14" Naval Artillery

[Guest wwb_99]

But just imagine 16" copperhead rounds. Ouch.

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Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say,

Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus.

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hilltopper:

All I can say, if I'm coming in from the sea to establish a beachhead, I would want those 14/16 inchers behind me. We've lost the expertise to build BBs now days and we'll never have the serious capacity to invade well established coastal area again without them...

Ok, maybe surface combat is outdated, but you can't dispute the critical support function a BB WILL provide.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The thing is, there are just not many opportunities for the military to do sea-borne amphibious landings anymore. And if we did have to do one, the ability to provide close in fire support with air power and helicopters would have to suffice.

Again, you are only looking at half the equation. Sure, 16"" NGFS is great, but at what cost? is it worth the resources necessary? If it is *really* that important, perhaps it would make more sense to design and build a dedicated fire support platform from the ground up instead of using BBs from over 50 years ago.

Jeff Heidman

[Maximus]

Well the whole idea of the "Atlantic Wall", "Maginot Line", "Seigfried Line", "Great Wall of China" are all out-dated concepts when you can fly over them.

Fortress Europe couldn't hold back the swarms of B-17s from 1943-1945.

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"Live by the sword, live a good LOOONG life!"-Minsc, BGII

"Boo points, I punch."--Minsc, BGII

[Major Tom]

The main reason that there are no Iowa Class BB's on the ocean floor, is, that after 1941 NO Allied Battleship or Battle Cruiser was sunk, and these ships were completed after and during 1943. They were no longer prime targets in the war, Aircraft Carriers were.

The North Carolina and South Dakota Class Battleships carry a similar armour system as the Iowa Class. The Iowa may be larger, but, most of that space was taken up by increasing its speed (33 Kts from 28 Kts). Their protection isn't trivial, but, has been compromised on other vessels.

There are no invincible ships or defensive systems.

All that any nation has to do is to plant a 500-1000 Kg bomb on one of these ships. The technology to effectively do this exists, and has existed for over 70 years.

[Wesy]

Hi Major Tom,

All weapons platforms have vulnerabilities. I would argue that the IOWA class BBs are probably as close as you will get to "unsinkable" in the USN. Sure a lucky hit, faulty damage control, being overwhelmed can all result in a ship that sinks. The BB is NOT to designed to operate in a vacuum. The BB is supposed to operate with other fleet elements for AA, and ASW.

This is taken from the Combined Fleet Website: http://www.combinedfleet.com

"...The Kirishima, a survivor of the battle two nights before, along with heavy cruisers Atago and Takao, formed the bulk of the force. In the resulting melee, South Dakota had a bad go of it, repeatedly losing power due to faulty electrical equipment, and was unable to contribute much to the battle. Taken under fire by Kirishima and practically every ship in the Japanese main body, her superstructure was riddled and her radar disabled. However, her watertight integrity was never damaged a whit..."

Like any other vessel that looses its sensors and electrical power...your in a world of hurt . You have to remember that these ships were designed to withstand some serious punishment...South Dakota and Iowa were some of the baddest bb's around...

Here are the spec's for an IOWA CLASS

Belt 12.2"

Bheads 11"

Turret Face 19.7"

Barbettes 17.3"

Conning Tower 17.5

All armor is not created equal...

Again quoting from the Combined Fleet Website... http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

GENERAL COMMENTS: This was the most complex category in terms of trying to quantify and simplify a rating. After all, each of these vessels was designed to operate in a different anticipated threat environment than the others. Bismarck, for instance, was designed for combat in the North Atlantic. Her designers anticipated weather and visibility conditions such as had prevailed at Jutland in WWI. As a result, she was optimized for short-range, flat-trajectory combats. Her armor scheme reflects this, with an armor layout that makes it fantastically difficult to put a shell into her vitals at short range, but which is vulnerable to long-range fire, and which reduces the total amount of protected volume in the vessel by carrying her armor deck lower in the ship than her contemporaries. By the same token, Yamato was simply built to stand up to and utterly outclass any conceivable American or British opponent by sheer weight of gunfire, and elephant-like armor. As such, hers is a sort of 'brute force' approach to protection. Her armor layout isn't the most efficient, but she has a lot of armor, so it doesn't really matter. American and French battleships were designed to do less with more, with the South Dakota, for instance, being perhaps the best protected warship, pound for pound, ever built. One reason the Americans in particular came out with such good designs is that they could afford to. America poured tons of money into making the propulsion plants of their vessels more efficient, meaning that the resulting ships were relatively smaller and armor box correspondingly small. This, in turn, led to the ability to use the armor more heavily in the protected region. By the same token, American BBs, alone of contemporary battleship designs, had hull plating and interior works which were constructed entirely of Special Treatment Steel (STS), a very tough light armor steel, whereas contemporary designs usually reserved such steels for important splinter-proofing locales. The United States alone was capabe of affording such extravagances.

Also never forget the power of damage control the USN exceled at this during WWII...

Just my 0.02

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"Lack of weapons is no excuse for defeat"

- Lt. General Renya Mutaguchi, Commanding General, Japanese Fifteenth Army, 1944-1945

[Mark IV]

Jeff: I certainly wouldn't oppose weapons development. What do we use in the mean time? We have a perfectly serviceable weapons systems with no replacement in sight and I cannot imagine throwing it away. It costs very little (in the context of USN) to keep them on hand.

