Remember the purpose of the ship. My proposal had it as being the keystone of an amphibious task force in support of a MEU, not galavanting around acting like the battleships of WWII. Dual role, both giving much of the support of the classic battleship, as well as that of a more modern missile cruiser. As for monitors or the Zumwalt class, that is pointless. I have long thought the idea of making a "stealth ship" as silly. Might as well make a stealth heavy transport aircraft. The things are just to damned big to make them stealthy worth a damn. Plus with all of the EM going on, what is the point? It is not like all the EM is just appearing by magic in the middle of the ocean. Plus monitors and ships like the LCS are primarily shallow water vessels. We need true blue water ships, not ones that are forced to hug the coast because they do not have enough depth in their keel. And the monitor evolved into the modern battlesip as technology improved. But if you are going to be mounting anything larger then a 5" popgun, you need the size and weight to absorb the recoil. This is physics 101 here. As for the armor, you need thick armor to protect against close in blasts. Just look at the lessons of the USS Cole, USS Stark, and all of the British ships sunk or severely damaged in the Falklands. I for one value the lives of our Sailors enough to want to place some real armor around them. And with all your talk about hypersonic missiles in another thread, I would think you would agree. Either that, or just make the things out of thin aluminum and let them sink.
That's what happened to my grandfather during WW l. He was a sailor serving on the battleship USS Maine when he was sleeping on the deck when the ship fired it's 12" guns, it blew out his ear drums and always had to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life. In 1969 when going through Naval Gunfire School at Coronado Island, NAB we went aboard a Gearing class destroyer off of San Clemente Island to see what the Navy was doing when providing NSFS missions. Then the USS New Jersey appeared and everyone went above on deck to watch the USS New Jersey fire it's 16" guns. We were about 1/4 of a mile off the New Jersey's bow. At first it just fired one 16" gun and you could feel the overpressure from a 1/4 of a mile away. Then all nine guns raised and you saw all of the sailors covering their ears and we did the same and the the New Jersey fired a nine gun 16" gun salvo. It was an E Ticket !!! First you felt the blast, the over pressure then the sound of the guns blast. Anyone who lived in SoCal during 68-69 or during the 1980's and who lived with in six miles of the beach probably heard an Iowa class BB firing it's 16" guns. They didn't know what they were hearing but you can hear an Iowa class BB firing it's 16" guns from almost a hundred miles away. In late 69 I was in-country and after Operation's Bold Pursuit and Defiance Stand we found ourselves in the southern rocket belt TAOR of Saigon. Not much happening then and needed to get off the hill to break the boredom. So I volunteered to ride shotgun for some Navy corpsmen on a winning hears and minds. We were driving down a road west of Saigon when unknown to us, maybe 200 yards off to the side of the road there was an Army 175mm gun section / plt. (2 X guns) that was conducting a fire mission. (*)(*)(*)(*). First you felt the over pressure of the guns then you heard the blast. The driver of the jeep lost control of the jeep and we ended up in a ditch. I almost pissed my trousers and thought we hit a land mine. The 175 mm gun is nothing more that a 7" naval gun on a self propelled tacked vehicle. With a full powder charge, it had a range of 25 miles. But I digress. Most of us are very familliare with he famous photos of an Iowa class BB nine gun salvo. But exactly what are you seeing ? What is that depression you are seeing on the water ? -> http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/AMMUNITION/USS-IOWA-BROADSIDE-FIREING.html
PO2 Doug Hegdahl. He is a legend among the Navy and Marine Corps. Blown off of the USS Canberra in 1967 after the cruiser fired it's 5" mount (not 8"), he was picked up by Cambodian fishermen and turned over to the North Vietnamese. Held as a POW for 2 years, he literally "played stupid", making his captors believe he was an utter moron who could not even read or write. He was returned to the US as part of a prisoner exchange, and came back with the names, ranks, capture dates, and personal information of a staggering 256 US POWs held by North Vietnam. He was also a critical witness at the Paris Peace Talks, testifying first hand at the abuse and treatment of himself and other prisoners by their captors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Hegdahl
I've never been near firing artillery, the loudest noise im routinely around is the occasional rifle with a compensator next to me at the range. The sheer amount of energy that is released is hard to imagine. I feel like I might get a nosebleed just thinking about a full broadside.
