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Should battleships be recommisioned?
AngelofVengeance
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The United States Navy is unique in the world as the only navy that maintained two operational battleships in it's Mothball fleet. That is until March 17, 2006, when the Secretary of the Navy struck the USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin from the Register. Is this really wise? Think about it, the battleship is a unique asset in that if offers unparreled Naval Surface Fire Support (NSFS) for the ground forces. And adequate NSFS is what saves lives, without it we'll be losing many more troops than is neccesary. An Iowa is able to lob a shell 16" in diametre with pinpoint accuracy to any point up to 35 miles inland. Now if the USN reactivated all four of it's Iowa-class battleships, refit them with modernised AEGIS targeting systems, VLS (Vertical Launch System) missile launchers for it's cruise and anti-ship missiles, the latest CIWS and SAM systems for defense and you will have a ship with around 10 times the fire power of the modern Ticonderoga missile cruiser, enough speed to keep pace with any Carrier Battlegroups and enough armour to absorb anything the enemy throws at them and keep on chugging. Most ships have only a few inches armour in this day and age, the Iowa has over a foot of steel protecting it. Now, don't get me wrong, there are alternatives to the battleship for NSFS being developed in the navy right now, the Zumwalt-class destroyer is being developed but not only does it cost billions, that's right billions with a B, more than reactivating the Iowas would, but it only offers 5" shells, weak sauce compared to the 16" shells of an Iowa, and it won't be available for another 13-15 years, and only has minimal armour. In fact, the USNFSA (United States Naval Fire Support Association) is lobbying for reactivation of the battleships, so the pursuit of adequate NSFS isn't just limited to a few old battleship sailors sharing a beer in a bar. The United States Marine Corps NEEDS fire support for amphibious operations, and men die without that support, while Air bombings do alleviate some of that need, they are less accurate and deliver less of a payload than a 16" high explosive shell. Not only that, but a shell is far cheaper than a missile, and can be produced in far larger amounts. So, does anyone else agree with me that, for the sake of our ground troops, we should recommision the battleships?
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lol nub!
Iowa-class Fast Battleship - maximum known speed: 35 knots
The Iowa is actually slightly faster than the Ticonderoga, the largest surface combatant (i.e: ship with guns, NOT a carrier) used by the USN, with more armour and far more firepower. And the effect any warning the enemy gets about an amphibious landing would be quickly negated by salvos of 16" shells fired from beyond the horizon, interspersed with large scale Tomahawk cruise missile strikes. The only real threat to an Iowa is submarines, and ASW helicopters can be carried on a Iowa rather easily, along with UAV spotter craft to upload targeting information to onboard AEGIS computers. Also, by your logic, armour doesn't matter on modern warships. That's just an disaster waiting to happen, without adequate protection on modern naval vessels, what will happen when that stray missile does get through the CIWS systems? Lives will be lost unneccesarily when it could of been prevented by armour. We will always need protection on our warships.
Anyways, like all weapons the battleship isn't perfect. For maximum effect, it would best to utilise battleships in battle groups, similar to carriers. A carrier is useless on it's own, helpless against submarines, and offering no NSFS to land forces, that is why it needs escorts to make the battlegroup a well-rounded and balanced fighting force. I propose that the USN uses the same principle for battleships.
So aren't whatever ship gets those going to be similar to a battleship?
I mean, wouldn't you need a big power plant for those? So you'd need a big ship...
Plus you could put multiple cannons on it.
EDIT: I do think though that we should keep our Iowa's until we get a viable replacement.
Not really, tanks will only be obsolete when general infantry is.
Also the battleship can lob a 16" shell 35 miles, but a carrier can place a 10k pound bomb within 16" of the target from a distance of 300 miles. And even more importantly, aircraft can adjust ot changing situations between take off and drop off, so if you're men got pushed forward or back, they aren't geting hit by their own shells whihc once in the air, cannot change course.
Simply put, the Carrier supports better, the cruiser and destroyer live longer, and the submarine fights ship to ship battles better. The Battleship was meant to be a little of all, but we just can't justify it's cost to produce and upgrade when we have specialists in all those areas. It would be the dead weight of the Navy.
P.S.
The only thing challenging the tank is the helicopter, which is held in check by Stingers and MANPADS from the infantry. And so long as you aren't fighting people who can get their hands on Apaches and Tigers, the tank will remain your safest bet for overwhelming ground fire power.
P.P.S.
Thier already working on nanofiber technology camoflague and some new weapons contain in-built cameras allowing you to shoot around corners. The military is also working on the MESH network which will most likely replace the internet eventually. So no, the infantry are far from ignored and wrtten off, in fact they are, in many ways, our primary asset.
During the first Gulf War they had to contract guys who manned the battleship guns during Vietnam to train Gunner's Mates on how to use them. They'd have to do the same thing over again.
I wouldn't sail on one of those fucking things.
However, we must remember that in all likelihood, when the US is destroyed by nukes, it will be a battleship on the verge of being decommisioned that will lead the rag-tag fleet of survivors towards a new home.
