Can a 16 inch HE shell wreck havoc on newer ships?
- Thread starter M1Brams
- Start date
Tho the Iowa had better sensors and electronics their armor was only rated to stop shells from the 16-inch/45-caliber guns, so if she did get hit by the Yamatos 18.1 inch guns the armor wouldn't have really stopped it. The Iowas armor wasn't even rated to protect her from her own 16-inch/50 caliber guns.
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Just a thought what if the shell penetrated the reactor of the carrier? wouldn't that do hell of a lot of damage.
Depends on whether or not they can scram the reactor, but if not, it could probably force you to abandon, and possibly scuttle, the ship. If they scram the reactor and can manage the residual heat then it is not a total disaster if the carrier has more than 1 reactor.
However, the reactor itself is a small hard target in a heavily armored location below the waterline. Penetrating the reactor compartment and taking out the primary cooling system would be almost as bad, and more likely.
True, also if the shell/s knocked out the carriers catapult system i would render the carrier useless until its fixed and that would probably require the carrier to return to port taking her out of the action
There are up to 4 catapults, so it will be quite a bit harder to take them all out. Not sure why they would have to return to port, catapult maintenance is ongoing so they must have parts.
The elevators from hanger to the deck are often mentioned as another vulnerable point.
The Nimitz class also has 4 emergency diesels in addition to the 2 Westinghouse reactors.
Sure, but how fast can it go on 32MW of diesel power (the reactors generate 194MW)? Those diesels aren't good for much more than keeping the pumps running and some of the lights on.
It still amazes me that a small city of 80,000 people could get by with 45 - 50MW of power and a carrier has enough in its two reactors to serve 320,000 people. Gives you a better idea of just how big those engines are, don't it?
i think the implication here is that no amount of onboard maintenance can repair gaping holes in the flight deck from the explosive rounds hitting the catapaults
regardless even a couple weeks of no, or reduced, sorties would be a helluva soft kill
I've often wondered how effective a weapon a modern smoothbore large caliber main rifle designed to fire many different types of dumb, smart, and self propelled (missile) loads would be aboard a cruiser sized ship. Basically an incredibly scaled-up version of the types of guns used on MBT's
the issue is about changing combat effectiveness. - a mobility kill, a comms kill etc... can be situationally effective enough to change outcomes
Hipshooter
New Member
Newer does not necessarily equal tougher
Great question.
For the last 50 plus years the U.S. Navy's philosophy has been:
#1 We will hit you and destroy you before you even see us.
#2 If we can not accomplish #1, then we will hit you with weapons that out-range yours so even if you do see us you can't do anything about it.
#3 If the enemy combatant is actually in a position to actually fire back at our ships, then we will shoot down or fool any incoming missiles using our active and passive ship-based defenses.
This is all good in theory, but in all the successful attacks against our ships (very few as our shooting wars have been against opponents with vastly inferior navies) our sophisticated weapons and defenses have proven to be of little use. The Stark, the Cole, The Samuel B Roberts. ect. In all of these cases some armor and / or stronger internal structure would have been a plus.
So modern day USN warships are pretty much built with the mindset that if we do everything right they won't get hit. And consequently, why waste money and weight on armor and heavy duty internal structure? In the past the working mindset was that our enemy was competent enough that there was a good chance our ships were going to get hit. Consequently, they needed to be able to take damage and keep fighting.
This takes us to actual question. What kind of damage would a 16" shell do against a modern warship.
Of course that depends on the warship and the type of 16" inch shell.
the Iowa class battleships primarily fired two types of shells:
The Mark 8 2700 Lb armor piercing shell for going against armored ships or fortified land structures. This round could penetrate 30 feet of reinforced concrete (far more than any missile in our current inventory) and would be overkill to use against today's lightly constructed, unarmored warships (with the possible exception of carriers) . Such a round fired against any of our frigates, destroyers, or cruisers would stand a very good chance to just going straight through the ship. It would do significant damage, but would not be the best option.
This 2700 lb armor piercing shell travelling Mach 2 plus would travel deep into a super carrier no matter where it hit it.
The truly devastating 16" round would be the 1900 lb. high capacity MK 13/14 round which is a semi-armor piercing fragmentation round with a 153 LB bursting charge. This is an incredibly destructive round. From Navsource: A single HC round being capable of clearing a landing zone 200 yards in diameter from a dense, triple canopy jungle, defoliating trees and undergrowth for another 300-400 yards beyond and forming craters 50 ft. across and over 20 ft. deep. A full broadside from an Iowa's would level almost anything standing within an area of one square mile!
A single HC round bursting inside or above a Cruiser or Destroyer would have a high chance of mission killing the ship as it would shred the ship's sensors, with the fragments penetrating the ship's interior. Several rounds into the ship would certainly put the survival of the ship at stake. (For example a round right into the center of dozens of Tomahawk missiles each with 1000 LB of high explosives would almost certainly destroy the ship). The HC round, while "only" semi-armor piercing would easily punch through any modern ship hull.
