Could you please stop sending it down here? How about we send a lot of 110 F, 100% humidity air up there next summer?

Only in an imaginary unicorn world can you eliminate the POSSIBILITY of ice damming. Lower the probability, sure, but eliminate, just no. When the ambient temperature itself is flirting with the freezing point you've still got problems.

That depends a lot on temperature conditions. If it is right around freezing, even with frightful winds you get horrendous sticky snow, and icing which is even worse. Spend a winter on Cape Cod. Spend THIS winter on Cape Cod.

Bit touchy?

And there is zero chance for a nuclear holocaust when a solar array stops outputting. None of that nasty decay heat whatsoever. No emergency cooling measures necessary.

To be fair, let's also point out that it is a huge headache shutting down a nuclear plant for any reason, and every shutdown adds a little bit of a chance for a disaster. That contributes to bad decisions.

Commiseration with mdsolar. There are a whole lot of really clueless assholes with axes to grind moderating on slashdot.

Er, math check. There are 8760 hours in a year. 8784 in a leap year.

That was perfectly obvious as ONE of two reasons. So? Do you have any point whatsoever?

If you had any understanding of electrical engineering whatever - or even a layman's nodding acquaintance with electricity - you would know you can't just short circuit the output. Sheesh.

How about mentioning that Washington closed to within 7700 m of Kirishima - point blank range[*] - while the latter was occupied with shooting hell out of South Dakota. Washington got 9 hits on Kirishima for 75 main gun rounds fired at Kirishima (rounds were also fired at other targets).

[*] Point-blank range was the characterization by renowned authorities Dulin and Garzke.

The action was at night; both sides suffered surprise even though the US ships had good radar.

As for the Japanese destroyer - it never was hit by the battleship. It got away.

Duke of York opened fire on Scharnhorst at 10,900 m - pretty close to point blank. Admittedly, scoring a hit on the first salvo was extraordinary. Later, Duke poured in shells at only 9500 m, but again, just like Bismarck, it took torpedoes to finish the job.

I don't think Shakrai is capable of understanding either physics or common logic.

He doesn't even have a fundamental understanding of how optical range finding works. Of course the two types were (1) coincidence type using an astigmatizing lens and (2) stereoscopic, which triangulates from two points spaced well apart. Both gave direct readouts. It's been a LONG time (over a century) since anybody used apparent size through a telescope vs estimated actual size.

I could hit exactly where I wanted my rounds to go no matter how old the ammo was.

Well, I am stymied by your unassailable logic. No analysis whatever, but evidently you could magically hit the exact atom you were aiming at.

Bismarck was far from the best ship to sail the seas. The design was basically lifted from WW1 tech. The Iowas were faster, longer range, better armored in most respects, had more powerful main guns, and a vastly superior AA armament.

Thank you. Of course my figure for HC of 8.1% was 154 lb, not 154 kg. That was sloppy. Which only reinforces my point that the bursting charge was puny. Less than a single ordinary 500 lb bomb.

Your accuracy citation was from tests in 1987, after corrective action following the dismal performance off Lebanon in 1984. And even then, you quote a total range dispersion of 460 m peak-to-peak even after you discard the worst of the 15 rounds, which is lousy.

21" guns are amazingly expensive to fire

Well, there is the little detail that no 21" gun ever put to sea on any ship. Try 16", and Yamato and Musashi with 18". That will do it (outside of Hitler's fevered dream of 20" battleship guns).

And 16" guns are NOWHERE NEAR as expensive to use as aircraft carrier planes and cruise missiles. But if we worried about cost in a war we would all still be using slingshots and arrows.