Fort Drum is constantly refereed to as "The unsinkable concrete

>>31995310
>unsinkable
no shit, it's not floating in the first fucking place

A single shell would probably adequately fuck up any crew inside it, destruction is not relevant.

Any ship that can move would have a huge advantage against it in combat.

>>31995310
What about range?

>>31995310
What are the targeting systems the fort used? I'm guessing they weren't as first rate as the Iowa. Also those 1000lb bombs, were they just normal HE or modified to bunker bust in any way? I'm guessing that the AP shells of the battleships would do much more damage.

The fort has an edge in precision and durability.
The ship has the initiative and doesn't need to sink his opponent to render it useless. Actually a simple smoke screen would pretty much do that.
If shelled enough, the probability of a turret kill gets higher and higher, and once the fort can't shoot, it is virtually useless.

Also, no high structure for observation, the addition of a 150 feet armored lighthouse on top of the fort could be a real game changer, since it's gonna be on the maps anyway.

>>31995380
The walls and ceilings were 25-30' feet thick, The turrets must have also been hard to penetrate seeing as they resisted 240mm siege guns used by the Japanese.

>>31995409
It had a 60 foot tall fire lattice style control tower that was flattened by months of Japanese shelling and bombing which didn't stop the 14" guns from shooting continuously till the fort finally surrendered.

You should consider the maximum ranges of the guns on both sides.

>>31995310
I wish we had some futuristic terraforming or antigravity technology that would let us turn these kinds of fortresses into mobile war vehicles with all of the benefits of being a structure like super thick walls and whatnot.

I wish we had a cure for autism

>>31995310
Fun Philippine Fact: During the Liberation of Manila, a bunch of Nips holed in there and used it to defend the harbor from the Americans. Whelp, tough shit for them, the Americans snuck up on the fort and told the Nips to surrender. Nips said "no, banzai, muh honor."

So Americans pumped petroleum into the whole fucking fort for close to a day and lit a match to it, roasting everyone inside.

>>31995803
>Fort Drum i
Imagine sitting inside that thing while the smell of diesel overwhelms you, you just fucking waiting to burn a terrible death.

>>31995803
Some survived the first so they did it a second time

>>31995310
Honestly, the battleship has the disadvantage by far. The fort is going to survive any shelling that could hit it, and be more accurate than anything shooting at it. A battleship would get mauled in the attempt. If you got several of them, you might destroy the fort, but at least one would be out of action for months afterwards. Probably two or more.

>>31995381
>>31995716
The Yamato has a maximum possible range of 46,000 yards vs Fort Drums 20,000 yard maximum which means the fort is helpless.
Why does fort Drum only have 15 degrees of gun elevation if that limits it's primary weapon range so significantly?

I can see a battleship using that elevation only to compensate for ship sway, But wouldn't a fort be able to utilize that range in combat when a ship couldn't?

>>31995875
>Why does fort Drum only have 15 degrees of gun elevation if that limits it's primary weapon range so significantly?
Because it was built before WWI, back when the expected range of naval combat was within range of the guns. Later improvements in ship fire control allowed extended range, and while most ships were upgraded with new fire control and increased elevation gun mounts, the fort never recieved such upgrades.

In a Yamato vs fort scenario, the fort has a slight edge in that it only needs to survive with some capability intact. Yamato has guns capable of destroying the turrets if they hit, but a rather limited supply of ammo (particularly considering that only AP, not HE or beehive, is useful for this mission). While Yamato's armor is good, she can't get close enough to get a good probability if a effective hit without exposing itself to effective 14" fire, particularly to her vulnerable upperworks, seconary batteries, and aft hangar. At range Yamato runs a significant risk of wasting all her ammo without any effect.
The fort is more accurate and less vulnerable, considering that both 14" turrets need to be hit directly (or a REALLY close miss which disables hem) in order to defeat the fort. All the while, the turret's local control is good enough to hit Yamato from within range.
TLDR the fort can dish out more than it takes even against a significantly more modern ship.

>>31995875
It's not going to hit anything at that distance.

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>>31995980
Could any naval combat vessel of the era that isn't a aircraft carrier possibly defeat Fort Drum with certain success?
Perhaps a cruiser submarine could get within the dead space of the fort's guns but still fire upon them crippling the it.

