USS Iowa ships out under the Golden Gate Bridge on its way to Los Angeles

I would....if I though the Marines were capable of speech beyond grunts and yells. ; )

Soooo...how many beaches have the Marines been pushed off of since the retirement of battleships?

I still think claims to keep the battleship in service are more yearns of nostalgia than based on any real need. The Navy retired them many years ago, and if there had been a pressing need for them, they certainly could have reactivated them, but they chose not to, which to me, speaks volumes as to their real-world utility.

OK, I have been following this thread with some interest... since I'm also reading Samuel Elliot Morrison's 'History of United States Naval Operations in World War II'... the big 15-volume set. Talking about the invasion of Saipan and Tinian, in the Marianas, and SEM writes of the fast battleships (South Dakota and Iowa classes) being pulled off their carrier escort duties to perform shore bombardment when recon photos showed beach defenses being constructed. The old battleships were arriving the next day but the fast ones were available for this duty... and failed miserably at it.

Not for want of equipment, but for want of practice. They had spent their time steaming with the carriers, providing massive anti-aircraft support. The main guns were not used to the deliberate, slow fire required of shore support. Their spotting planes weren't used to detecting camouflaged shore installations.

The old, slow battleships, some recovered from Pearl Harbor, were too slow to operate with the fast fleet carriers, so by default they had learned the shore bombardment job, and did a fine job of it.

I still think the Iowa class was the prettiest ship of it's time... and given the time to learn the job, proved quite capable of shore bombardment duties... but!

The Iowa will be heading into LA Harbor later this morning. I'm hoping to get down there sometime this weekend. If so, I'll definitely get some pictures that hopfeully I can post on here, if I can figure it out.

If nothing else, I could bring them back with me when I'm back there in a few weeks.... maybe for the Summer Meet and Greet????

Actually doesn't some high percentage of the worlds population live in coastal cities?
Any geography majors out there? Seems to me many big cities around the planet are either ports or a dozen miles inland up some big river right?

You are correct