Battleships and DD(X) Archives
Battleships and DD(X)
Robert Novak has an editorial on the Navy's plan to decommission it's last two battleships, the Iowa and the Wisconsin. He's pitching a line for the Marine Corps, whose commandant General Mike Hagee told Congress two years ago that the loss of naval surface fire support would place his troops "at considerable risk." . . . These battleships are old, they're expensive to maintain, and the industry doesn't support manufacture of the ammunition for the big guns. The Marine Corps does have air support and field artillery systems for fire support. I don't see the justification to keep battleships just so you have an option to fire on North Korean military structures, as Novak alludes. Maybe it's time for the big guns to go silent.
"Big Guns Go Silent," by Jason Sigger, DEFENSETECH.org, December 6, 2005
More
- "The Current Status Of The Iowa Class Battleships," Warships1
- "The major reason for decommissioning the Iowa class battleships was economics." The Warfighter's Encyclopedia, NavAir, U.S. Navy
- "Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support," GAO Report, November 19, 2004 (31-page pdf )
- "DD(X) Multi-Mission Surface Combatant: Future Surface Combatant," GlobalSecurity.org
- "DD(X) Class Multimission Destroyer, USA," naval-technology.com
- DD(X) - official web site
- "Navy plans for expanding the fleet," General Quarters, December 4, 2005
- "Deep budget cuts coming to the Navy?" General Quarters, October 25, 2005
- "Navy News," Kinshasa On The Potomac, December 3, 2005
Technorati Tags: navy, US Navy
December 7, 2005 03:08 PM Military