Iowa class BB, they don't build them like that today

Nope, the Tomahawks warheads aren't armor piercing and neither the 16" gun turrets or tower can be destroyed even with an armor piercing 2,750 lb. projectile.

Why do you think they are called "battleships" ?

The USS North Carolina BB-55 probably took more enemy hits post Dec. 7th than any other American battleship. It survived and would return to action after repairs. The USS North Carolina class BB is not an Iowa class so it didn't have the nickle-steel type of armor that the Iowa's had.

Below is the Navy's official "Torpedo Damage Report."
http://www.history.navy.mil/researc...th-carolina-bb55-war-damage-report-no-61.html

Hey Alpha, I was a Marine not a sailor. My original MOS was 0849, (Shore Fire Control Party Man) in layman terms I was a naval gunfire spotter comparable to an artillery forward observer. So I know naval guns including today's 5"/54 pop gun that are on the Arleigh Burke's today.

But I'm sure there must be a few real sailors on the PF who could chime in and explain the battle damage control procedures that are used to keep a warship afloat and keep fighting after taking hits. It's a science and the U.S. Navy has perfected battle damage control procedures. If the Imperial Japanese Navy were have to master battle control procedures WW ll might have turned out differently and we would all be driving Japanese cars today.

 

Most people have no idea just how tough a Battleship is. I do. I served as a gunners mate on the USS Missouri. But don't take my word for it. Simply read up on what it took to take out the Bismark.

The great and fearsome Bismarck, the terror of the sea, was being pounded by a large British fleet and carrier torpedo planes as she fought on alone. Hit by over 400 shells and several torpedoes (at least 3 before the final battle), including a torpedo fired from the British battleship HMS Rodney (the only time in history that one battleship torpedoed another), the Bismarck’s guns could no longer fire and the ship could not maneuver. When the crew finally abandoned ship, scuttling charges were set off to sink the mighty battleship to spare her the humiliation of being captured. British sailors bitterly denied that the ship had been scuttled, claiming they alone had sunk it, but the fact is that Bismarck was sent to the bottom by her own crew.

Yep. You read that correctly. Even after all the British threw at her, they couldn't sink her. Her own crew crew did it.

 

You don't have to sink a battleship to mission kill it.

And yes, a nuke would sink an Iowa.

 

when the same number come back from the Iowa's what would you do??

 

When would the Marines ever need 16 inch gunfire on an Amphibious Operation again? The entire idea of modern amphibious warfare is to avoid strongpoints like that and use helicopters and long range amphibious transports to land troops at areas where the enemy is not prepared to defend.

 

Yeah that intellectually honest: comparing a major surface capital ship designed for fleet combat with a corvette designed for modular unconventional warfare work.

And could the Fletchers kill targets 1,500 miles away like the Burke's can? Can they shoot down ICBM's?

 

It is not necessary to sink or penetration the armor of a battleship to render it worthless. All it takes is eliminating its fire command thereby blinding it. This would leave only line of direct site from deck height aiming, which is only a few miles.

The military necessities of the Navy no longer have an relevancy to large surface ship battles between major powers. By that point it would have gone nuclear anyway. In the 1 in 10,000 chance there would ever be a large claim sea landing invasion, which would only be against a minor power, there are plenty of other weapons systems for the job.

The cost of operating a battleship and its support craft is astronomical, meaning it is a question then of how much would the Navy have to give up to have one? The crews of a dozen other ships and those ships, minimally. So basically it is abandoning guarding shipping lands to have a big gun ship docked somewhere.

A major need for the Navy now is transporting materials since the USA has little merchant marine left. Those cargo ships need escorts. They do not need battleships for escorts. There is essentially no situation where a battleship would have any usage and literally tactics would have to be redefined to figure how how to use one for lack more modern and flexible options.

What makes the debate pointless is that the issue is not the issue of whether a battleship is an ungodly expensive unsinkable steel box what is tremendously expensive to keep going and crew. That is a very simplistic and, candidly, pointless debate.

