re: #83 freetoken

The Iowa class had those big-ass guns but I don’t really know how effective they were in achieving tactical goals.

The class strikes me as something more for show than effective, cost-effective, war-fighting.

16”/50-caliber rifles can fire more explosive tonnage than anything except about a B-52 strike. The great thing about shipborne weaponry is sustained fire; it’s incredibly suppressive, and those 16” shells will do damage if they hit anywhere near something. There was a serious debate in Congress when they were retired about how we were going to replace their capability.