Look at it this way, naval guns are also referred to as naval rifles by swabbies. That's all they are , just big large rifles. Think of that .30 caliber (7.62) rifle being 53 times larger in diameter and barrel length and you have a 16" naval rifle or naval gun.
You mean barbette armor? It was relatively heavy because these monitors were build around surplus turrets and barbettes that were already armored that way - and for safety, of course. The barbettes are part of the citadel, and ought to be protected. A ship doesn't need armor to sustain its own fire - it needs structural strength, or a strong hull: You get that by multiplicating the number of subdivisions, or bulkheads, in a ship. This increases the ship's weight, but not its size. Typically, merchants have the most divisions, followed by battleships, while cruisers, destroyers and carriers have finer hulls, being built for speed. Smaller ships can accomodate big guns, by having strong hulls. All of these subdivisions take of lot of hull space, as do the barbettes, so they often compensate with less machinery, as is the case with the gun platforms I gave you. I'm in a bit of hurry as I am going to work, so I will see to the rest of your post later.
Armor doesn't do that, protecting against a ship's own guns. Or if it does, it is negligible (I know that deck armor makes for a more stable ship). Best exemple are the Nelson-class BBs of the 20s; During the last battle with Bismarck, HMS Rodney had taken so much structural damage from her own blasts that many thought she was being hit by Bismarck, and yet the Nelsons were armored like brick (*)(*)(*)(*)houses. Where does this idea came from?
I never made that claim, ever. Look at the very examples I listed. USS Cole, almost destroyed and 17 sailors killed when a small boat with around 500 pounds of explosives were detonated near the hull. Or the USS Stark, almost destroyed and killing 37 sailors by a "commercial off the shelf" low cost missile, the Exocet. Or look at all the death and destruction caused by Exocet missiles in the Falklands and Tanker Wars. Armor is very critical in helping prevent these kinds of losses. Remember, the main reason that the Iowa class ships were brought back in the 1980's was that they had armor sufficient to deflect any air to surface or surface to surface missile in the world. Modern missiles are designed to penetrate the hulls of the thin-skinned vessels of today, that measure their hull thickness in a few inches. Not against hulls a foot thick, with bulkheads almost the same thickness. If either the Stark or Cole attacks were made against a ship with a real armor hull, they would have pretty much laughed them off, and needed some cosmetic work. And only a few if any crew would have died, most likely from concussion effects if they were close to the hull, or maybe steam injuries if a high pressure steam pipe was ruptured from the concussion. And remember, the USS Stark once again had 37 killed and another 21 injured. That is 58 casualties. On a ship that only has a complement of 205. Over 1/4 of the crew was killed or injured, by a single missile. And heaven help us if the next ship of ours to be so hit is an amphibious transport. Then you will have death counts in the hundreds, if not thousands.
Sorry, I must have taken that from another poster, and believing that by "close in blasts" you meant a ship's own broadside. I may believe in armor, but before investing my buck in it, I would first spend 70 cents on better sensor and countermeasures. These days, there can be something nasty in those missiles, anyway. And if I invest the remaining 30 cents in armor, it will be modern, ablative armor, not just tons and tons of passive steel. Armor take a terrible toll on the ships, being around 15-35% of the ship's total weight. That, in turns, makes extra demands on the machinery, resulting in slowest ships. We don't want slower ship so we make them bigger, costlier. Leviathans.