This particularly is so when to make the battleship viable it is necessary to point out that it can launch missiles too. Yes, so can submarines. So can destroyers. So can alot of things - all vast cheaper than a massive steel box with a massive crew to train, feed and pay. They are horrifically expensive ships to operate.

 

their day is over. they're all museum piece's now. but they were an excellent way to show the flag to. when I was in Subic a dispersing officer told me it cost a million bucks a day to keep the New Jersey afloat and operational. these beast's were made for a war time economy. not peace time.

 

Or by setting it on fire, killing its crew, having it take on water, then capsize.

 

The Burke's SM missiles guided by its AEGIS radar would kill them

 

Most people greatly underestimate how far they can see at sea.

 

I've heard that the Bismark wasn't sunk but scuttled by the German crew which is SOP. They did the same thing with the German battle cruiser the Gaf Spee just off shore from Montevideo, Argentina.

The Royal Navy didn't sink the Bismark or the Gaf Spee, the German navy sunk their own ships by scuttling them.

 

That's true, look at what Obama has done to the U.S. Navy, he has mission killed 50% of the fleet.

Evidence shows that no battlle ships were sunk after being exposed to two nuclear blast, one air burst and the other underwater burst. All of the battleships survived.

 

I wish the U.S. Navy had some corvettes. I would have gone that route instead of building Crappy Little Ships that can't survive combat at sea.

To be honest if you removed one of the Fletcther's five 5" guns and replaced it with a Tomahawk cruise missile launcher I suppose they would be able to reach out and touch anything that an Arleigh Burke can.

That's what they did with all four of the Iowa's, they removed two 5"/38 cal. gun mounts and replaced them with Tomahawk missiles and Harpoon missiles.

 

It's the Marine Corps that has been demanding 16" guns. Do you think maybe they know something that you don't ?

Helicopters ??? That's right the U.S. Army loved the USS New Jersey during the Vietnam War.

Landing troops on the beach where the enemy isn't there sounds really good. But some times if not most of the time it doesn't work out that way. Especially like islands that have been heavily fortified with steel reinforced concrete bunkers that bombing from the air can't destroy.

Have you been paying attention to the chi-coms in the South China Sea. Have you noticed on the satellite imaging that there are concrete plants on the little islands. What do you suppose all that concrete is being used for ? They already built their runways but they keep pouring out more concrete. Well just last month U.S. intelligence reported that the islands have heavy defensive capabilities. Kinda like Iwo Jima.

The following is some what a long report but it gives you an idea what's all involved in conducting NSFS.
It should be noted that all of the battleships that were providing NSFS for the Marines on Iwo Jima were old battleships with 14" guns not the newer 16" gun battleships.

A lot of cool photos and maps. -> http://www.allworldwars.com/Iwo-Jima-Naval-Gunfire-Support.html

 

Crossroads was 20 Kilotons.

That's less than half the yield of your average tactical nuke by modern standards.

And if by "survived" you mean "were so radioactive that no crew would ever be able to use them again", then yeah.

- - - Updated - - -

The LCS is a corvette, but it isn't designed for fleet operations or ship combat. Its designed to do things like mine hunting or screen against swarms of suicide boats.

 

1. The Marines like things that go boom. But they don't have to pay for a battleship, the Navy would.

2. When was the last time an amphibious landing took place against a defended beach? Okinawa? Amphibious warfare has changed since WW2, we aren't storming Normandy anymore.

3. They are building RUNWAYS with that concrete. For aircraft. You know those things that dominate modern combat and made the battleship obsolete 60 years ago?

Their "heavy defensive capabilities" are in the form of hardened anti-ship missile launch sites, not blockhaus's. Marines aren't going to need battleships to take those islands, they are going to need AAAV's and helicopters after Air Force B-2's JDAM every missile launch site.

 

A Modern...deployed in 2012...Deep Ground Bunker penetrating Tomahawk can puncture through 20 feet of steel reinforced concrete then through another 50 feet of solid rock then penetrate through another concrete and steel reinforced bunker ceiling.

You are thinking about Gen 1-5 Tomahawks.....I am discussing Gen 12.

When did you get out of the Marines?