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>>31995852
"a second time"

>>31996210
The Surcouf didn't carry large enough guns. 8 inch would damage the casemates if it hit but would do nothing to the main battery.
The only ships which stood a chance were the Iowas after a few of the upgrades they recieved, with radar fire control and such. An Iowa could be expected to close and weave to avoid the fort's fire, while still baing able to use its guns effectively. The 16" mark 7 is as good as the 46cm, so a hit's a kill on the turrets, and the FCS is good enough that as long as 80%+ of ammo carried was superheavy AP, it'd have a good chance to close in and destroy the turrets, without taking too much in return. The armor scheme on the Iowas was such that they would remain reasonably fightable after several large calibre hits, and while the upperworks and secondaries would suffer significantly, the ship could reasonably be expected to complete the mission and remain in fighting form for shore bombardment.

>>31996210
muh Surcouf

Reminder the US sank that ship because they were butthurt at how based it was.

>>31995850
I bet it still smells to this day.

>>31995310
Just pump the air vents full of gasoline and light a match,

>all these people claiming the fort would be more accurate
How do you reach this conclusion?
In order to produce a firing solution, one needs to know the relative velocity and position of shooter and target.
Of course, both parties know that the fort doesn't move, leaving only the battleship as a variable.
Given that the battleship knows its own velocity, whereas the fort must estimate it with rangefinding techniques, the battleship would have an easier time getting an accurate firing solution.

>>31996414

Except the fort is stationary you fucking retard so it helps it fire more accurately. And it's a way smaller target that's not even penetrable by the enemy ship's main guns. The battleship is a massive soft target in comparison that has to deal with a lot more factors in gunnery than a stationary battery embedded in concrete. The accuracy of the enemy ship by definition is not going to be effective enough to disable, let alone destroy or even guarantee a hit on the target. Coming in close would be disastrous as well.

>>31996414
While true, the fort is a far more stable gun platform, and IIRC Jap FC needed the ships to stay on a relatively stable course to work properly. Combined with the fact that the only vulnerable part of the fort is the turrets (and lattice mast, which is near impossible to destroy by AP gunfire)
and you end up with the fort having a significantly higher Phit.

As an added bonus you wouldn't be able to easily tell if it was still operational without getting close enough to see it or if it happens to be shooting at you.

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>OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW COULD THE JAPANESE POSSIBLY HAVE DEALT WITH THIS PROBLEM IT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE IT CAN'T HAPPEN IT SIMPLY CANNOT HAPPEN

>The first week of February 1942 saw the fort come under sustained fire from Japanese 150mm howitzer batteries positioned on the mainland near Ternate. By the middle of March, the Japanese had moved heavy artillery into range, opening fire with 240mm siege howitzers, destroying Fort Drum's 3-inch antiaircraft battery, disabling one of the 6-inch guns, and damaging one of the armored casemates. Sizeable portions of the Fort's concrete structure were chipped away by the shelling. The armored turrets were not damaged and remained in service throughout the bombardment.[14] Counter-battery fire from Fort Drum's 14-inch guns and Fort Frank's 12-inch mortars was ineffective. With the collapse of American and Filipino resistance in Bataan on April 10, only Fort Drum and the other harbor forts remained in U.S. hands.

>[15] Fort Drum surrendered to Japanese forces following the fall of Corregidor on May 6, 1942 and was subsequently occupied by them until 1945.[16]

>[7] As at the other forts in the Philippines, Fort Drum's garrison executed destruction procedures on the guns prior to the Japanese arriving to secure the fort; this is why one 14-inch gun has fallen back inside its turret. The surrender of the Manila Bay forts marked the end of U.S. resistance in the Philippines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Drum_(El_Fraile_Island)#Philippines_Campaign_.281941.E2.80.931942.29

Tip: Don't be a cuck, and just read literally even 1 thing about the topic before replying with your cuck response.

>>31997235

You're right, there's absolutely no way to tell, except by observing the moving and firing turrets, which might be sort of a big giveaway.

But you're right that it would be absolutely impossible to tell if it's occupied after it shoots at you, because all of those men inside could have just magically floated into the sky or something. You couldn't, for example, simply watch the fort to see if anyone leaves it. You'd have to imagine that it's like a videogame, where people can just disconnect and leave the server as soon as you're winning.

