Return of the battleship.
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I think you have to look at the speed of technical development in a war. If the war had lasted into 1919 it was very likely and with c 100-120 aircraft. The sad thing is the RN was armed with little better than the Cuckoo 20 years later, in 1940. I think there were only c40 Swordfish used at Taranto.
BTW didn't a Shorts Seaplane from HMS Ben-my-Chree sucessfully torpedo a Turkish ship in 1915?
Anyway with hindsight the battleship was dead by 1940, even though some people did know before......wasn't poor Billy Mitchell court marshalled for daring to point this out in the 1920s, but they had the good grace to name a bomber after him later!! But the fact people still think there is a case for them now...... is just the flat earth brigade.
The A-10 and many other military examples clearly illustrate a need and tremendous usefulness for certain "low tech" applications. But existing platforms like the battleship (Iowa class) offer a huge advantage (in terms of size, if nothing else) to blend old and new.
Both the low tech and low cost of the existing 16" guns create a "bang for the buck" cost-effectiveness example like no other. The amount of lethality that can be projected within a 20 mile radius in just a matter of salvos is beyond comparison, and its already built and ready to serve. It would be difficult to justify the use, and expense, of a TLAM on a target or installation lying [say] four miles inshore if nine 2k lb. projectiles could do the trick for a fraction of the price. I doubt the 5" bombardment tools we utilize today would similarly achieve the damage often required, especially for a hardened bunker.
Plus, the threat which rendered the battleship virtually obsolete during World War II (enemy carrier based aircraft and/or land based anti-carrier aircraft such as the Bear) no longer exist in the modern era to the extent of posing a true threat of any sort. The need for the Battleship in the first place, however (bombardment of land-based targets) continues along.
Both the low tech and low cost of the existing 16" guns create a "bang for the buck" cost-effectiveness example like no other. The amount of lethality that can be projected within a 20 mile radius in just a matter of salvos is beyond comparison, and its already built and ready to serve. It would be difficult to justify the use, and expense, of a TLAM on a target or installation lying [say] four miles inshore if nine 2k lb. projectiles could do the trick for a fraction of the price. I doubt the 5" bombardment tools we utilize today would similarly achieve the damage often required, especially for a hardened bunker.
Plus, the threat which rendered the battleship virtually obsolete during World War II (enemy carrier based aircraft and/or land based anti-carrier aircraft such as the Bear) no longer exist in the modern era to the extent of posing a true threat of any sort. The need for the Battleship in the first place, however (bombardment of land-based targets) continues along.
You got that last little bit backward. The threat of ASMs has only increased, with even multi-role fighters capable of maritime strike (whereas in the past it took dedicated aircraft) while the need for shoreline bombardment has almost disappeared entirely.
Oh dear. Not again.
Let's re-cap, shall we? Firstly, putting any existing battleship to sea isn't cheap, it's horribly expensive. They're not fit to go to sea, & would need a massive overhaul. Their machinery is obsolete: new parts would have to be made especially. They are extraordinarily labour-intensive, & would require huge, & therefore expensive, crews. The accommodation on them is sub-standard, not acceptable to most modern sailors. Without modern sensors, they would be blind, & therefore helpless. They have no weapons against stand-off weapons, or the aircraft that launch them. They would therefore need either expensively refitting with sensors & AA weapons, or escorts to protect them. Ditto for ASW.
Battleships, as well as needing obsolete parts made to special order, would need a new production line for their shells, & need obsolete skills to operate them. More expense, to recover lost skills, & re-start production.
We then end up with a floating artillery battery. An inaccurate, short-range floating artillery battery. Compared to a modern 127mm (5") naval gun, those 16" guns are like throwing stones. They deliver big shells, but not big enough for their explosive power to compensate for their inaccuracy, unless you want area bombardment - and if that's what you want, why not fit MLRS? It's in production, & longer range.
There have been suggestions that new shells could developed to overcome the accuracy & range limitations. Do that, & the idea of cheapness gets even more remote. The shells become individually expensive, & development is needed, for just a couple of platforms. Programme unit cost would be scary.
It has been argued that the armour of battleships makes them extremely difficult to sink. Well, not by a few heavyweight torpedoes under the keel.
Top-attack bunker-busting missiles should also be fairly effective at achieving mission kills, & any battleship within gun range of a hostile shore would be within range of Smerch or similar artillery rocket systems, which come with guided projectiles & cluster warheads these days. A sprinkling of them across the upperworks would also achieve a mission kill. No comms, no radar . . . . no bombardment. Modern Russian heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles would also do a lot of damage. Note that the battleship would have no means of defence against any of these, except air cover from a carrier, or escort ships, unless refitted with modern active defenses.