Warships are suppose to be able to take hits and keep on fighting. If they can't then they aren't rally a warship. The best destroyer to ever go to war was the U.S. Navy's Fletcher class destroyer during WW ll. "Tin can sailors" loved that ship more than the Gearing class that came out in the later part of WW ll and served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War into the 1970's. The Fletcher's were able to take a beating and stayed afloat and kept on fighting. In retrospect the Fletchers are often described as the most successful of all American destroyers; fast, roomy, capable of absorbing enormous punishment, and yet fighting on.* -> http://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/ Back in November of 2013 a small target drone went out of control off the Southern California coast and hit the superstructure of the USS Chancellorsville (CG-62) If it were have hit an Iowa class battleship, the taxpayers would have been stuck for paying for a gallon of battleship grey paint. This was a small, 12' droan, no warhead, flying subsonic. Knocked the Ticonderoga class cruiser out of service. $30 million dollars of damage. https://news.usni.org/2013/11/19/da...-underway-target-drone-collision-navy-cruiser Six Months of Repairs to Drone-Struck Ship Will Cost $30 million -> https://news.usni.org/2013/12/30/navy-six-months-repairs-drone-struck-ship-will-cost-30-million The following is the March 28, 2014 report from the commander’s investigation into the Nov. 16 strike of a Northrop Grumman BQM-74 target drone into the side USS Chancellorsville (CG-62). -> https://news.usni.org/2014/06/27/document-investigation-uss-chancellorsville-drone-strike
That BQM-74 target drone only weighs 455 pounds and is subsonic and it punctured a hole in the ships superstructure. Just think if it had an explosive warhead ? http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/BQM74EAerialTarget/Documents/BQM-74E-DS-05.pdf
Im wondering what a swarm of low tech drones from say Iran could do to a ship in the straits... I think I've seen video of those drones being used to train crews with MANPADS.
Low tech can be very effective. And it could endanger the crew, and put ships out of service for months or years.
I don't know if you got to go to the link and read the findings from the investigation into USS Chancellorsville Drone Strike ? It's here -> https://news.usni.org/2014/06/27/document-investigation-uss-chancellorsville-drone-strike I only read it once and that was when it was released two years ago. They spread the blame around to the civilian operator of the drone that lost control of the drone while flying it from Naval Air Station Point Mugu, the Captain of the cruiser and the CIC officer who was down in the Combat Information Center. The ship's CIW was not activated at the time. The officer in the CIC was to slow when he noticed the drone headed towards the ship to activate the ship's 20 mm Phalanx CIW gun. The investigation doesn't mention if the officer in the CIC was one of Obama's Moron Officers Corps officers hat started entering the fleet around this time. It was one of the warnings back in 2009 when Obama lowered the standards for minorities who wanted to become officers. That naval officers on ships have to react in a second to a threat to the ship or the ship and it's crew can be severely damaged or even sunk. Under liberal social engineering our military now has officers who are serving in the name of diversity who aren't quick enough in the brain housing group to make quick life and death decisions. America was warned back in 2009 what will happen with lowering the standards in the name of PC diversity. If you have a son or daughter serving today in the military you have to ask is his or her's commander is one of Obama's Moron Officers Corps.
Sensors and countermeasures fail. Has the USS Stark taught you nothing? You yourself were just talking about systems that can not be detected or shot down, and now you are saying we need more of them? Sorry, you can not have both at the same time. The best thing about armor is that it is passive, it is always "online", and it can not suffer a failure of any kind short of actually being stuck by a weapon. The same can not be said of your sensors and countermeasures. Ablative armor? Please let me know when we get back to the real world, and are no longer talking about Science Fiction, ok? One thing about me, I only deal in the here and now, or what is imminantly being fielded. Not pie in the sky dreams and fantasies based upon concepts that at the soonest are decades away from being used. Ablative Armor is a science fiction term, unless you are talking about heat shields on space vehicles. And in that case you are talking about something designed to absorb heat then flake away, disintigrating as it is used. Iron Man probably has the best Ablative Armor, but his is nanite based and is self-replacing. As his armor takes hits the nanites use extra materials stored inside of his suit to restore the damage other parts of the armor have taken from impact and other forms of damage. And since I see absolutely no way to use this at this time (let alone before the end of this century), this is not even worth discussing. Might as well talk about modern warfare becoming obsolete because of the Telepathy Corps. ***** And to more fully explain what I mean by "I only deal in the here and now, or what is imminantly being fielded", consider this. I frequently discuss things like MEADs and THAAD. These