Comments on: Builder’s Trials

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:53:06 +0000

And you should read up on their anti-swimmer systems too! Those guys were light years ahead of us.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:50:22 +0000

VX,
Back then we used to build “realistic” damage control scenarios based around Regiment sized Backfire Raids that launched a single AS-4 at us. When I recall those “grand illusions” I can almost accept the madness that went into paying for two completely different LCS and claiming them as a single “class”. It almost makes one miss the designers that brought us Terrier-BTN and ASROC.

By: vigil xenophon

vigil xenophon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:52:18 +0000

Byron/

But the Ruskis were way ahead of us there too. Their Phalanx equivalents had the IR/visual sights even back then in the 70s.

By: Byron

Byron — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:10:43 +0000

Virgil, back in the late 70′s and early 80′s, the Phalanx had a very low Pk percentage, far below the 90% advertised. The sailors back then called it the “Hail Mary” gun. It took a few years to work the bugs out of the software. Latest model has IR and a telescope so the operator in CIC can manually target something…like a pirate boat

By: vigil xenophon

vigil xenophon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:54:30 +0000

Scott/

IIRC back in the 70s when you guys were first mounting the Phalanx on ships, the planning documents I read indicated that the Navy determined it’s ship-board gun AA Air Defense needs and the configuration and number of mounts needed based on–get this–an attack by a TWO-SHIP formation ONLY! When I read that at the time I thought it HAD to be a mis-print as such thinking/planning was/is total insanity! Tell me, PLEASE tell me I was/am in TOTAL error!

By: vigil xenophon

vigil xenophon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:46:42 +0000

So, to sum up this little colloquy between Spaz, Byron and AW1Tim, while I was dead wrong about the Sheffield (not uncommon when jr birdmen talk about things naval) nevertheless, aluminum is STILL not a good idea, right? (Of course I would have thought that intuitively obvious if anyone had ever watched the corrosion on aluminum window frames, etc. on civilian bldgs, had to care for an aluminum skiff/fishing boat of some sort and otherwise mentally pictured 5” shells going thru aluminum plating like a hot knife thru butter. But what do I know?)