As for the lack of an air threat - well, this is an argument hard to take seriously. Consider Su-30MKI launching Brahmos . . . or a few aircraft firing KEPD-350 or Scalp with guidance modified to enable them to identify & strike the most vulnerable parts of a battleship. Note that the guidance changes should be possible with software changes only, or via the (planned for, relatively easy) installation of a two-way datalink.
The argument that the shells have penetrating capability is hindered by their lack of accuracy compared to penetrating bombs with guidance kits. While individually more expensive, far fewer guided bombs would be needed, & they would not require a huge ship full of sailors & crammed with expensive new equipment to get within artillery range. They also have the ability to strike targets inland - unlike a 16" gun.
Let's re-cap, shall we? Firstly, putting any existing battleship to sea isn't cheap, it's horribly expensive. They're not fit to go to sea, & would need a massive overhaul. Their machinery is obsolete: new parts would have to be made especially. They are extraordinarily labour-intensive, & would require huge, & therefore expensive, crews. The accommodation on them is sub-standard, not acceptable to most modern sailors. Without modern sensors, they would be blind, & therefore helpless. They have no weapons against stand-off weapons, or the aircraft that launch them. They would therefore need either expensively refitting with sensors & AA weapons, or escorts to protect them. Ditto for ASW.
Battleships, as well as needing obsolete parts made to special order, would need a new production line for their shells, & need obsolete skills to operate them. More expense, to recover lost skills, & re-start production.
We then end up with a floating artillery battery. An inaccurate, short-range floating artillery battery. Compared to a modern 127mm (5") naval gun, those 16" guns are like throwing stones. They deliver big shells, but not big enough for their explosive power to compensate for their inaccuracy, unless you want area bombardment - and if that's what you want, why not fit MLRS? It's in production, & longer range.
There have been suggestions that new shells could developed to overcome the accuracy & range limitations. Do that, & the idea of cheapness gets even more remote. The shells become individually expensive, & development is needed, for just a couple of platforms. Programme unit cost would be scary.
It has been argued that the armour of battleships makes them extremely difficult to sink. Well, not by a few heavyweight torpedoes under the keel.
Top-attack bunker-busting missiles should also be fairly effective at achieving mission kills, & any battleship within gun range of a hostile shore would be within range of Smerch or similar artillery rocket systems, which come with guided projectiles & cluster warheads these days. A sprinkling of them across the upperworks would also achieve a mission kill. No comms, no radar . . . . no bombardment. Modern Russian heavy supersonic anti-ship missiles would also do a lot of damage. Note that the battleship would have no means of defence against any of these, except air cover from a carrier, or escort ships, unless refitted with modern active defenses.
As for the lack of an air threat - well, this is an argument hard to take seriously. Consider Su-30MKI launching Brahmos . . . or a few aircraft firing KEPD-350 or Scalp with guidance modified to enable them to identify & strike the most vulnerable parts of a battleship. Note that the guidance changes should be possible with software changes only, or via the (planned for, relatively easy) installation of a two-way datalink.
The argument that the shells have penetrating capability is hindered by their lack of accuracy compared to penetrating bombs with guidance kits. While individually more expensive, far fewer guided bombs would be needed, & they would not require a huge ship full of sailors & crammed with expensive new equipment to get within artillery range. They also have the ability to strike targets inland - unlike a 16" gun.
F-15 Eagle
New Member
Battleships have been replaced by aircraft carriers, which a Nimitz class ship has more firepower than any battleship will. In fact today's destroyers actually have more firepower than a battleship.
Uh, not they don't, you find me a destroyer with 32 tomahawks and 16 harpoons (Iowa class end of life) hell you could even pull turret 2 and stick in a massive VLS nest if you wanted.
The big guns may be of limited utility, but a HUGE well protected hull ploatform is still a great thing to have in your pocket.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
IIRC the Burke's typically carry ~54 Tomahawks as part of the missile loadout in the 90-cell VLS, plus the SM-2 Standard also has an ASuW capability. This does suggest to me that at least for a rapid strike, an Arleigh Burke-class DDG has more firepower than an Iowa-class BB. Now for a sustained engagement, then the potentially large magazine capacity for the 16-in guns would provide an Iowa-class greater firepower over time. The caveat though is that in what type of engagement would sustained bombardment from the naval guns be viable.
-Cheers
F-15 Eagle
New Member
A Flight IIA DDG-51 has 96 missiles, wit the Flight III possibly carrying more. Compared to the primary 9 16in guns of the Iowa class battleship.
You're funny.
I served on 2 Burkes and made 3 deployments and we always had more than 45 tubes filled with Tomahawks.
One of the main reasons the Iowa's were recommissioned in the 80's was that they were one of the cheapest and quickest methods of getting a decent number of armored box launched Tomahawks to sea fairly quick. The updates the ships got in the 80's was VERY minimal and there plans to leave the guns in layup (aka non active, unmaintained and uncrewed) if the project started to go over budget.
