The sad truth is that the battleships are dead and gone. the best thing that the navy could use them for is as a show of force to hostile countries. I dont know but i'd crap myself if I was a terrorist and I saw a 887+ ft long behemoth with 9 guns the width of each one almost the size of my head pointing at it and the massive numbers of 5" guns and missiles and mgs staring me down. Id surrender immediately! But that too will never happen too much $$$ wasted on :spam
Return of the battleship.
- Thread starter Tankcrewman2008
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The only way i could ever see a return of battleships is in pocket form. More like the Graf Spee than the Missouri is what i mean! Here's what it would look like if my opinion was worth a damn 
11,000 ton ship
600 feet long
70ft beam
To ensure the ship can move fast, why not drop in a single A1B reactor? (CVN Gerald Ford's got two). It needs to be able to keep up with the other ships.
A Composite hull of the highest quality steel for the loadbearing structure and chobham armor for the outer layer. But even that wont stop a Brahmos/Yakhont/Moskit ect...
So what do you use to make it heavily armored against missile attacks?
Massive tiles of waterproof ERA!
Navalise the technology and reduce the effectiveness of anti-ship missiles by an appreciable degree. Of course this would only be possible on the area between the waterline and the deck. Could be a hazard to crew near the affected part, but that won't compare to the damage the missile will do if it penetrates.
Moving on, two old-fashionned gun turrets placed fore with three 155mm howitzers each with state of the art PALADIN-type FCS.
The front of the ship would have the gun turrets while the rear would be allocated for the VLS and magazines.
30 Tomahawks,
16 Harpoons and/or ASROCs.
four SEARAM
two CIWS on top superstructure to suppement the SEARAM and act as last-ditch AAA
two Mark 45 54cals
four 25mm chainguns
eight OCSW .50cal machine guns
AN/SPY-3 dual-band radar from the gerald ford
RIM-162 ESSM
Give it the AEGIS system too, basically all systems from the latest Ticonderoca.
Make it a full-spectrum warship that can defend itself against any kind of threats yet cooperate and act as a force multiplier with a carrier group. It would be most of all a devastating ground-support asset.
A helicopter deck with elevator and hangar for at least one aircraft is a must! Ability to launch UAVs would be highly interesting, providing the battleship with it's own reconaissance, ASW aircraft and fire control for ground targets.
I beleive such a ship would fit well in today's naval philosophy, but in any case it would be very expensive for what it can acheive. The glorious naval warfare days of WW1/2 are over (i hope!!!) however i am sure that the mere presence of such a ship in a USCG would act as a massive deterrent against any type of attack. But i'd say any navy trying to attack something like that would have a pretty hard time.
Sorry, my mad inventor's trying to get free, plus i need to go to bed....
11,000 ton ship
600 feet long
70ft beam
To ensure the ship can move fast, why not drop in a single A1B reactor? (CVN Gerald Ford's got two). It needs to be able to keep up with the other ships.
A Composite hull of the highest quality steel for the loadbearing structure and chobham armor for the outer layer. But even that wont stop a Brahmos/Yakhont/Moskit ect...
So what do you use to make it heavily armored against missile attacks?
Massive tiles of waterproof ERA!
Navalise the technology and reduce the effectiveness of anti-ship missiles by an appreciable degree. Of course this would only be possible on the area between the waterline and the deck. Could be a hazard to crew near the affected part, but that won't compare to the damage the missile will do if it penetrates.
Moving on, two old-fashionned gun turrets placed fore with three 155mm howitzers each with state of the art PALADIN-type FCS.
The front of the ship would have the gun turrets while the rear would be allocated for the VLS and magazines.
30 Tomahawks,
16 Harpoons and/or ASROCs.
four SEARAM
two CIWS on top superstructure to suppement the SEARAM and act as last-ditch AAA
two Mark 45 54cals
four 25mm chainguns
eight OCSW .50cal machine guns
AN/SPY-3 dual-band radar from the gerald ford
RIM-162 ESSM
Give it the AEGIS system too, basically all systems from the latest Ticonderoca.
Make it a full-spectrum warship that can defend itself against any kind of threats yet cooperate and act as a force multiplier with a carrier group. It would be most of all a devastating ground-support asset.
A helicopter deck with elevator and hangar for at least one aircraft is a must! Ability to launch UAVs would be highly interesting, providing the battleship with it's own reconaissance, ASW aircraft and fire control for ground targets.
I beleive such a ship would fit well in today's naval philosophy, but in any case it would be very expensive for what it can acheive. The glorious naval warfare days of WW1/2 are over (i hope!!!) however i am sure that the mere presence of such a ship in a USCG would act as a massive deterrent against any type of attack. But i'd say any navy trying to attack something like that would have a pretty hard time.