A single round going off on or air-burst above the flight deck of a carrier would be devastatingly effective and any plane on the deck would be destroyed and the deck itself would be badly damaged. However, sinking the carrier would be another story. Our carriers are very sturdily built, very large and our crews are excellent at damage control. So it likely would take many hits from both HC and Armor piercing 16" shells to sink a U.S. super carrier. Nonetheless a round into a carrier magazine would certainly be a possibility that could put the carrier at risk of destruction and a Mk8 shell could certainly penetrate to the magazine.
Obviously, Naval doctrine would suggest that having a carrier in easy range of any enemy ship as powerful as a battleship is considered to be a major mistake.
So yes, a 16" round will be devastatingly effective against any ship afloat today foolish enough to be within range of a battleship's big guns. A single broadside from a battleship would be pretty nasty - delivering more destructive energy to a target than any cruise missile at less cost.
BTW: While the Battleships are all being used as museums today, two of the Battleships (the Iowa and the Wisconsin) are still designated as emergency mobilization assets and the non-profits that manage them are not permitted to do certain types of modifications that would hinder their reactivation.
Cheers!
Great question.
For the last 50 plus years the U.S. Navy's philosophy has been:
#1 We will hit you and destroy you before you even see us.
#2 If we can not accomplish #1, then we will hit you with weapons that out-range yours so even if you do see us you can't do anything about it.
#3 If the enemy combatant is actually in a position to actually fire back at our ships, then we will shoot down or fool any incoming missiles using our active and passive ship-based defenses.
This is all good in theory, but in all the successful attacks against our ships (very few as our shooting wars have been against opponents with vastly inferior navies) our sophisticated weapons and defenses have proven to be of little use. The Stark, the Cole, The Samuel B Roberts. ect. In all of these cases some armor and / or stronger internal structure would have been a plus.
So modern day USN warships are pretty much built with the mindset that if we do everything right they won't get hit. And consequently, why waste money and weight on armor and heavy duty internal structure? In the past the working mindset was that our enemy was competent enough that there was a good chance our ships were going to get hit. Consequently, they needed to be able to take damage and keep fighting.
This takes us to actual question. What kind of damage would a 16" shell do against a modern warship.
Of course that depends on the warship and the type of 16" inch shell.
the Iowa class battleships primarily fired two types of shells:
The Mark 8 2700 Lb armor piercing shell for going against armored ships or fortified land structures. This round could penetrate 30 feet of reinforced concrete (far more than any missile in our current inventory) and would be overkill to use against today's lightly constructed, unarmored warships (with the possible exception of carriers) . Such a round fired against any of our frigates, destroyers, or cruisers would stand a very good chance to just going straight through the ship. It would do significant damage, but would not be the best option.
This 2700 lb armor piercing shell travelling Mach 2 plus would travel deep into a super carrier no matter where it hit it.
The truly devastating 16" round would be the 1900 lb. high capacity MK 13/14 round which is a semi-armor piercing fragmentation round with a 153 LB bursting charge. This is an incredibly destructive round. From Navsource: A single HC round being capable of clearing a landing zone 200 yards in diameter from a dense, triple canopy jungle, defoliating trees and undergrowth for another 300-400 yards beyond and forming craters 50 ft. across and over 20 ft. deep. A full broadside from an Iowa's would level almost anything standing within an area of one square mile!
A single HC round bursting inside or above a Cruiser or Destroyer would have a high chance of mission killing the ship as it would shred the ship's sensors, with the fragments penetrating the ship's interior. Several rounds into the ship would certainly put the survival of the ship at stake. (For example a round right into the center of dozens of Tomahawk missiles each with 1000 LB of high explosives would almost certainly destroy the ship). The HC round, while "only" semi-armor piercing would easily punch through any modern ship hull.
A single round going off on or air-burst above the flight deck of a carrier would be devastatingly effective and any plane on the deck would be destroyed and the deck itself would be badly damaged. However, sinking the carrier would be another story. Our carriers are very sturdily built, very large and our crews are excellent at damage control. So it likely would take many hits from both HC and Armor piercing 16" shells to sink a U.S. super carrier. Nonetheless a round into a carrier magazine would certainly be a possibility that could put the carrier at risk of destruction and a Mk8 shell could certainly penetrate to the magazine.
Obviously, Naval doctrine would suggest that having a carrier in easy range of any enemy ship as powerful as a battleship is considered to be a major mistake.
So yes, a 16" round will be devastatingly effective against any ship afloat today foolish enough to be within range of a battleship's big guns. A single broadside from a battleship would be pretty nasty - delivering more destructive energy to a target than any cruise missile at less cost.
