork over our money and our kids with no say in the matter if we were never in the service ourselves?  At least I try to keep up with what the military does, how many other people- even ex servicemen- even BOTHER to do that!

Yep, you are correct in that assumption.  That would be like me telling a doctor or a mechanic how to do their jobs without ever having walked in their shoes, even if I am paying them to do their thing.

Are you sure I [i]chose[/i] not to serve?  As far as I know we have never met so how could you know anything about me?  But thank you for revealing that you are a facist bigot, now I know where you are coming from, and can treat your future posts with the seriousness they deserve.

Yeah the ideas, Why no like I suggested a new ship maybe not as armored, new engine, computer, radar, and so forth built around auto loaded guns say 12" at least 4 tubes. Maybe have part of the ship as an amphib support area, and a command center for the amphib forces. Germany had 11" guns on their pocket battleships and battlecruisers, and they were limited not by the range of the guns but the horizon, unless they had forward spotters, at least until the got radar.

A modern 12" would be more space efficient and if designed from the ground up could have laser guidance or rocket assist not to mention andvanced fusing.

Well, as a Marine I can honestly say the appearance is most SWOs don't want to do naval gunfire.  The reason they have recently latched on to NSF to support Marine Ops is that they pitched congress on the "Navy-Marine Corps" team and its use in littoral warfare.  Because they claim we allow them to extend the DON battle space far enough into shore, they have to provide us with support.


The MSD for a 1000lbs Mk 83 LD or LGB is 275 m if you accept a 10 percent chance of creating a friendly causality, 500 if only want 1 chance in 1000.  The problems with NGF and all indirect fire system is that as your range increases you start experiences the effects of probable errors.  And since NGF are guns, you see a hellatious long elliptical beaten zone.  Most times you attempt to only shoot naval guns parrellel to the FLOT, otherwise there is a high chance of dthe beaten zone covering friendly forces.

Well I know my suggestion would be costly. I'm sure it would be more difficult to get suitable armor today than in WWII. I'm also suggesting that the armor be lighter, 3-8 inch or so. Because the Iowa's etc. were designed to fire/be hit by large projectiles, repeatadly. Now the danger is a missile they don't fire 50 a minute of those at you. So my thinking was defeat missiles by AAM, goalkeeper, or phalanx, not to mention keeping a low radar profile, But also make the ship manuevarable and give it enough armor to take a good hit from a missile, terrorist speedboat, or land based arty. Something that proposed gunboat can't do.

Also make it fast, so it can OUTRUN carriers, that was a knock on the Iowa's. Make it fuel efficient as can be and crew efficient. Because the cost to build the boat is usually lees of a long rang concern than the cost to run it. I think conventional arty gives youi more rounds on target than all the fancy stuff they have now. But the fancy stuff also allows you to put one round on jeep 30 miles away. A new system would get a lot of the gee whiz stuff but would also have the conventional abilties, hopefully. The 16" will be stuck in 1945 until the use up all the shells and powder they have stored for them, that will be along time from now. Also the 12" should have the latest counter-battery equipment.

The reason I say 12" is the biggest "land" arty is 8in/203mm so most defenses would be built to withstand that. If the build all forts to withstand 12" "just in case", it will make them use a whole lot of extra materials or construct fewer forts.

The Japanese were able to build fortifications in the 2nd World War that could with stand hits by 16" guns.

At one time we had 240mm and 280 mm and 16" guns on land in the recent past 8"/203mm was the largest the US recently deployed, those went away around 93-94.  All we have are MLRS for GS artillery right now.  The FSU on the other hand has some mortars in the 280 mm class.  Now if we are planning on making a weapon to penetrate bunker, and we tie it to ships, what happens when the bunkers are several hundred KM inland?  That is why most bunker buster type munitions are air delivered.

Rolled face hardend plate is easily defeated by shaped charge warheads- but a new battleship could be built with Chobham/Dortchester type armor as used on the M1 tank. Say about 1 meter thick.

There is nothing wrong with the DD21's attempt to use diesel electric propultion, which could indeed allow a ship the size of a destroyer to be sailed (but not fought)by as little as six men. Electric drive ships have tremendous redundancy and allow for some really radical internal compartmentalization.  

The problem is that they ARE warships. They have to fight, they have to take and recover from battle damage, they have to take crew casualties.  They have to be able to put extra men over the side to help other warships fight damage they have sustained- as so many other US ships did so the the [i]Cole[/i]'s crew could get food and sleep and a a break from 120 deg below decks temperature (no power means no AC). A ship with a crew as small as planned for the DD21's, around 100 persons, couldnt spare that many men and still be able to fight itself.

In the long term there is a solution to NGS, but its a good thirty years away, Its the electromagnetic cannon, also known as a Gauss rifle or a coil gun. It uses powerful electromagnetic fields to throw the projectile at speeds a chemical action cannon couldnt dream of due to chamber pressure levels.  The Army already has one, a 90mm gun that already delivers the same performance as the M1's 120mm gun. Problem is that its powersupply takes up a full 44ft cargo trailer.  Warships, especally nuclear powered ones, have lots of electrical power handy. A coil guns barrel is built up, they actually have holes in them to vent air that is being compressed in front of the projectile.  The kind of forging facilities for a 16in conventional gun isnt needed.

A new battleship, with lots of VLS and two single 16" coil guns, fully automatic and with large magazines, would be the ultimate solution. Coilguns dont require powder charges, just projectiles. Although coilgun projectiles have experienced G forces of 20,000G at the muzzle the initial start is far more gentle than with a conventional cannon. This makes a big difference in trying to get electonic guidence and control systems to survive firing. A problem that has plagued the Navy's 5" ERGP program.

But as I said this is a ways in the future.

If anyone is interested, I have a couple of photos of Iowa-Class BB's friring their main battery where the shells are clearly visible in flight.

I think I also have a photo where one of the shells airbursts just outside the gun tube.

I'll e-mail the JPG's to anyone who will host them.

Well, I saw a prototype drawing of the Adm Zoloft or whatever that the USN was saying would be the future of gunfire support. It is a low freeboard ship, with an angular superstructure, 1 5 or 6 in gun on the fore deck, and 1 2 missile launcher on the after deck. They say the autoloading, computer contolled gun can fire rounds 60 miles. Too bad the further it throws 'em the less explosive it throws. They basically said a 60 mile round would be slightly more powerful than a grenade. If a Marine is 60 miles inland I think he is fully capable of throwing his own grenade.

I have no doubt that guns are far more expensive than missile or rocket lauchers. But gun ammo is real cheap and missiles and rockets are wildly expensive. If it came to a shooting war guns are more sustainable and the rounds will make up the cost of the guns in a day or 2.

Guns are a good system for sustained fire on a target. Missiles are good for a long range target of high value.

STRL, good point, I would say that any NGF should be mostly conventional guns, but it should be able to shoot percision rounds, which are far tougher to defend against. Yes, NGF should have bunker busting capability. Because NGF is less dangerous to employ. That doesn't mean that aircraft shouldn''t have this capabilty as well. The advantage I see to NGF is the ability to put multiple rounds on target, switch targets, put rounds on target, switchs targets,..... and so on for extended periods. Missiles or planes deliver fewer projectiles, at higher cost, and there is a risk to the aircrew. They are better for higher value, strategic targets, NGF is better for tactical targets. When I was talking guns I was talking in common use anywhere in the world. I know other countries have more capable 155's then US as well.  

Rockets, planes are less capable if we face an enemy with a fuctional air force or air defence network. Once the projectile leaves the barrel of the big gun it will hit, something, hopefully it was aimed properly.

Well its true, Naval guns have a limit in how far inland they can reach.  But on the other hand why risk pilots attacking targets that could be destroyed by shells directed by RPV's? If the enemy knows that bunker destroying munitions can only be delivered by air, hey will surround them with the best anti air weapons he can afford. It was insane how many pilots we had killed or taken POW in Vietnam attacking targets the battleships could easily have destroyed. And not just battleships, back then we had still had the [i]Salem[/i] class CA's with their wonderful fully automatic 8"/55cal guns. 9 tubes, 12 260lb HE projectiles per minute per tube, 19mile range.

The reason I asked this is that the 16" shell has on paper less explosive than a modern aircraft bomb half its size.  I was wondering if changeing the fuse setting on the 16" were permit them them to fire close enought to friendlies to get them off of a hot LZ. Perhaps from airburst to impact, or if impact is already figured, how bout delay?  16" rounds are a bit large for close fire support, but there arent many alternatives that can reach that far.

