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

Shipwreck · 04-16-2008, 15:37 PM

Warrior Soul : The Memoir of a Navy Seal by Chuck Pfarrer :

Quote:

Pages 208-209 : In a chow line, someone had said to me that bringing New Jersey to Lebanon was like taking a bazooka to a bullfight. It was definitely a weapon that could win, but it wasn't the right weapon. Looming on the horizon, the ship was an impressive sight, - long, lean battle wagon -, but it didn't fool anyone.

New Jersey's sixteen-inch guns fired projectiles the size of Volkwagens, two thousands pounds of high explosive at ranges in excess of twenty miles. One such shell could vaporize a city block. Clearly, the devices that turned Pacific islands into lunar landscapes were not the weapons of choice in a densely populated city. Firepower and brimstone had brought down the Axis, but were not applicable to the chores of hard-core peacekeeping. Bad guys here did not congregate large bodies of troops, nor did they shell us from static massed-weapon positions. They offered no targets for such a heavy hitter.

It was not merely a coincidence that when the New Jersey arrived, the tactics of our antagonists underwent a dramatic change. Previously, Druze and Syrian gunners set up on isolated promontaries and whaled away when they felt the urge. Now the stakes were higher, and the consequences of establishing a battery in the open were 100 percent lethal. Offshore was a ship that could alter the geography of this country. Overnight, promontary shooting ended and "shoot and scoout" began. In the civilian centers, there was safety, there was cover, and in the first part of October, fire came almost exclusively from the most densely populated areas of the city. Indirect fire weapons, mortar and Katyusha rockets, were brought to bear from vacant lots and roofless buildings in the heart of Hooterville. Sixteen-inch shells would take out the mortars, but they would also get everyone else in the neighborhood. Not exactly a transaction in the spirit of peacekeeping.