Sorry, my mad inventor's trying to get free, plus i need to go to bed....
Hmmm
I think if we are going to see something like the battleship return it will be a cross between the russian battlecrusier and a arsenal ship.
I dont think it would need to be super armored though more than the usual might be a good idea. Lots of anti missle defenses.
One other thing. The army has aparrently used the land based phallanx system to good effect killing mortars and such. A ship like this would have to get in close to shore at some time. So why not give it more than 2 (why 2? why not 4 with a more powerful tracking system?). Its main armament would be missiles i figure in VLS.
Though i was thinking at the rate anti missile systems are progressing there might be a time in the next 20 to 30 yrs when the big gun battleship makes a come back for more than just shore bombardment.
I think if we are going to see something like the battleship return it will be a cross between the russian battlecrusier and a arsenal ship.
I dont think it would need to be super armored though more than the usual might be a good idea. Lots of anti missle defenses.
One other thing. The army has aparrently used the land based phallanx system to good effect killing mortars and such. A ship like this would have to get in close to shore at some time. So why not give it more than 2 (why 2? why not 4 with a more powerful tracking system?). Its main armament would be missiles i figure in VLS.
Though i was thinking at the rate anti missile systems are progressing there might be a time in the next 20 to 30 yrs when the big gun battleship makes a come back for more than just shore bombardment.
How are you going to fit all that stuff on an 11,000 ton hull?The only way i could ever see a return of battleships is in pocket form. More like the Graf Spee than the Missouri is what i mean! Here's what it would look like if my opinion was worth a damn
11,000 ton ship
600 feet long
70ft beam
To ensure the ship can move fast, why not drop in a single A1B reactor? (CVN Gerald Ford's got two). It needs to be able to keep up with the other ships.
A Composite hull of the highest quality steel for the loadbearing structure and chobham armor for the outer layer. But even that wont stop a Brahmos/Yakhont/Moskit ect...
So what do you use to make it heavily armored against missile attacks?
Massive tiles of waterproof ERA!
Navalise the technology and reduce the effectiveness of anti-ship missiles by an appreciable degree. Of course this would only be possible on the area between the waterline and the deck. Could be a hazard to crew near the affected part, but that won't compare to the damage the missile will do if it penetrates.
Moving on, two old-fashionned gun turrets placed fore with three 155mm howitzers each with state of the art PALADIN-type FCS.
The front of the ship would have the gun turrets while the rear would be allocated for the VLS and magazines.
30 Tomahawks,
16 Harpoons and/or ASROCs.
four SEARAM
two CIWS on top superstructure to suppement the SEARAM and act as last-ditch AAA
two Mark 45 54cals
four 25mm chainguns
eight OCSW .50cal machine guns
AN/SPY-3 dual-band radar from the gerald ford
RIM-162 ESSM
Give it the AEGIS system too, basically all systems from the latest Ticonderoca.
Make it a full-spectrum warship that can defend itself against any kind of threats yet cooperate and act as a force multiplier with a carrier group. It would be most of all a devastating ground-support asset.
A helicopter deck with elevator and hangar for at least one aircraft is a must! Ability to launch UAVs would be highly interesting, providing the battleship with it's own reconaissance, ASW aircraft and fire control for ground targets.
I beleive such a ship would fit well in today's naval philosophy, but in any case it would be very expensive for what it can acheive. The glorious naval warfare days of WW1/2 are over (i hope!!!) however i am sure that the mere presence of such a ship in a USCG would act as a massive deterrent against any type of attack. But i'd say any navy trying to attack something like that would have a pretty hard time.
Sorry, my mad inventor's trying to get free, plus i need to go to bed....
The Ticonderoga class weighs 9800tons. That means that you have, at max, a few thousand tons to fit 2 triple 155mm guns, four SeaRAMs and all that fancy armour.
And what would the Coast Guard do with it?
Why? A system capable of hitting a supersonic seaskimmer should be quite capable of hitting a shell that moves in a high and very predictable trajectory. If the brits can catch 114mm shells with the VLS SeaWolf,catching something bigger shouldn't be a problem.
A battlecruiser is the term is was looking for, dagnit! Thanks heh. Your idea sounds the most realistic and practical. Since this would be a very high tech design, it could be the first major naval warship to abopt the much superior twin-hull construction. Oh jeeze, imagine using two Ohio SSBN for the submarine hulls and build a superstructure a la Seashadow but only bristling with radars and missiles, it would be a monster!
Coast Guard...?? I meant US Carrier Groups, but i guess i should have said USNCG?