>>31997253
Anon, stop being a shitter. Let's say you stop turning the turrets. There is no real way to determine whether the guns are actually knocked out or if they're merely pretending.

>>31997239
And if you read that, you find out that the fort was starved out. Strange.

>>31997348

Hey faggot, if you turn off all the turrets and sit perfectly still, what the fuck is the point of being in there to begin with?

>Haha, they can't tell that we're in here while we sit around, do nothing whatsoever, and are slowly surrounded by enemy forces. Great victory!

>>31997363

Yeah because the fort had two shitty turrets, it wasn't capable of securing the entire Philippines.

How many of you in this thread are actually children? Have you ever seen a map?

I'm really confused as to how so many of you are so disconnected from reality. One tiny concrete building with two shitty turrets cannot defeat the IJN.

>>31997382
That fort contributed materially by keeping Manila Bay, the finest harbor in hundreds of miles, closed for months, with the IJN being unwilling to risk themselves in an attempt to force the issue. So yes, it did its job. You fucking retard.

>>31995771
i wish /k/ didn't have such autistic posters

>>31997364
Let's think. You're in a fight with this fort. You hit it with several volleys, and the turrets stop moving. You have no way to tell if the guns are out unless you get up close. If you do that and it was all a ruse, your ship is dead. Thus, even if it is knocked out, it STILL might work, precisely because they can't tell. Or you get free damage done. Is that hard to understand?

>>31997253
It's basically shroedinger's Fort
Is it manned? Is it unmanned? You must open the box (or get it to shoot you)

>>31995803

I too have read Cryptonomicon.

>>31995392
It originally had a fire control tower on it

>>31995310
This might be my bias talking but I'd put money on the battleship. There are records of the USS Texas going toe to toe with costal forts and winning which implies that a 16" rifle (yes, they're called rifles) has enough firepower to take a costal fort down.

>>31997816
It's a bit more complicated than that. The battery the Texas engaged only had 9 inch guns and much less armor. Even then, the Texas was not able to destroy the entire battery and took hits in doing so. Had they been from 14 inch guns, the Texas likely would have retired due to damage.

>>31996280
was that before or after they hid all the nazi UFO and anti-gravity tech?

>>31995310
Its a static fort. You could scout it out, mark it on the map and bomb the fuck out of it.

>>31998163
The Japs tried
They had a hard time hitting and most of the bombs did nothing, even those that hit.

>>31997239
The problem is that field artillery don't as a rule have AP shells for busting armored targets.

A BB does have AP shells.

If you sit out at 40,000 yards and drop sells on it the concrete will fracture and shatter away as the AP rounds punch into the concrete then burst.

The gunnery is dead easy given that the one target doesn't move.

yeah the battleship would PROBABLY win, but all it takes is one lucky shot into the magazines or fuel and thats it

but no way the japs would have risked losing a battleship to defeat some shitty fort defending nothing of consequence, either go around or send in bombers

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>>31995803

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>>31998281

>>31998268
>no way the japs would have risked losing a battleship to defeat some shitty fort defending nothing of consequence, either go around or send in bombers
It was a strong fort in a very strategic location

>>31995310
Battleships could just stop outside the forts range to carefully shell with seaplane spotter if there weren't any other threats around.

Are there any reliable accuracy tables for battleship cannons?

>>31996210
A few rubber dinghies with a bunch of soldiers or a bunch of manned torpedos (The ferry commando kind, not the suicide kind.) Then it's a matter of getting on to the fort and fitting demolition charges on the turrets, and then you hole up beside the hatches with machine guns. Or pour diesesl into the fort.

>>31997454
Then you can leave at any time. Austim is /k/.

>no wishing required.

>>31998757
They'll run out of ammmunition long before they do any damage to the thing.

>>31998860
Good luck with the the first, if there's any decent watch there are men watching for just that with automatic weapons and 6" guns.

>>31995803
Bobby Shaftoe died for your sins.

>>31995310

Any 1936+ battleship would outrange and outgun that silly fort so much, its only hope is for the ship to deplete its ammo stock first by missing it too much