Originally Posted by
Tourist
Not convinced that near misses will do anything to a warship. Warships are built strong.
Well near-misses is pretty much what we aimed at achieving with the first package of aircraft, if only 1000lb GP bombs are available for the attack. Lofted airburst 1000lb bombs have a frag pattern that radars, sensors, antennas exposed weapons, soft structure, cooling systems and exposed people do not appreciate.
The shockwave effects are impossibly complex on a warship as some parts of the structure are incredibly tough, whilst others are not. The shockwave propagation does wacky things when funnelled between hardened surfaces. Hard structure has a bit of a habit of transmitting the shockwave into unintended places on the ship. In equal regard otherwise exposed parts of the ship can suffer relatively little damage.
In the hope that either the systems or the fleshy things are degraded by the airburst effects the next package of aircraft would execute a more accurate delivery profile, with bombs impact-fused at a suitable selection of delays to cause carnage at multiple deck levels. Given the level of ship-saving techniques taught to many navies you may also choose to leave the odd bomb aboard that is fused to go off a little while after the attack. No point leaving anything to chance.
Wrecking warships with 1000lb bombs is easy. Getting to the point of weapon delivery is the challenging bit.
