Flags of our Fathers... Fiction?

[trackend]

Im not very ofay with the PTO but I found this recent image of Iwo Jima and the waters look very shallow for some way off shore and off the top of my head I would say the draught of a Battleship (around 30ft) would preclude much close inshore work in these waters as manouvering would be very difficult

[timshatz]

Definitely using the old, slower BBs to do the job. Not the newer, Fast BB class. So the pic from the movie is a Hollywood shot.

But back to the question of how close they were, it's very tough. Put a lot of stock in the after action reports, they are generally pretty accurate. Almost written from consensus as so many people would see them on a ship that size before sending them in (checked for everything from accuracy to typos).

Trackend's pic is interesting as is the pic on the previous page. Shows they were close in but how close is anyone's guess. One thought I had was maybe they weren't using the main battery at that range. Secondary armament and light AA was the weapon of choice. In that case it could work.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by trackend

Im not very ofay with the PTO but I found this recent image of Iwo Jima and the waters look very shallow for some way off shore and off the top of my head I would say the draught of a Battleship (around 30ft) would preclude much close inshore work in these waters as manouvering would be very difficult

Mount Suribachi is 512 ft high, I believe, so, it appears, the shallow water here would go out no futher than 1000 ft near Suribachi, and no further than 2000 ft at the fartherest. Certainly, 1700 yards is plenty of distance for safe operation. I believe the ones that were there.

[Emac44]

That Track looks very much like a coral reef in those shoals which would disallow a very large vessel coming in to close to shore line or otherwise you would come aground on those reefs or shallow areas. I would hazard a guess that most Large craft like a battleship would have a very deep draft to much for those reef areas. Perhaps and I am guessing main 14 inch guns were not used but secondary was as long as large vessels stayed out beyond those reefs. any way i would hate to be under the shells from those BBs any way 5 inch or 14 inch. got to pity those poor bastards who were copping it from ship batteries. any way it was a great film. Like to see Letters from Iwo Jima now