The WW2 Admiral Graf Spee weighted 12,500~ tons dry, witch was what i was talking about. And it had much bigger and more numerous guns, as well as a fair bit of krupp armor witch even if compared to the time was inadequate was still plentiful.
Coast Guard...?? I meant US Carrier Groups, but i guess i should have said USNCG?
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hmmm
But i figure in about 10 to 15 yrs we will have a railgun ready for testing on a US ship.
One thing though. How many seawolves does a ship carry. I read somewhere once a battleship in WW2 would carry over a thousand rounds. Each gun when it was built could fire twice a minute. Thats 18 rounds a minute. Thats alot of seawolves. Basically the enemy fleet would run out of missiles before the ship ran out of rounds. Thats notcounting how much faster we could make the reloading time. Or how much faster we could send the rounds down range.
But i figure in about 10 to 15 yrs we will have a railgun ready for testing on a US ship.
RoF has nothing to say when you can't get in range of your target. The 16''/50 Mark 7 had a range of some 41000 yards. Using a more modern propellant an a sub caliber projectile we might be able to double that, but that's it. We can make longer ranged projectiles, but to do that we need to ad boosters and guidance packages since that's the only way to hit anything at those ranges, and by the time we've done that, a shell will cost the same as a missile. And at that point, missiles will win, because you can achieve a far higher RoF with a VLS and the missiles can be bigger.
And no, we can't make the reloading time all that much faster. Everything is already done mechanical. We might be able to squeeze in another round per minute, but I doubt we could get it higher.
What you are proposing to do is to fit a Ticonderoga class cruiser and enough guns to arm an army on a hull that's only ~12% larger. That's just plain not possible. Modern electronics, especially radars, are extremely heavy. The AN/SPY-3 alone weighs 49tons.
You mean sort of like the Kirovs?
About what i thought then i can see something about like the soviet BC then. You should be able to get alot of speed out of it if designed right with a reactor and such. Hmm I wonder if you could do it on a trimaran hull form.
What would be the best hull form for a ship like that? Tumble down like on the DDG1000(hopefully not costing anywhere near as much)?
The M109A6 isn't exactly state-of-the-art. Even its prospective successor might have been state-of-the-art if it had been designed that way 20 years earlier.
Besides, no need for a oh-so-modern FCS. A ship doesn't shoot-and-scoot, necessitating 30-second in-action-out-of-action times. Only thing really needed is a decent laying software interfaced with a 3D gyro and GPS, and an interface to the Army/Joint artillery network. Anything designed in the last 30 years can do that.
What do you want speed for? The only reason to carry a big gun is shore bombardment and other fire support missions, and you only need to be able to keep up with the anfibs to do those. People may not agree with me when I say that the age of the BB is over, but they can't argue with me when I say the age of the fast BB ended with the introduction of effective SAMs.
Not if you're going to fit a big-ass gun on it. One of the selling points of trimaran designs is a shallow draft. A shallow draft combined with a narrow hull means that there simply isn't enough room in the hull, unless you make the hull very large.
I doubt it. Tumblehome is an inherently unstable hull design. It became popular around 1900, but the British did a series of very thorough experiments that pretty much killed the design. The proposed hull for the Zumwalt is even worse than the ones from back then, because the hull leans inward even more and the only way to retain stability is to install a complex active stabilization system. And if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not have to rely on such a system when the bullets starts flying.
And yes, I'm well aware that most modern warships use stabilizers, but unlike the Zumwalt they don't rely on them to keep them from capsizing.
There've been various attempts to replace the battleships in a fire support role. first there's Strike Cruiser, then there's an arsenal ships and then there's Ohios carrying tomahawk. only the Ohios made it through. The rest never made it beyond testing. Russian are still struggling to keep 2 Kirov seaworthy and for such a cost, the ship is still highly vulnerable to a carrier aircrafts armed with AShM and a submarines.
Dear god i didnt know it was that bad. What brain dead retard thought using that hull design on a ship that would be so close to shore was a good idea?:nutkick
I always figured stability was you know one of the Big frst thing a ocean going ship needs issues.
Let me be clearer. I wasnt suggesting a big gun on it. If the vessel were talking about is a Battlecruiser, armed with a large amount of Land attack missiles, with maybe some good air to air missiles (SM3s) and such then then it would be a better idea for it to be faster. That way it can escort the marine expeditionary units. Heck i figure you could combine the shore bombardment role with that of the existing Ticonderoga class if you wanted and it wouldnt signifigantly impact either role.
And from what ive read the railguns planned wouldnt have anymore shock than a 155mm. Just a little bit more than the existing 5in.
It normally is, but the tumblehome offers significant stealth advantages. Whether it's worth it is another matter entirely.
