Re:The F-35 still has a long way to go
by gjjrfcbugxbhf on Sunday April 02, 2017 @02:32AM
(#14016134)
Most ww2 era battleships had a plethora of smaller guns many of which were antiaircraft. The exception was the Japanese battleships which were relatively light on the smaller guns - which they even attempted to mitigate using shotgun like shells.
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Sure, but unguided antiaircraft fire tops out pretty low in effectiveness, and aircraft are dangerous to battleships out of all proportion to their size, quantity, and cost - even if you shoot down ninety-eight out of every hundred, the two you miss can still achieve a mission-kill, if they don't sink you outright. And you'll never shoot down anything close to that proportion.
Battleships sided aircraft carriers for two reasons: one was to thicken their inner defense ring a little, and the other was because battleships alone, without a friendly air wing to keep the other side's strike aircraft away, were doomed.