Re: Tin Cans versus Dreadnoughts

On Fri, 09 Mar 2001 23:29:34 -0500, Richard and Emily Bell
<rlbell@sympatico.ca> wrote:

>So I suspect that the actual hunting of an
>unescorted Kirov by an unescorted carrier would not go entirely as
planned, and if the
>carrier must expend its entire complement of harpoons (the USN doesn't
have that many)
>to kill the Kirov, the carrier has been mission killed as an
anti-surface unit as
>dropping bombs on Soviet ships bristling with 30mm gatlings is not a
pretty thought.

This is, of course, assuming a non-nuclear option. Going nuclear has
some
major ramifications, but it has been suggested that going nuclear in a
naval
engagement is less risky than in a ground engagement. The chance of
escalation
is a bit less than if you used tactical nukes in a ground battle. 

A lot would depend on how bad you wanted to take out that Kirov, but it
can be
done a lot more easily than with a flock of Harpoons. Funny enough, FT
doesn't
have anything equivalent to nukes...

Allan Goodall		       awg@sympatico.ca
Goodall's Grotto:  http://www.vex.net/~agoodall

"Now, see, if you combine different colours of light,
 you get white! Try that with Play-Doh and you get
 brown! How come?" - Alan Moore & Kevin Nolan, 
   "Jack B. Quick, Boy Inventor"