World Affairs Board - View Single Post - USS New Jersey in Lebanon Channeling Thread

Shipwreck · 03-20-2008, 06:20 AM

A Glimpse of Hell : The Explosion on the U. S. S. Iowa & Its Cover-Up by Charles Thompson :

Quote:

Pages 139-140 : The Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed to let the battleship [USS New Jersey] fire on December 14, 1983. Eleven 1900-pound high-explosive shells were lobbed into the Shouf Mountains. There we no spotters in the air or on the ground to adjust where the shells fell. The results were pitiful. (...)

She was cleared for another fire mission the afternoon of February 8, 1984. The targets -all located by satellite- were Druze and Syrian gun positions near a mountain village about fifteen miles east of Beirut. Again, no spotters were present. For eight hours, the New Jersey hurled nearly 300 sixteen-inch shells. She fired another thirteen shells on February 26 before heading back to her homeport. (...) The results of these two missions were even worse than in December.

Marine Colonel Don Price, who had served in combat in Vietnam and was familiar with naval shore-fire bombardment practices investigated the New Jersey's gunnery in Lebanon and concluded that she missed her targets by as much as 10000 yards (about six miles). Price was convinced that some of the New Jersey's errant shells killed civilians living in the Shouf Mountains, although the Navy denied this. "You have a multimillion-dollar weapons system and nobody knows how to put the rounds anywhere near the target," Price said.

Although the Navy publically claimed that the New Jersey hit her targets, the CNO (...) thought otherwise (...) [he] met with RADM Bill Fogarty and asked him if there had been a powder problem when he commanded the New Jersey.