The San Antonio Class LPD clocks in at ~22 knots, so current escorts are more than fast enough to keep up. (Ticonderoga can do 32.5 knots, Perry can do >29 knots and Arleigh Burke can do >30 knots)
Indeed not. After all, this is how Ticonderoga class cruisers and Arleigh Burke Class destroyers are used today.
Building a larger VLS scooter doesn't make sense from an economic sense or a strategic sense, since you won't be able to build as many hulls, thus you loose flexibility and you probably won't get the same capability as two Ticos would have given you.
Yes and no. Since the acceleration is going to be constant along the entire length of the barrel, the peak load on the hull is going to be lower than a traditional gun with the same output. Whether the peak load is going to be lower than that of a 5'' gun I can't say.
What I can say, though, is that the muzzle blast is going to be far worse. The projectile carries more than five times the energy of a 5"/62 Mark 45 Mod 4 and almost twice the energy of the AGS. It'll drag a considerable shockwave with it. And then of course, there's the little matter of the cloud of superheated metal gas billowing out of the barrel.
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
Five times the energy means five times the recoil, unless the mount is fitted with very good shock absorbers....
Not always.
You can apply a huge amount of force in an instant or a small amount of force over a long period of time to provide the same amount of energy. Small space craft (ion) thrusters produce tiny amounts of force, but over long periods (days), rockets can provide the same amount of energy in a few seconds.
These rail guns should have (very slightly) lower peak forces as they are accelerating the projectile the whole length of the barrel and not just in an explosion. However most likely designers will simply upgrade the gun to provide more energy simular peak force.
You can apply a huge amount of force in an instant or a small amount of force over a long period of time to provide the same amount of energy. Small space craft (ion) thrusters produce tiny amounts of force, but over long periods (days), rockets can provide the same amount of energy in a few seconds.
These rail guns should have (very slightly) lower peak forces as they are accelerating the projectile the whole length of the barrel and not just in an explosion. However most likely designers will simply upgrade the gun to provide more energy simular peak force.
StevoJH
The Bunker Group
The total force applied will be higher though.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Just wanted to point out that the example used of spacecraft with an ion thrust or rocket engine does not apply particularly well in explaining applied forces for projectile motion within Earth's atmosphere.
In the case of a gun (conventional or rail/magnetic) there is a (short) finite period in which energy can be applied to move the projectile, which will then travel through air until reaching the target, contending with friction while en route. The gun itself, along with anything attached to the gun (like the mounting and/or ship) will have the same amount of energy applied to it to move it in the opposite direction (Newton's 3rd Law of Motion).
Now, if the projectile was fitted with some form of sustainer engine, the situation would be a bit different, because force could continue to be exerted upon the projectile which could be independent of any applied by the gun.
-Cheers
Yeh. Rarely are analogies perfect. Yes, and there are plenty of other issues. My post was specifically dealing only with impulse.
I would imagine that rail gun designs would fit in approximately where 5 and 6" guns are currently so that if the tech doesn't work out, too costly, slow to develop then regular guns can be installed. I don't know if every ship in a navy needs a rail gun either. Infact I can see several reasons why you wouldn't. Designing ships to take 155mm or rail gun would seem to be a wise move. The energy of a rail gun isnt huge
But barrel wear seems to be a huge issue with the things. Lots of issues, guidance, burning up before impact, etc. The whole advantage with a rail gun is low cost per round compared with things that can do simular damage. Until that happens they wont be popular.
Old guns are also learning new tricks ERA type shells seem to have a bright future. Regular guns also allow you to shoot very cheap unguided muntions as well.
I would imagine that rail gun designs would fit in approximately where 5 and 6" guns are currently so that if the tech doesn't work out, too costly, slow to develop then regular guns can be installed. I don't know if every ship in a navy needs a rail gun either. Infact I can see several reasons why you wouldn't. Designing ships to take 155mm or rail gun would seem to be a wise move. The energy of a rail gun isnt huge
But barrel wear seems to be a huge issue with the things. Lots of issues, guidance, burning up before impact, etc. The whole advantage with a rail gun is low cost per round compared with things that can do simular damage. Until that happens they wont be popular.
Old guns are also learning new tricks ERA type shells seem to have a bright future. Regular guns also allow you to shoot very cheap unguided muntions as well.
While it may not be all that hard to design a ship capable of withstanding the recoil of a 155mm railgun, designing one cpable of supplying it with power is an entirely different matter.
According to NavWeaps.com, the 155mm railguns projectiles will have 125MJ worth of kinetic energy when they leave the barrel. Given the massive amount of cooling necessary, I guess that the gun will need about twice as much energy, meaning that it'll take 250MJ to launch. All that energy has to come from the ships powerplants.
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