AboveAlpha

 

Just to add there is a new Tomahawk that cruises in low via Jet then quickly achieves altitude and a rocket engine takes over that allows the missile to impact similar in the way a Hellfire does but at Mach 1.5.

AboveAlpha

 

An Iowa class 16" AP round is capable of penetrating 30 feet of steel reinforced concrete. The Iowa's are able to take numerous hits just not from it's own 16" 2,750 lb AP rounds and keep on fighting but also from the Japanese Yamato class battleship 18" 3.219 lb. AP rounds. It's all about the Iowa's armor.

The problem with the Tomahawk's they are slow, subsonic, easy to shoot down.

Back when buggery was still illegal in the military and there was no such thing as gun free zones on military bases. And every morning in the mess hall they served "(*)(*)(*)(*) on the shingles" aka SOS. I finished my tour of active duty in 1971.

 

Before my time but I am not Military as I am..."CIVILIAN"....in the manner the quotes denote.

Just about all the men and women including my Mom and Dad in my family are Military or...."CIVILIAN".

We have a S#!# load of cruise missiles left and they are converting about 100 adding a rocket motor to bust deep bunkers as the Tomahawk using it's jet is subsonic and too slow to do this.

It comes in low....it gains altitude....the rocket motor fires and the thing has a tipped casing of a depleted Uranium core surrounding by Tungsten steel.

AboveAlpha

 

You know what they use to use as bunker buster bombs like back in 2001 when we first went into Afghanistan ? They were made from old navy cruisers gun barrels and old army 175 MM and 280 MM atomic cannon gun barrels.

Alpha are you familiar with the U,S. Army's M-65 Atomic Cannon ? If it were on a ship it would be a 11" naval gun and likely the ship would be classified as a battle cruiser.

http://www.theatomiccannon.com/home

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_Atomic_Cannon

 

They also had the Mk. 23 nuclear naval shells with an estimated yield of 15 to 20 kilotons.

AboveAlpha

 

Those ship survived the blast, those crews would have died making them totaly useless and sitting duck for the next sub or destroyer cruising by.

 

The Navy's Little Crappy Ship at 3,400 tons is no corvette. The LCS is too heavy to be classified as a corvette in today's navies.

Corvettes are also heavily armed, the LCS's aren't heavily armed. A Bofor 57 MM pop guns as it's main gun armament ?

At 20 ktns it's larger than most tactical nukes. Nuclear tipped torpedoes usually have a 10 kiloton yield.

Now a nuclear air blast, what causes the damage ? The over pressure of the nuclear blast. The Iowa's are like a floating blast shelter. They have to be, because of the over pressure caused by the 16" guns.

If a 16" / 50 gun were to be put on an Arleigh Burke the over pressure of the gun would destroy most of it's electronics outside and inside of the ship and sever damage to the ships superstructure.

You are dealing with naval guns aka naval rifles not artillery howitzers. Think of a 30-06 rifle that's 53 X times larger in size.

During the Vietnam War a sailor went topside on the weather deck of a 8" gun cruiser while it was conducting a fire mission of bombarding North Vietnam. The blast from the 8" guns blew him off the deck of the ship and he ended up being a guest at the Hanoi Hilton.

Back in 1969 while going through Naval Gunfire School we were taken aboard a destroyer to see what took place on the Navy's end when conducting NSFS missions. We were off of San Clemente Island and we got to go topside to watch the USS New Jersey fire it's 16" guns from about a 1/4 of a mile away. From a 1/4 of a mile you were able to feel the over pressure from the guns. When the conditions are right you can hear an Iowa class 16" guns being fired from a hundred miles away.


Short excerpt from REACTIVATION OF 16-INCH THREE GUN TURRETS IN THE BATTLESHIP

WATCH THE VIDEO. Even the Military Channel rated the Iowa class battleship as the #1 warship in history even beating out the Arleigh Burke's, Nimitz class aircraft carriers, etc. -> http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/search_battleships.html

FYI:
MULTISERVICE
TACTICS,
TECHNIQUES, AND
PROCEDURES FOR
NUCLEAR,
BIOLOGICAL, AND
CHEMICAL (NBC)
PROTECTION -> https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-11-4.pdf