 If we are using Ospreys, they are going to be landing far enough in that they will be beyond the range of just about everything except jet fighters and 16" guns.  This is the big concern, that intelligence is wrong, or the enemy simply moves that fast and jumps the vertical envelopment element and they have to disembark from Ospreys under fire or get counter attacked before the Ospreys can return or the Stallions can get there with the heavy weapons? I know that Ospreys are supposed to "streatch" the battlefield and reduce the likelyhood that there is anyone near the chosen LZ.  But this is a high risk strategy and it can backfire, what happens then?

Ospreys are going to have to be kept on a short leash anyway.  They could raid Afganistan from the Indian Ocean via inflight refueling, but how on earth would we ever support that?

Don't ever get hurt Larry.
My best friend in college was almost killed by a nurse at UCI Medical Center after her accident. She had 4 shattered vertibre in her back, and they were trying to stabilize her prior to surgery and a confused nurse tried to give her a injection of Helprin- a blood thinner.  She would have blead to death in hours if she hadnt known she wasnt supposed to be getting any injections and fought (as best she could when you have no movement below the chest) the nurse until a doctor came.

And the mechanics at my Dads shop would love to have you visit the next time you car needs serviced.  You'd be leaving with a completely new vheicle under the skin by the time they were done!

Just because someone has a title doesnt mean they are compitent or if compitent arn't CRIMINAL looking for someone like you to take advantage of.

All though I am Army, there's just something about a battleship. Much more intimidating than anything else out there.

Seen the Missouri, here once in Sydney Harbour years ago. What a sight she was! WW2 revisited, and a very historic piece. At least she is a monument now, which is better than becoming a reef or razor blades.

That ship ws undescribable in size, and quite a sight!! I'll never forget that, and those guns too. Fuck! What a concussion those must have made to have everyone off the deck when they fired.

Hey Feral,

Where are you stationed?

A friend of mine has been posted in Darwin for the last year or so, ever sonce thta East Timor thing. Looks like he'll be there through 2003.

Ever been up there? He says the fishing is great, just got back from a hunt on scrub bulls and pigs. Did well on both.

For Bombs, they just place a bomb at a location and detonate it to determine the distances that troops are in danger.  The problem with Indirect systems and their MSD is all the inherent and correctable errors in firing.  It is a matter of things like difference in muzzle velocity, slight difference in actual projectile weight, tube jump, tube memory, in naval guns, you also have problems like ships motion.  This cause indirect weapon system to have a 'beaten zone' similar to Machine guns.  Lower velocity weapons like standard artillery don't have as large a beaten zone until you start go out to extended ranges.  Naval guns, have very large beaten zones, it is just part of them being guns.  The 10% risk MSD for a for a 5" guns, although it has about half the explosives as a 155 mm, is 210 m while the 155 mm is 100 meters.  That is just an effect of the large beaten zone.  

Check these out:

[url]http://www.geocities.com/ziggyfoos/images/BB63-6.jpg[/url]

Note the six shells in the air. Not what I would want to have coming my way.

A few random thoughts.

I know that the Navy was working on an electro-magnetic gun to replace the 5" gun a long time ago.  I don't know anything else about it though.

The Navy is/has decommissioning all the nuclear Cruisers because of cost.  One of the goals in making a nuclear cruiser was to have a ship that could keep up with the carrier.   The solution that the Navy has come up with is to carry the required fuel for the escorts on the carrier. The only problem is that the carrier spends a lot of time refueling escorts instead of hauling ass.

I remember an interview with a woman that was a hostage on an airplane in the mid 80's.  She said that the hijacker kept going on about New Jersey and she couldn't really understand what a terrorist would have against the state of New Jersey?  After a few hours it dawned on her that it wasn't the state New Jersey, but the Battleship New Jersey.  The New Jersey shelled  terrorist hideouts in the hills around Beirut and based on the anger of the terrorist, to some effect.

Here are the pics cerberus emailed me...

My boss @ work has this first picture on his wall in color.  

[img]wsphotofews.excite.com/034/5k/n3/uK/Qu75358.jpg[/img]

[img]wsphotofews.excite.com/033/ON/VN/Fx/OQ27332.jpg[/img]

[img]wsphotofews.excite.com/029/Tb/pR/e6/Yc82837.jpg[/img]

7,

Thanks for posting them.

[b]Fire Controlman here[/b]
Your right ArmdLbrl "since few in the Navy understand bagged charge guns anymore"....

Maybe it is due to the fact they don't have any 16" gun c-schools anymore.