BTW: While the Battleships are all being used as museums today, two of the Battleships (the Iowa and the Wisconsin) are still designated as emergency mobilization assets and the non-profits that manage them are not permitted to do certain types of modifications that would hinder their reactivation.
Cheers!
Why? It's a real ship load extra weight that has to be carted around and modern day defence systems have a good probability of accounting for antiship missiles. There are more ways of eliminating an ally cat than stuffing its anus with cream buns.
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
Thank you NG, for the mental picture...
For the hypothetical, yes, a 16" shell from a naval gun would certainly cause significant damage if it managed to hit something.
However, given the capabilities of modern naval forces, and the limitations on guns able to fire 16" shells... In short, absent significant new development, then a 16" naval gun is not as versatile as modern weaponry, or as capable or "cost-effective". I do not wish to do a Lazarus or a Frankenstein on any of the battleship threads, but there IS a reason why at this point they have either been scrapped or turned into museum-ships.
Something like a modern USN DDG has the potential fire mission-kill shots at hostiles from 1,000 km away. From the last refit (where a 16" gun turret was removed IIRC) at least one of the BB's became a Tomahawk launcher (which would be a BBG?) and able to do essentially the same thing. However, the BB would not be able to provide anything more than Phalanx type CIWS and thus vulnerable to inbound aircraft, missiles, bombs, etc. Not so for the DDG. As for the BB's naval gun, that has a range of perhaps 24 n miles give or take. At that range, a naval helicopter could drop a LWT which could achieve a mission-kill on a BB...
Basically, the weapons, technology, and overall systems used in warfare have moved past BB's. In fact, this had started with the advent of carriers, as was observed in Pearl Harbor, or shortly after that during the engagement between the RN's HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse and attacking land-based Japanese aircraft on December 10th, 1941.
t68
Well-Known Member
Yep too true, but a full broadside going off an Iowa is still a spectacular sight to see, but wonder why they went away from the twin mount guns like the old River Class DE, and from memory the US built twin mount 8' guns why the move from twins to singles and settling on 5'?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #78
Thanks for your input guys. Really appreciate the informative posts that have shed light on the viability of the BB in today's naval forces.
I wonder if there could some sort of a guided missile battleship, say the size of Yamato or bigger, equipped with multi mission VLS Tomahawks or SM cells along with the Phalanxs for out of range air ,land and CIWS kills, while still retaining the 16 or bigger 18 inch guns that could do a fire support job for short range kills. That's probably what i guess a emergency refit or reactivation of the Iowa will entail i suppose.
Technology has improved massively since they were last retired. I dont suppose guided shells and refined barrels could mitigate shot error greater than what the Iowa could muster before the advent of the tech age?
They could probably work in a CVG, if they were given the protection?
Cheers.
I wonder if there could some sort of a guided missile battleship, say the size of Yamato or bigger, equipped with multi mission VLS Tomahawks or SM cells along with the Phalanxs for out of range air ,land and CIWS kills, while still retaining the 16 or bigger 18 inch guns that could do a fire support job for short range kills. That's probably what i guess a emergency refit or reactivation of the Iowa will entail i suppose.
Technology has improved massively since they were last retired. I dont suppose guided shells and refined barrels could mitigate shot error greater than what the Iowa could muster before the advent of the tech age?
They could probably work in a CVG, if they were given the protection?
Cheers.
With the advent of technology and with many powers around the world acquiring long range antiship missile capability, I would be avoiding such high-value ships, unless absolutely necessary.
I mean aircraft carriers would be the only high-value asset, the rest would be ships with distinct roles, complementing each other and operating and training together as semi-permanent flotillas.
Stuffing 150 tomahawks in an "arsenal ship" sounds idiotic to me, same for the jack of all trades, cram all the awesome technology in one billion dollar ship... why?
I mean aircraft carriers would be the only high-value asset, the rest would be ships with distinct roles, complementing each other and operating and training together as semi-permanent flotillas.
Stuffing 150 tomahawks in an "arsenal ship" sounds idiotic to me, same for the jack of all trades, cram all the awesome technology in one billion dollar ship... why?
Not quite - the original reactivation of all four in the 1980's was purely to get some TLAM launch capability into the fleet. Armoured box launchers were welded into place on some spare deck space (actually right over the grates and conduits that could pass steam turbine components in the eventuality that they'd need to be serviced or replaced. All the 16 inch mounts were retained, although the five inch mounts were thinned from 10 a side to 5. At the time they brought another 16 or to TLAM tubes into the surface fleet. A few years later with the increasing proliferation of VLS strike cells, both in the Spruance and the newer Ticos, the BB's were making less sense.
The guns were very secondary mind you - while much was made of it at the time, in fact, if the guns hadn't been operable, the USN was prepared to forgo them as long as they got TLAM out to sea without new construction of ships.