Free Republic

Ollie North makes a very strong case for keeping and refitting the last two Iowa-class ships in an article I noticed on GOP-USA. An Iowa class ship is not a reasonable weapon for conducting wars against other superpowers, nonetheless the last time we were at war with another superpower was in the fall of 1945. For dealing with all the third-raters we end up dealing with these days, an Iowa-class ship is the perfect weapon. It's guns can hit 80% of all the targets we ever need to hit and its cruise missiles can hit the other 20%, and it...

"There is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship." -- Retired Gen. P.X. Kelly, USMC WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Those words of the former Marine commandant resonate with me. In 1969, gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) saved my rifle platoon in Vietnam. During her six months in-theater, the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns were credited with saving more than 1,000 Marines' lives. The North Vietnamese so feared the ship that they cited her as a roadblock to the Paris peace talks. Our leaders, as...