Funny, but BSG is really more of a carrier. :P
Maybe so, but for my lazy purposes, a battlestar equals a battleship.
P.S: It's funny how funny and dorky this thread could be if we just replaced "ship" with "star" and "United States" with "Colonial" along with a few other things
P.P.S: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YpLwovLVrU, this video tribute to the great battleships uses a song that just perfectly describes the fate of the Battleships.
We'll just replace it with Nuclear Fight! The game will involve two sides. One side will have USA, UK, and so on while the other side will have China and other countries. The rules will be the same as battleship except with nukes instead of missiles.
And there is a smart shell in development right now by the US Artillery. It is a discarbing sabot round, and has navigational fins controlled by a computer from the firing point, either an artillery position or a battleship, that can stabilise or make adjustments in it's trajectory so it can hit with much greater accuracy. Still cannot be intercepted by point-defense systems.
What nonsense. Just teach the kids how to play Defcon.
At the last Iowa-class refit in the 1980s, they did have Phalanx CIWS on them, so you can strike that off the list. And even fully modernising a Iowa is still a good $6 billion cheaper than the DD(X) Zumwalts in development.
I suggest you read it all, but I'll give you the abridged version:
http://www.exile.ru/2002-December-11/war_nerd.html
Around the time they became more than useless.
And all the old basic soldiers, the infantry, the cavalry, the artillery, we all still have them in some shape or form. Back in the 1960s we were told that with the high-speed and guided missile attacks of modern aircraft, there would never be dogfighting ever again in modern air combat. 40 years have passed and we're still dogfighting. Back in the 1920s after WWI, we were told that fighting with lines would never occur again, due to the efficieny of modern machine guns. 80 years have passed and we've still got lines of battle for our infantry. Looser lines, less packed together but they are still lines. Things change in war, they become bigger, or smaller, usually faster, easier to learn, pack more punch, but they're still the same thing. An infantryman is an infantryman whether's he's packing an M-16A2 with grenade launcher and laser aiming system or just a spear and shield.
Exo-skeleton type stuff would be super useful and I think it's not really far off at all. But giant Battletech/Robotech crap? Man, I'm not sure that would ever be a good idea. They'd be so freaking vulnerable.
The last time we took the BBs out of mothballs, they spent most of their time firing Tomahawks, a job that a humble cruiser or frigate could take on without great difficulty. And if current trends are any indication, the next time the military needs to wreck somebody's shit, the weapon of choice will be the Small Diameter Bomb with inexpensive GPS guidance kits, delivered by B-2s or stealthy tactical aircraft. The point is to service more targets for less $$$, not to turn vast stretches of real estate into a moonscape.
Fuck exoskeletons, by the time we can build one of any real battlefield utility, we can just deploy remotely-piloted/driven vehicles into the same danger zones. The operator can kill people from behind cover, maybe from a few klicks away.
The navy already has a working rail gun, they expect to start putting it on ships in the next 10-15 years.
I don't know where you learned about Naval History and combat effectiveness... but you should ahve ignored them. Depth charges aren't even in use anymore. They are totally ineffective against a Nuclear submarine booking it at full tilt away from you while changing depth at random intervals. Also sonar is of limited effectiveness, because the ocean is layered, and when you change between various layers your sound pattern is confined within that layer. So you would absolutely have to have helos to drop sonar buoys for the various depths or a sub of your own. Neither of which is something the Iowa would be particularly good at.
Basically the last time that was at all true was back in the days of Das Boot when the British and Americans were getting their acts together and starting convoys with vigilant escorts. And they still never neutralized the majority of subs, just a farly large number.
And finally, if you read Red Storm Rising which is partially out of date but still fairly accurate, we already have and will probably continue to have, missle capable Subs. If we exchange high altitude ICBMs for low altitude non-nuclear payload missles, it could hit a battleship from 35-50 miles away well outside of the range of depth charges, which are a destroyer based weapon in the first place.
Regarding the Falklands, only three ships were hit by Exocets, and only two of those lost. One was a container ship with no point defences, the other two were acting as picket ships and were thus fairly remote from the rest of the fleet.
Most of the Falkland losses were due to old fashioned iron bombs and the lack of decent damage control training (complicated further by the use of materials in the ships that burnt thickly). The fleet had to operate close into the islands giving the Argentitians the advantage of terrain masking most of the way in (but, thankfully, also meant that most bombs didn't go off due to insufficient flight time for the fuzes). The 80's saw a lot of changes in the Royal Navy (and most other too) based on the failings displayed. Stuff like the Sea King AWACS, wide spread adoption of Phalanx and point defence missiles and the beginnings of stand off amphibious landings all occur because of the failings of 1960-1970's cold war thinking.
My other sig sucks as well...
Personally I believe the USN should develop a sort of armoured cruiser, intergrating the best aspects of the battleship and the destroyer. I'm thinking a mostly missile armament, but with a pair of all-purpose, 8-10" duals for naval fire support, back-up weaponry, etc. Armour more than your standard destroyer in this day and age, but less than the foot of steel that protected the Iowas. That sort of stuff