are real systems, either in advanced prototype testing in field conditions or in initial deployment stages. The same with PATRIOT PAC-4, it is not only simply an improvement on an existing system, it uses mostly the same hardware and is mostly an internal and payload improvement. I discuss things like the F-35 and F-22 series platforms, because these are very far along in their testing process, and could be rolled out tomorrow if not for problems that deal more with specific issues then the entire aircraft themselves. I do not discuss any of the Iranian, North Korean, or Chinese "Stealth Aircraft", because absolutely none of them have gotten past the initial prototype phase. As far as I am aware China is the only one to actually build and test such an aircraft. And it has largely gone dark, with them announcing yet another "stealth fighter" after it's first flight. Personally, I think that the plane was underwhelming in it's performance (either RADAR evading or other flight issues), so as so many other Chinese programs has been buried and hopefully to be forgotten. I do however discuss the Chinese J-15 (a copy of the Su-33), because it is real. But the number made is very small, and I still consider it little more then a prototype. I do not consider such things as FEL, energy beams, or any other kind of "Death Ray" weapons. Those things have been in testing and development for decades, and we have yet to see a single one of them come anywhere close to being a prototype of a deployable weapon system. Sure, we have had tests, and even a one-off airborne system that has been proven to work. But the airborne test bed was scrapped and the entire project dismantled. Therefore it is not a system, it is not even a prototype. It is nothing but an experiement. The same with the various "rail gun" systems. Yes, we finally have the very first ones ready to leave the lab and actually be placed onto a ship. But we have discussed this at length in here in other threads. I see them as useful as a form of CIWS. I see them as having a potential for ABM and other anti-missile systems. They can be great for taking out small boats, say something smaller then a corvette. But as a replacement for the ship guns? Shore bombardments? Nope, not at all. Very much a "Not ready for Prime Time player", and more fantasy then reality. Do not get me wrong, I am a huge believer and supporter of technology. But I am also one of the first to recognize and admit that newer technology does not solve all problems, and sometimes the best solution is a simple brute force application. And armor is very much a brute force defensive application. "Fine, you evaded our RADAR/SONAR and got a weapon close to us, and our chaff/flares/decoys did not fool you. And our CIWS/missiles did not take out the weapon. Now let's see how much of our armor you can penetrate." Heck, I have even seen an entire PATRIOT Battery out of service for 4 days, because a 15 year old JAZ drive failed. At the time the fire control relied on that drive to load it's entire operating system, and without it the RADAR and 6 launchers were absolutely worthless. They had to fly in a replacement from the US to get it operational again. Thankfully one of the first things rushed through testing in the PAC-4 system and already deployed is a replacement for the 1990's technology JAZ drive that every PATRIOT system relied on. And this is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. We should have at least some ships that are capable of taking a hit from a 500 pound object even without explosives, and having it penetrate into the hull. One thing that many people are forgetting is that drones are nothing new, nor are they very high tech. And it would be no problem for even a primitove 3rd world country to swarm these things - even knowing that 98% will be shot down, just so that 2% gets through and does it's damage. My grandfather served on an escort carrier in WWII, with almost no armor, even when compared to the "real carriers" of the era. The Essex class ships had some pretty powerful armor for a carrier of the era, and none was ever sunk in combat. The USS Essex herself was struck by a kamakaze aircraft, and with some repairs at sea was able to continue operations. My grandfather's ship (USS Suwanee) was hit by a kamakaze about a month before the Essex was. But being an escort carrier, she had to limp from the Philippines all the way back to Washington state and undergo almost 3 months of repairs before she could put to sea again. The Suwanee had almost no armor, so the amount of damage from the same kind of plane was significantly more.
I was writing about the reactive kind of armor that detects then counters the shot with an explosion of its own, I just forgot its handle - you should know what I am talking about here. Now of course it's still experimental tech, but we're talking about a ship of the future, right? Well, if you like to hold on to what's been proven and safe, I'd rather go for innovation myself. As for "real" armor: Anti-ship missiles are not presently AP because armor has all but disappeared, but if it's back, there's no doubts that AP missiles will be, too, like the WWII Fritz X radio-controlled bomb that sunk the Roma. It's a game that costs more to the defender that the attacker's. The Essexes were for the most part unarmored where it counted against Kamikaze attacks; On the flight deck. They survived these because they were structurally sound ships, and stict measures concerning aviation fuels.