As soon as the Spruance VLS conversions and the VLS equipped Tico's started to show up they were again thrown into mothballs.
The hull is less well protected than you think. That armor is well placed to withstand WW2 era gun fire and aircraft bomb hits. Modern ASM's don't hit the hull the same way, plenty of ASM's have an IR head and can go down a exhaust stack and explode in the engine room, and you can't armor your comms systems, radars and other equipment to actually fight the ship. Nor is the hull strong enough to withstand a modern torpedo which will either snap the keel or pop the stern seals on the shafts.
A Flight IIA Arleigh Burke has 96 VLS (able to carry a mix of Tomahawk, Standard and quad-packed ESSM) in addition to the 8 Harpoons it carries. As friendly advice, it would really pay to do some research of your own before you just assume other posters are incorrect and make comments like the above - ten minutes with google would have delivered this very same information to you.
Even in the 80's the Iowa' were not popular ships to serve on.
The steam plant school has been closed for a couple decades, and any deck seaman who went through that school is now retired so they'd have to rehire and retrain instructors, reprint new tech manuals, possibly build a new school house with a mockup of an Iowa's steam plant. Same thing goes for the 5 inch guns and 16 inch guns, the GM school in Great Lakes no longer has that equipment in the green house.
Also good luck finding a Fire Controlman who wants to go work on analog computers that was high tech in 1945.
It has been argued that the armour of battleships makes them extremely difficult to sink. Well, not by a few heavyweight torpedoes under the keel.
In a damage control situation (flooding) the armor is a liability since it is dead weight.
SPY-1A was briefly considered but a quick study found that the pressure wave of the 16 inch guns would shatter the array windows, so no modern active defense for the Iowa's. From what I understand even Phalanx had some trouble operating on the Iowa's initially.
Flight IIA's don't carry Harpoon. They are "fitted for but not with" the weight and space for launchers.
Bah! My mistake, and I'll try to follow my own advice next time. Cheers for the correction.
A.Mookerjee
Banned Member
Battleships are the least manuverable of the warships. Because of anti-ship missiles, they are made obsolete. The reason why battleships existed, was because they were designed to dominate over long distances, when guns were used, instead of missiles. Also, the fiepower of the Battleship is not required, because no one foresees a major naval battle, between two massed enemy naval battlegroups. If one looks at the carrier groups of the United States Navy, then the main fighting force is the Aircraft Carrier, with the other vessels of the carrier groups mainly screening the carrier, or carriers. The Aegis equipped Destroyer is many times more powerful than any Battleship in history. Such an equipped Destroyer, can fire many missiles in many different directions, and at multiple ranges, in a very short time lag, which was impossible for a Battleship. However, Battleships do have their uses. If by any chance, there is a large engagement of naval vessels, then the larger battleships, if they are equipped by a vast array of weapon systems, would be very useful. However, in modern times, there are no such vessels with any navy, anywhere. The reason why Battleships were developed by navies around the world, in the past, was because of the hightened suspicions between the industrialised nations, and because naval warfare was the mode of defense, the British Empire, was very dependent on. The enemies of the British, in the past, targeted the British Navy, to impair the military might of the British.
No, she received a very minimal upgrade, barely enough to keep her in working condition.
True, that doesn't prove anything, other than a destroyer could have fired more missiles at a lower cost.
meat_helmet
New Member
If the Navy used battleships again as missleboats primarily, then they should just convert a few Ohio class SSBNs into cruise missle ships instead. Wait, they alreaddy did that
The battleship as missleboat just doesnt hold up when you can have 1 Ohio class SSGN with almost as many TLAMs as a whole battlegoup - and really what other arguement is there for it? The guns are just too primative these days, the possibility for collateral damage and the innefficiency of them is just too high, while the range is too low. So they would only serve as missleboats really; something they would not do very efficiently in my opinion.
t68
Well-Known Member
If the Navy used battleships again as missleboats primarily, then they should just convert a few Ohio class SSBNs into cruise missle ships instead. Wait, they alreaddy did that
The battleship as missleboat just doesnt hold up when you can have 1 Ohio class SSGN with almost as many TLAMs as a whole battlegoup - and really what other arguement is there for it? The guns are just too primative these days, the possibility for collateral damage and the innefficiency of them is just too high, while the range is too low. So they would only serve as missleboats really; something they would not do very efficiently in my opinion.
I think the question comes down to if they had to build from scratch, would it be cheaper to go SSGN again or a surface missile boats. But an Ohio is self protecting would not need escorts unlike a surface missile boat.
Question can a tomahawk be replenished at sea into a VLS tube ?
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