JD>Back during the Falklands conflict between the Brits and the Argentines,
  >one of the Brits newest destroyers got center punched by an exocet. The
  >impact and explosion set the "latest, hi-tech, *aluminum*, superstructure
  >on fire. The fire raged with such intensity that the ship was lost. Now
  >thermite ain't made of aluminum, but aluminum and magnesium are very close
  >to one another on the old periodic table and have similar properties. If
  >you can get the Al burning, your going to have a dickens of a time putting
  >it out. Needless to say, the Admiralty rethought their ideas on destroyer
  >construction and went back to making their cans out of "tin".
You can look closer to home to find the same evidence.  The U.S.
Navy ship (name escapes me) that was hit be a Iraq or Iranian (?
memory is really failing me now) fired French Exocet (sp?)
missile in the Persian Gulf suffered a similar melt-down of the
superstructure.  The missile's fuel did more damage than the
warhead.  Now the new DDG-51 Kidd class has steel superstructures.
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 X OLX 2.1 TD X A problem can be found for almost every solution.
--- Maximus/2 2.02
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