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"Henderson Field Bombardment question" Topic


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Comments or corrections?

HesseCassel12 Dec 2011 8:05 a.m. PST

When the IJN was bombarding Henderson Field from sea, anyone know how long they did it and at what ranges? It's a land target, so I assume they don't need to get very close to work the firing vectors.

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BuckeyeBob12 Dec 2011 9:01 a.m. PST

I've found this on Wiki:

"At 01:33 on October 14, Kongô and Haruna, escorted by one light cruiser and nine destroyers, reached Guadalcanal and opened fire on Henderson Field from a distance of 16,000 metres (17,500 yd)."

I recall reading that spotter aircraft (land based) were used extensively to guide the shellings. CA & DD shelling was done at closer ranges (IIRC about 8-12,000 yrds).
Due to the drop offs of the volcanic islands, ships could literally tie up to the trees along the shoreline (Florida Island for example where damaged US CA's repaired battle damage before returning to their base of operations.) So getting in close to shore is not too much of a concern as it would be with other bombardment locations (I.e. Normandy, the Med. etc). Just need to be far enough out to be able to "lob" the shells in.

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