(Henry Spencer) wrote:

In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:

one of the problems cited with schemes to do major revisions to the Iowa-class
battleships was that the USN apparently no longer has a shipyard crane that
can lift one of those turrets.)

That's a bit of a red herring - as the turrets were not lifted on in
one piece in the first place... (In the second place, at least one of
the cranes used for such jobs is still operational...

Note that I said it had been cited -- I didn't say I believed it. :-)
(I *thought* at the time that it had a smell of technical rationalization
for a decision made on political grounds...)

Fiscal grounds mostly - the varied conversions would have been
*extremely* expensive for very little return in the way of combat
power. (There's some doubt as to whether some of them would have even
been possible - the hull girder was 'prestressed' to account for the
weight of the turrets, as well as the balance and stability curves.
Removing them would have had all manner of interesting effects.)

The Navy was not unanimous in it's admiration of the battlewagons.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL