whyhow

Nagato, the first battleship useful for naval fire support.

how about that trick in Lonesome Dove, killing your horse and using the carcass as a breastwork. Would that have helped?

anyone feeling nostalgic for the good ol'days? given our ineffective anti-proliferation effort lately, and our half-hearted anti-proliferation history, I think a regional nuclear war in likely in our lifetime. and a global nuclear war more likely today than during the Cold War. so let's dust of the plans. How do we win with the Bomb?

the Alaskas also required twice as many men as the Baltimores. the RN doctrine of sending multiple weaker cruisers against the Deutschland raiders to have worked just fine. and would've worked even better against the Japanese CA. the Baltimore been more powerful than RN CA, I think I'll take two Baltimores over one Alaska.

a couple of more questions. why was the super heavy shell developed only by the USN? with super heavy shells, the US 12" was almost as powerful as the French 13" guns. I read about the bad experiments that led to the high velocity 16" on the Nelson, but that mistake was already realized by the time KGV class was planned, but still no SHS, why? another question. what surface raiders were the Alaska suppose to hunt? The Dunkerques were designed to counter the pocket battleships, and they had the firepower and speed advantage. But the Alaska doesn't enjoy a speed advantage over the Japanese CA. and I thought the prewar plans tasked the Japanese CAs with nighttime torpedo attacks against the US battle fleet.

the closest comparable foreign design to the Alaska was the French Dunkerque right? How do they compare? I can read the specs, and it seems the French traded some speed for a TDS.

from Mr. Anthony Williams' site, http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/gustav.htm

okay, I suppose I over-generalized. let's take the specific example of the F-102 and the "weapons system" concept used during its development. we established overly ambitious goals and tried to cram too much unproven electronics and unreliable weapon systems into one plane. the result, a protracted and troubled program, with service record that was less than stellar, and no export success. The F-111 was similar. Foreign examples would be the British TSR.2 and Avro Arrow. In contrast, the F-4 was a private venture that wasn't constrained by rigid service request for proposals.

the problem with your analogy is that China propping up Cuba is very different from the present American relationship with Taiwan. In your scenario, Cuba would actually be dependent on China economically. Taiwan certainly doesn't need the US to prop up its economy. What the TI folks want is wider international recognition, which we are not help them with. It is actually not in our interest to help Taiwan to gain wider international acceptance, because that would lessen their dependence on us and lessen our already limited influence. It is pretty clear that our influence in Taiwan is very limited. We can't get the DPP to shut up and we can't get the KMT to support the arms deal. And we are not supporting Taiwanese independence, not just because we don't want to piss off PRC, but because a truly independent Taiwan would be free to form diplomatic relationship with any country, buy arms from anybody, and less useful for our purpose.

he may be arguing from an extremist POV, but sometimes one has to start from an extremist position in order to get what one really wants after the inevitable compromises. isn't it fair to say that USAF was on the wrong track with the century series of fighters? and the success of the teen series fighters was partly due to the influence of the mafia? and isn't also beneficial to the American aviation industry that fighters advocated by the fighter mafia (F-104, F-5, F-16)were the ones with export successes? Was the upgrade potential of the F-16 just an unintended consequence of the fighter mafia's insistence on lightweight and excess power? would the JSF have as much upgrade potential as the F-16?

I don't think it was luck that gave USN and IJN the best DP guns. These two navies were the leaders in naval aviation, and better appreciated the importance of AA than the others. Most navies were still reluctant to trade anti-ship capabilities for AA capability. By the time they realized it, it was too late to change production in the middle of the war. USN sacrifice MV with the 5"/38, while the IJN sacrificed shell weight in the 100mm/65. Both had adequate anti-ship capability as DD weapons. Why wasn't the 100mm more widespread as secondary weapon on IJN capital ships?

I realized the problem is that I didn't log in when I read your post, the sig line doesn't show when you are not logged in. again, sorry for jumping to conclusion.

I still don't see. Tried Mozilla and IE. But anyway, my apology.

what do you advocate then, Ninjutsu? What signature line? What do you mean by Cdn Blackshirt?

oh, I'm sure there are good reasons why sleeves are kept down. so no synthetic materials for uniform? how about silk undergarments? there are natural fibers with wicking property.