This is 100% a rehash. The answer is absolutely no to battleships. Nothing is FREE. Anything you get then you have to give up an equal amount of something else. All branches of the service are facing huge budget cuts while the costs of manpower and veterans skyrockets. Battleships are astronomically expensive to build, fuel, crew and maintain. They are such a huge liability in terms of potential lose, they also require even more ships to defend them both from submarines and aircraft. Their daily operating costs are astronomical. So... the question is what entire regions of the world do you want to abandon for battleships? How much do you want to reduce our submarine force, reduce our patrol force, and reduce are worldwide presence? Old military guys love old, outdated weapons systems because they can never really leave the past. Many a country has fallen because they have old military leaders who areonly capable of planning to relive the last war, rather preparing for the next war in the future. France's military was significantly greater than Germany's in WWII. But France's generals were all ancient WWI generals figuring another world war would be a repeat. And for this, Germany ran over France's military like it didn't even exist. But again this is rehashing the same topic from 1 year ago. There are OLD military guys who will argue battleships are unsinkable, that big guns are really awesome, and post of the benefits of battleships in conflicts decades and centuries ago. If battleships were still viable, navies would still have them. NO major world conflict calling for battleships would retain any relevancy of those battleships, because if any major powers got into a war with each other it would go atomic/nuclear very quickly. That is the reason major powers now NEVER go to war against each other any more. The death loses from wars has dramatically fallen worldwide since the advent of atomic/nuclear weapons because no one can win as they are, ultimately, suicidal. Its like opposing forces locked in the same room for which everyone has a powerful grenade that none of them on either side can use. Still another reason is the cost of a battleship building contest between countries are budget busters. Again, other countries would not have retired their battleships if battleships were still viable for their costs, limitations and the huge liabilities they create. The USA can hit virtually any place on earth (not limited to a coastline) within hours with overwhelming destructive force by air. It would take days to weeks to get a battleship into position and even then and even with rail guns 95% of the land surface would be completely immune to them. It doesn't take a battleship to launch long range missiles. Submarines, smaller frigates and destroyers and even aircraft can do so. There will never be another massive force beachhead landing again. That, too, is increasingly ancient history. Finally, to defend the MASSIVE cost of battleships old dogs of the military will try to define some senario where they might be a bit better to use - while disregarding the vastly more numerous likelihoods where then we have no real response capability whatsoever due to massively reduced numbers of lesser ships.
An analogy would be the topic of whether shields and spears are still viable weapons? I could give countless advantages and senarios where they are. However, I have to ignore all troops would have to give up carrying and using to have that spear and shield - and therefore overall disregard the collective negative effect of our troops still carrying swords and shields. The same type debating occurs when debating battleships.
Germany had your view that it is better to build massively armored and guns tanks, rather than 8 sufficient ones for the same time and cost. It didn't work out for Germany against either the USA or the Russians, did it? What you REALLY are arguing is that USA should NOT have had all those lesser escort carrier at all, but rather should have just had a few more BIG carriers - and everyone who would have died and every merchant and supply ship then sunk because there was NO escort carrier just had to die to have a significantly lesser number of carriers - but those actually on those few carriers themselves were safer. Why not just build TWO 4,000 foot long battleships - one for the Atlantic and one for the Pacific - with 6 feet of armor plate - and eliminate the rest of the Navy? No one can sink them - therefore we win? Because the singularly purpose of battle is to have no casualities. Wait, we can obtain that by having no Navy at all - and then it is assured there would no potential for any naval casualties. You know that WWII was well over half a century ago, don't you? Like I said, justifying outdated weapons systems requires going back to outdated military issues to do so. The last US Navy ship launched had to be towed back with engine problems. Therefore, we should have at least a FEW warships still powered by sails - by your logic.
