- Recon Number 54
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- Master Forum Ninja
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Well, here we are. I guess that it was destined to come to this.
Depends on whether real sea-to-shore artillery bombardment is a useful form of combat.
The battlewagons were made to throw huge shells long distances with pretty impressive accuracy. But cruise missiles, drone-launched ordnance and other technologies have reduced the need for a large bang in hostile territory by replacing it with a properly sized bang exactly where it brings the most effect (shutting down communications, destroying a radar network, hitting the vehicle in the convoy that has the lead bad guy, etc.).
Artillery shore pounding was a lot like WWII air strikes, a LOT of booms, but not many of them hit as effectively as they should have. They could crater a few square miles like the moon, and then you could land troops, but that may be a less efficient or effective method.
In which case, these long and heavy gun platforms would be nothing more than expensive and hard to miss prizes for air or shore launched anti-shipping missiles.
I think that their time may have past.