� While this was the first indication of a move away from proper training of its sailors that has consumed the US Navy today, the 16" guns of the Iowa-class battleships are still a front-line weapon system. Even today, over 60 years later and as the Libyan crisis has displayed, the Iowa-class battleships that have 20 more years of service to give, can provide unequalled war-fighting capability to the entire United States military.
http://abcnews.go.com/Archives/video/us ... on-9862973
If we want to give up the battleships, let�s make a system that is equal in its fire power capability. It�s clear the US Air Force cannot equal the Iowa-class endurance and on-station capability. It�s clear the US Navy cannot equal their endurance with the few tomahawks we have in inventory or �some day AGS(L) of DDG-51 Flight something). It�s clear the only way to effectively address the threats the US faces with littoral dangers and third-world countries like Libya, Syria, and threats as large as China, only large caliber guns can provide the volume of fire (total number of shots) necessary to accomplish the mission of subduing if not destroying the enemy.
Whatever definition, most appropriately the traditional definition of countering an equal threat posed to it, should be constructed and put to sea immediately.
NGFS is not what most people think. Most people think NGFS is ONLY to mount a massive amphibious invasion like those of WWII and Korea. In fact it is to deliver ordnance.
As Vietnam showed us, it�s to deliver ordnance to a call of fire in some coordinate direction. It does not matter who calls it. The SEALs, ANGLICO, USAF forward combat air controllers, whoever, they are calling for ordnance on target. Most of the time TACAIR in unavailable because of low inventory of USAF aircraft on hand. NGFS, however, can be there for months upon months.
NGFS supplies reliable support as long as you need it, and that's what matters.
It's funny how it works, huh?
That's why the guns hang over to the side of the hull.