Well, obviously you are talking about Reactive Armor. And that is once again something completely different. And Reactive Armor is not the only armor used, the main armor on ground vehicles that use them are still traditional steel armor, designed to absorb huge amounts of damage. The two forms of armor work together. In essence, Reactive Armor is designed to explode when penetrated by a shaped charge, blowing out in all directions (but funneled by the traditional armor) in order to deform or prematurely detonate the shape charge warhead, making it ineffective in using the plasma cutting effect that lets them penetrate the main tank hull. And let me state once again the main way they operate. Reactive Armor is designed to explode when penetrated. I can not quite say that enough times. But please, let me do so once again. Reactive Armor is designed to explode when penetrated. So you are stating that we should use this explosive armor, and cover the hulls of our thinly armored warships with it? Sorry, but I see a great many issues with that. Including how it would work in a corrosive salt water environment, and what effect the actual reactive explosion would have on the ship itself. And ask yourself the following question. If this is such a great idea, why is no single country in the world using Reactive Armor on ships? And yes, I prefer to go with is "proven, and safe". That is because I am all to well aware that what we are talking about is potentially putting our servicemembers into harms way. And their lives ultimately are my first consideration. First, last, always, I care more about their lives and safety then I do about most other things. So you can be an innovator all you want. But I for one would fight tooth and nail against placing any more Sailors into harms way then is absolutely nessicary. We owe them and their families a lot more then using "experimentation and innovation" at the expense of their safety. Anti-ship missiles are not "AP" because they are simply not big enough. Sure, they could make bigger missiles, but that then means that they have to trade off either size, speed, or range. This forces compromises, which generally results in the missile becoming bigger. Which means it is easier to shoot down. Armor Penetration largely went out the window with the development of missiles instead of bombs, torpedoes, and artillery as the way to sink ships. Pretty much every country in the world decided that lighter and faster ships armed with missiles was the way to go, so armor was rediced to improve the speed. But then some bright people in the Pentagon when President Reagan was in charge realized that in the past 30 years armor had almost vanished from ships, and the US had the last ships capable of being put into service with enough armor to defeat any missile in existance. So the BBs came out of mothballs again, and the Soviets realized that many of their naval war plans became instantly obsolete. Suddenly there were 4 new Naval Battle Groups, which had a flagship that had major offensive capabilities, but was unsinkable short of a nuclear weapon. And nice try, bringing up the Fritz X. But as you said, that was a bomb and not a missile. Which once again assumes that an aircraft with a similar munition would be able to penetrate the air screen of a modern US Navy fleet. And hell, you do not even need "AP Munitions" to destroy modern ships. Hell, just look at "Bomb Alley" (Battle of San Carlos) in the Falklands War. The Argentines were not even using "AP Bombs", simply standard 250-1,000 pound dumb bombs. Not armor piercing, not even guided. Yet in a single battle were able to destroy 1 Destroyer (HMS Coventry, 4 years old with three 500 pound bombs), and 2 Frigates (HMS Ardent - a 5 year old Frigate with "several 500 pound bombs", and HMS Antelope - a 7 year old Frigate by a 1,000 pound bomb). In fact, the Falklands War, and the success of a "3rd World Nation" against the British Navy were a major reason why the Battleships were reactivated. That one war showed that against most weapons in use today, Naval ships have no protection other then avoiding being hit in the first place. I am aware of the armor they had. Look again at what I actually said about the Essex class carriers. I did not even try to implied they were "Battleships with flight decks", or anything even close to that. But there is no denying that even those 2-4"+ of armor that they did have made a significant difference in their surviveability in combat. Earlier you mentioned that you consider yourself an "Armchair General/Admiral". Myself, I still consider myself an "Analyst". And that is what I do when looking at factors like this. I analyze, considering and factoring in all that I know about. I then make the best conclusion I can, based not upon what I believe, but what the evidence supports. I do not use facts to support my beliefs, I use facts to determine my beliefs. I also do not exclude or distort facts to make them come out in a way I might wish. Hell, if I was to do that, I would either be trying to say we should either reactivate the BB class ships, or build new ones. But notice that I have never suggested that, not even close. Simply building a ship that has many of the same characteristics, and able to perform most of the same missions with some modern upgrades.
