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Comment by jlawson | Hacker News Reader

The articles says what happened, not why it happened that way.

_Why_ did the bazookas take out the howitzer, and not the other way around? Howitzer seems like a more powerful weapon for the situation.

The Americans were greatly outnumbered, so _how_ did they win?

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This got me curious and while a quick search didn't give me much info on what kind of "howitzer" these junks had, this similar naval gun had an optimistic fire rate of 5 rounds per minute and was less effective against agile targets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_cm/12_short_naval_gun

So my guess would be light, slow, inaccurate gun against highly maneuverable bazookas. It seems to me like a bazooka vs tank situation. Tanks are more powerful but a well positioned bazooka will kill a tank.

Howitzers are built to fire at an upward angle -- perhaps less accurate overall when going up against a target where both the gun platform and the enemy are moving? The bazooka, on the other hand, fired at a flat trajectory.

To fire a howitzer you need to calculate the angle at which you need to fire and amount of propellant. It seems like an incredibly hard thing to do on a ship and with the enemy maneuvering. It's likely you could only guess and hope for the best.

Usually howitzers fire, observe where the shell lands and then adapt. Here this couldn't work as ships changed positions.

In other words, you are right. Having something that you can point and shoot is easier to do. This might not be true if they could aim their howitzer low but then you get the fact that howitzer cannot be steadied (it will roll with the ship) while a human holding a bazooka can do some stabilization and fire at an exact moment the target is in crosshairs.

Making a bazooka much more like a gun on a sailing ship, able to time their fire with the roll of the ship, while a howitzer would be more akin to a mortar on an 19th century bomb ketch, where precision of aiming, powder needed for the shot and timing of the fuse are arrived at by trial and error. (I am reading through the Hornblower books for the umpteenth time, so Napoleonic sea warfare is fresh in my mind.)

Bazooka would be more like a rifle on a ship. Much easier to aim with the roll and you get your arms to do the stabilization.

Howitzer works as a mortar or if they are lucky and can aim low, as a non stabilized gun.

I doubt the howitzer was that great. The battled opened with a hit on the foremast from the howitzer and it seems the ship still worked well enough to participate.

Outnumbered by manpower, but they had two ships. The howitzer was a heavier weapon but pretty limited all the same.

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