Marcelo wrote:
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If I take a rather large missile, screw of the tip and glue a 16" shell to it, program it to fly a ballistic trajectory, it will do the same or more damage and is by all means just as "indestructible" as the shell.
Right!!! But I don´t think any antiship missile now in use can carry a 1 ton warhead. Harpoon carries a 230 kg warhead and the much vaunted Exocet just a 160 kg one.
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The missile may have some sensors on board, but the do not have to be in the tip.
The guidance systems that needs no sensors at the head are the inercial (of no use here), beam riders (not longer used) and wire guided. All radar guided missile needs an antenna, and if you don´t put it on the head the metal in front would prevent the radio waves been received. Moreover, anything in front must be dielectric (ie: plastic). In the case of infrared or TV guidance, the tip must be plastic too (in this case a material transparent to the corresponding waveleght).
For example, the Penguin anti-ship missile (brand new) has a 270 pound (120 kg) warhead. No big deal compared with a 16" Mark VII shell.
As for the Phalanx CIWS there was a test done in which one 5" shell was stopped... but in an ideal and perfectly controlled situation: the ship was static, the 5" shell was fired alone with a fly path near the ship, etc. etc. If you thought about an engagement like the one at Denmarck Straits with ships at high speed, manouvering, bad weather and eight 15" shells being fired broadside the chances the CIWS to get them (and if it get SOME of them, doing some harm to them) are dramatically less. The CIWS system must have a Phalanx per shell in order to be sure that a great percentage of them will be intercepted.
As for what happened to USS Cole. Maybe I said it wrong: the vessel is fragile IF COMPARED to a Battleship´s armour arragement. If the same detonation happened in the same circumstances to an Iowa or the Bismarck I doubt a lot that the US Navy will require to rent a Norwegian salvage ship to take the ship back to the US (Well, I have to admit that a salvage vessel that can take a Battleship must be around 800 meters long
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No ship is invulnerable, but some ships are stronger than others, being the Battleships the strongest.
Best regards!