Ian wrote:

"T3" wrote in message
om...

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Jeroen Wenting wrote:

Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I
have
is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first
place?
If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the
space/weight,
is there?


The same sort of reasoning was applied to the lifeboats on the
Titanic......

which weren't much use as most people didn't get to them in time
anyway...

Which was a failure of organisation, not of the boats themselves.
Except
for
the last couple of collapsible lifeboats all of Titanic's boats were
successfully launched in sufficient time, but owing to poor regulations
and the
lack of any lifeboat drill many were only partly full. IIRR they held
something
like 700 of the 1,100 or so they could have.

Guy

I little off topic but according to the History channel I watched last
night. The Captain ordered almost half the life boats removed the day of
sailing as " they looked appalling and were not needed", man, he knew what
he was talking about, hu

Sounds \a little bit wrong - according to Harland & Wolff, it was White Star
who specified the number fo lifeboats - the captain knew there weren't
enough, but relied on the fact that it was unsinkable (which it may have
been if the correct steel had been delivered and not diverted to other
tasks)

Seeing as how this is r.a.m. I'm not going to wander even further off charter,
other than to mention that both the lifeboat claim and the steel one have long
since been disproved by reputable researchers. For the lifeboat one I refer you
to the text of both the British and American inquiries, available online. As
for the steel claim Garzke did a metallurgical analysis of steel from various
parts of the hull and rivets and there was noticeable variation in quality
between individual plates, but this was typical at that time. Consistency was
difficult owing to basic lack of knowledge and manufacturing skills compared to
say 20-30 years later.

Guy