Navy builds awesome ship we totally don't need.

[Ameriman]

[The Comrade]

interdiction, ASW, radar platforms, pew pewing land.

i don't get where you're going with this. i never said it wasn't for those things.

[Spider]

A harpoon in particular I don't see being much of a problem unless half a dozen or more were to make it through and get good hits. Exocet basically the same.

A harpoon would certainly sink a modern ship (which is what it was designed for) easily enough. Iowa class armor was designed to resist kinetic penetrators. Its the difference between a 2000 lb supersonic explosive armor-piercing warhead and a 400 pound subsonic missile warhead. One is putting something like 6 times as much energy into the target as the other.

The way to hit an Iowa is from above. Trying to sink it at the waterline is not going to work very well. And remember...its returning fire the entire time.

The way this sloped armor is arranged, its not just about punching a hole with a shaped charge. There are layers and voids.

You can sink anything if you keep pummeling it. But this wouldn't be the same as one-shotting a destroyer or cruiser. You'd have to get quite a few good hits. Hell, you blow the entire bow completely off of an Iowa class ship and the damn thing still wouldn't sink. It would just go slower.

[eynon81]

[eynon81]

considering that this weapon system is designed to operate close to shore, that is, close to the enemy, I very much doubt they'd ever use it against some-one who can shoot back or worse, zerg rush you with J-10s:

[Spider]

Only way to properly deal with China is with cruise or ballistic missiles. Or maybe asteroid strikes.

[Boris Johnson]

Here it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

hilariously managed to find this again through some NWO nonsense.

Its easily the most interesting war game conducted in the past 30 years. It also as it happens is the most ignored by the DoD. Largey as it proves that, unless the enemy basically agree's to sit there and use his 30 year old soviet rip offs exactly as you expect him to. None of the massive shiney combined arms formations work quite as you want them to.

Its also a worrying precedent of the asymmetric swarm attack.

Unfortunately it's now a hell of alot harder to find the original source material on it.

http://web.archive.org/web/200709280054 ... s/mc02.htm

[exploited]

Haha what the hell is the point of a quarter billion dollar exercise when you don't even allow commanders to operate at their best? Clearly the Navy got it's ass handed to it.

[Thundertaker]

[The Comrade]

wasn't that the point of magnetically detonated mines? to create a bubble and crack the bottom of the ship?