🚀 go-pugleaf

In ca.general dan2016@my-deja.com wrote:


:>      I hate to admit it, but the uneducated "Professor" is right
:> on this one.  The United States is today incapable of making a

: Allow me to dissect your argument one piece at a time.

:> landing on a defended beach.  We have no naval guns bigger than 5",

: Were we in 1939?  No.  We *got* ready when a war happened.  Normandy
: didn't happen the day after we entered the war; we had to build up our
: strength then, and we'd do the same thing now.

     Yes, we had battleships with 14" and 16" guns in 1939, and
cruisers with 6" and 8", and lots more under construction.
     In the nuclear age we do not have the luxury of several
years free from attack on the mainland in which to build up our
forces.

: The Iowa-class battleships are all decomissioned but required by an act
: of Congress to be kept at standby, which means that they must be in a
: condition where they would be ready to go in 48 hours or less.

: Each Iowa-class has nine 16" guns.

     Don't read the papers much, do you?  The Missouri has already
been demilitarized and dontated to a nonprofit, and is today a
memorial at Pearl Harbor not far from the Arizona.  The New
Jersey is at the Philadephia Navy Yard ready to be demilitarized
and donated to a nonprofit for a memorial in Camden.
     The Wisconsin and the Iowa (the latter with only eight 
usable 16" guns) would take months-to-years to be put into
fighting condition.  Congress has mandated (over the objections
of the carrier-dominated Navy) that two of the Iowa class must
be retained, but there is no stipulation about the time to get
ready for combat.

:> and aviation is supposed to take care of the defenders--yeah, right.

: Please read up on our recent endeavours into Iraq and Yugoslavia.  Our
: air superiority is just that--superior.  These maneuvers were both
: aerially-based, and we won both times.  Sure, neither were Russia, but
: then again, Russia isn't our enemy any more, is it?

     The original topic was landing on a heavily defended beach, 
and no such activity was required in Iraq or Yugoslavia.  Those
situations merely required air superiority.