yla@IDA.LiU.SE (Yngve Larsson) (04/29/89)
From: Yngve Larsson <yla@IDA.LiU.SE> I wonder what type of warhead these 16" shells have? Are they pure HE, or are they "hardened nose" armor-piercing HE. Was there ever any attempts at creating shape-charge warheads (HEAP) for them (I believe the technology was available at WWII)? [mod.note: Shaped-charges (HEAT, at the time) were indeed available in WWII; the bazooka, for example, used them. However, there's little need for them in 16" fire; few targets are armored well enough to resist the 16" APC shell, anyway. The 16" APC (armor piercing, capped) shell weighs 2700 lbs. Filler was ammonium picrate (Explosive D), amounting to 40.47 pounds. The HC (high-capacity) shell weighs 1900 pounds, with a TNT bursting charge amounting to 8 to 8.5% of that weight, or 153.58 lbs). There are both nose and base fuses, the former for instantaneous detonation, and removable; the latter for delayed action. A third fuse, behind the nose fuse (intended as a backup for that fuse), however, was not removable, and tended to detonate on contact, negating the base fuse delay (one might suppose that this problem has been solved; of course, against unarmored modern ships, one would probably want nose fusing, anyway.) Ref: Dulin, Garzke, and Sumrall, _Battleships - US Battleships in WWII_ - Bill ] With the light armor of the presumed opposition, I guess AP rounds are less desirable nowadays, but what about cluster bomblet munition (a k a ICM)? A 16" shell (or even the 13" round hinted at by one author) would cover a really large area, killing every surface vessel (or land target) in a, say, 200 m radius (pure speculation, is this realistic?). On another note, I believe armored ships died because of airpower. Airpower could kill battleships, and only airpower could protect you from enemy air. At least, this was the state in '45. Nowadays, who knows? /Yngve Larsson -- Yngve Larsson UUCP: ...mcvax!enea!liuida!yla Dept of CIS Internet: yla@ida.liu.se Linkoping University, Sweden Phone: +46-13-281949