Re: FT: Thought on Orbital Bombardment...

--- "Imre A. Szabo" <ias@sprintmail.com> wrote:
> > With varying degrees of success (How many times
> have
> > you read historical accounts that contained
> phrases to
> > the effect of "The bombardment was supposed to
> > demolish enemy resistance, but when the troops
> finally
> > went ashore....")
> 
> Plenty, but how much worse would it have been if
> there had been no
> bombardment?	That's the question most people don't
> ask.

Again, it depends on the situation.  I've heard
arguements that the German bombardments of Moscow and
Stalingrad actually made things worse, because the
rubble made even better obstacles and hiding places
than intact buildings did.  *shrug* I'm not the WWII
expert here, so I'll leave others to argue that.

> A 16" naval gun was designed to pierce massive
> armour.  A specialized 16"
> howitzer would have been more effective for most
> bombardments, but that 16"
> gun is still effective.  

except that most of the ships didn't carry 16" guns,
they were destroyers and cruisers with 5" and 8" guns.


I can't buy the firecontrol
> issue.  It is much
> easier to hit grid coordinate on a planet underneath
> that moves very
> predictable (or not at all if the orbit is
> geo-synchronus) then it is to hit
> ship that can manuever in three dimensions.  

Well, even Ortillery, which is designed for hitting
the ground, isn't guaranteed to hit on the first try. 
And how much area does that grid coordinate cover? 
and which typ of anti-ship weapon are we talking
about?	Beam Weapons? that's a pretty focused beam of
energy, how effective is that at Area effect
bombardment?  

As for
> "too damend powerful",
> all that means is "we don't want to take the time or
> trouble to make it
> work."  

No, it means that the way we make it work doesn't
please you.  Anti-ship weapons are designed for
anti-sHip fire, and suffer specific lmitiations which
make them less effective against ground targets than a
dedicated Ortillery system is.

If you want really powerful weapons try the
> board / miniture /
> computer game Harpoon.  Even without a nuclear
> release, there are missile
> and torpedoes that can cripple, if not sink, most
> ships with a single hit,
> with a nuclear release you can take out whole task
> forces with a single
> strike.  Too powerful, no.  Because the they took
> the time and trouble to
> make it work.

Uh-huh.  And what scale of conflict does Harpoon
simulate?  I've never played it, so I can't comment on
the applicability. to this discussion.


> I never considered them that powerful.  I view them
> as WWI / WWII naval
> guns.  

Again, which system?  While they may be the equivalent
of modern and historical naval guns in what their
primary role is, they vastly differ from them in how
they carry out their function.	

=====
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum.

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