Battleship
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The new attraction on the L.A. waterfront is the battleship Iowa. It’s been parked there for about a year now, and a good bit of it is open as a museum. So we went to see it today.
The tour is self-guided, and takes in most of the upper part of the ship. We got to see a lot about the history of the ship in World War II, and later on in the Cold War. I recall thinking it was a bit odd that in the ’80s they were refitting several of the old battleships for active duty again. But they put cruise missiles on them, complete with nuclear warheads. And they had the Phalanx super-duper gatling gun to defend the ship from incoming missiles.
Here’s a video of a demonstration of the Phalanx in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmUfiPRrbMw
All told, it was an interesting afternoon.
