Quote:
Originally Posted by Shek
I'm not sure what the original thrust of the Lebanon debate was, whether it was just over accuracy of the fire or whether it was linked to the potential performance of battleships
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The debate is (at least) three-folded between :
1. Those who claim that battleships are intrinsically *effective as an awesome, massive visible show of force where we want to get people's attention and respect" and others who observe that the decision to deploy
USS New Jersey wasn't *sound military judgement*, but pure *wishful thinking* (e.g. Powell and Kelly).
2. Those who claim that
USS New Jersey's shooting off Lebanon in 1983-84 was *superb* and others who observe that her gunfire performance greatly suffered from excessive dispersion. The former reflects early statements made by Navy officials (e.g. Admiral Walters), while the latter is based, among others, on the 1985 GAO study (for some reason not available online) and various analyses by NSWC Dahlgren and the crew of
USS Iowa.
3. Those who believe that mastering battleship gunnery is a fairly trivial issue and others who observe that it actually involves a painstaking learning curve. The former claim it's merely a matter of recalling volunteers, - which they contend will be plenty and competent -, while the latter remember it took
USS Iowa four years to become to *best shooting battleship ever*.
Of course, what you'll almost invariably find in the background are the same *eternal* questions : are battleships obsolete ? should the Iowas be reactivated ? etc...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shek
After surveying through the posts, as I look at the 5 requirements for accurate predicted fire, two preconditions appear to not have been met: target location and size due to lack of proper observation (radar can observe desired impact and actual impact, but it doesn't provide BDA in an urban setting), and weapon and ammunition information (due to barrel wear and inconsistent powder). Am I missing something.
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I believe you're missing a couple of things :
1. the 5 prerequisites you've listed pertain only to
accurate predicted fire, i.e. the process of producing a reliable fire control solution. Producing a reliable solution is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one to achieve accuracy.
2. the poor shooting of
USS New Jersey off Lebanon was not just a problem of accuracy, but also a matter of precision (i.e. excessive dispersion). In fact, the actual problem was much more one of precision than accuracy.
There are 4 types of factors that may influence gunfire quality : material, informational, human and environmental.
The lack of target data / spotting on the one hand, and the propellant / barrel wear *issue* on the other, have been the culprits ever since the poor gunnery performance of
USS New Jersey was officially acknowledged (e.g. in the lessons learned analysis mentioned in the NYT article of Feb. 1984, in the GAO report and in the OSD PA&E report). As usual, this official acknowledgement followed an initial period of active denial (that you may be familiar with), of which we still suffer the consequences today.
However :
a) on the accuracy side of the equation, both accurate target data (see posts #5 and #14) and spotting (see post #2) were available.
b) on the precision side of the equation, neither barrel wear nor propellant deterioration account intrinsically for the excessive dispersion observed (I have already posted some data on that in the past, so it's just a matter of finding where they are).
I'll post more infos on these later, especially after my trip to CONUS (where I have most of my *stuff*) in a couple of weeks.
When the problem was given appropriate consideration, it was found (by NSWC and the crew of
USS Iowa) that the poor gunnery performance of
USS New Jersey could essentially be traced back to
human factors.
On the contrary to a) and b) above, there isn't much in the public domain on the human side of the equation, except some tidbits here and there like the testimony of Robert Lian describing the mess it was on
USS New Jersey (see post #1) and an interesting, though esoteric, paragraph in Garzke & Dulin (page 222).