However, the late Ian Hogg not withstanding, by WWII, the ships had the advantage. After all, the shore guns usually ranged from5.9"(150mm), 8" (203mm) up to 11.1" (280mm) and in very rare cases, 15" (380mm),in batteries of two to four, while the ships packed anything from 6"(9-15 each), 8" (8-10) up t0 16" (8-9). That is a decided superiority in numbers, along with two other factors--mainly that nearly all shore bombardments were undertaken under a condition of air supremecy that allowed spotter planes to adjust fire and the fact that ships could move, while shore batteries couldn't. Also, with power ramming and loading, the ships usually had a higher rate of fire ( although this may not have been entirely true--I once watched a film at Fort Stevens, of a 10" coatal gun on a Buffington-Crozier dissappearing mount firing at a target and used a stopwatch to time a 30 second firing cycle. All loading and ramming was done by hand--impressive).
As to the North Viet Namese battery that returned fire on the New Jersey, I am reminded of the old joke about the flea running up an elephant's leg with rape on its mind.