Battleships are mostly about floating and shooting and these concepts are not obsolete. Iowa-class ships do them both extremely well. They have been retro-fitted in major and minor ways many times over the years. Each turret has its own radar. RPVs provide spotting. The 16"ers are supposed to be able to hold a group 125m deep by 35m wide.

They can create 50,000+ sq. ft. of Visitor Parking with each salvo, within 25-30 miles of shore. With 11" sabots they can reach 100 miles. There is little a Tomahawk or a 5" gun can offer in these categories (but they have those, too).

Major Tom: Absolutely no one has claimed that battleships are "invincible", nor are they a universal problem-solver. Just like in ground warfare, they are one element of a combined-arms threat. They are one more tool in the box; I would not throw away my hammer because I am looking into beginning development of a nail-gun.

The South Dakota took 26 hits from 5.5" to 14" guns at Guadalcanal, btw.

[Polar]

I think the point here is this...

Carriers can fullfill the role of a BB, regardless of the job, and the rounds used.

As it is, the BBs duties are fully redundant. We are obligated to maintain the Carrier fleet that we currently have, so cost to upkeep arguments are pointless. We HAVE to have Carriers... so that cost is there regardless of whether the BB is online or not.

So it is not the lessor cost of the BB... unless you are planning on taking a Carrier off line.

One more point that has been touched on here that really hasn't been addressed... that is that the shore bombardment ability of the BB is far outweighed by the real estate that the Carrier commands.

There was a time that the common thought was that Carriers needed Battleships, and Battleships needed Carriers. But technology has reached a point where that dependancy is now only one way. The Battleship NEEDS a Carrier.. but the Carrier does not need a Battleship.

The real argument that the Pro-Battleship people should be making is the Pros of Destroyers-vs-Battleships. My guess is that the primary BB duties in fleet protection have now made it a wildly inefficient tool. There is no way to create a Battleship that can cover all the ground that it's cost-couterpart of Destroyers can. Even if it was possible to create one, you essentially reduce the point of failure to one.

For example: Lets say for arguments sake that it costs the same to maintain 4 Destroyers as it does one Iowa Class battleship. And lets say that that Iowa can somehow cover the same milage as the Destroyers... it still only takes one lucky missile to take away all the BBs ability (read: sink) but it would take five to totally remove the DDs.

Not a valid example, I know... since you can't outfit a BB to cover the ground of the DDs. But you get the point.

In all it's roles, the Battleship winds up being redundant or inefficient.

I love 'em too... but their day is over.

Joe

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"I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz

[This message has been edited by Polar (edited 01-08-2001).]

[Terence]

My 2 Cents on the Whole Thing, In Case Anyone Wants to Know:

I have no pretensions to expertise at weapons system analysis, and therefore cannot argue convincingly for or against operating Iowa Class battleships. I have some thoughts, though.

But I was following the situation in Kosovo and the Persian Gulf pretty closely over the last couple years when I worked as a reporter in the world section at ABCNews.com (please, please hold your scorn for reporters, I've heard it all before, and its really a topic for email or another thread)

And after listening to plenty of Pentagon briefings and talking a great deal to some very smart folks at the Army War College and RAND and Brookings, it certainly seems that putting a bomb or missile on target from the sky is no easy thing, especially when people are shooting at you.

Some damage assessments for _military targets_ from the latest dustup in Kosovo were terribly terribly low, and a famous GAO report on Desert Storm made it pretty clear that a lot of bombs were dropped for every one that made it to the target. Things have improved since then, but still -- people talk about pushbutton war but its not that simple.

So, if I was in charge of the US Navy, I would necessarily want to get rid of something that could destroy what it was shooting at with such ease as has been reported here on the board.

The question is -- does it have to be a battleship? I know people have cited some really interesting reasons to keep an Iowa class around, but the one that they keep returning to is the gunnery. Are there alternatives?

Also, in the future, the US armed forces are likely to be fighting a lot more Somalia-type conflicts than we are to be attacking across defended beaches. Concerns over collateral damage will be very high.

In situations like that maybe attacking with something that doesn't explode like a 16 inch shell is a good thing.

Finally, one thing that I kept reflecting on as I wrote my stories at ABC, was that in the current environment, brute force is an overrated weapon.

Just because the United States has a huge military, doesn't mean that we can make the Kim Jong Ils and Saddam Husseins and Slobodan Milosevics of the world do what we want.

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

Jeff: I certainly wouldn't oppose weapons development. What do we use in the mean time? We have a perfectly serviceable weapons systems with no replacement in sight and I cannot imagine throwing it away. It costs very little (in the context of USN) to keep them on hand.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is just it though, it does cost the USN a lot to keep them on hand, which is why the USN does not want to keep them on hand. Do you think they want to get rid of them just to mkae people like you mad?

They have a huge crew, and they are maintenance nightmares. Yes, they have been refitted many times, but in the end the ship is going on 60 years old. There is only so much you can do with it. It's like those F-14s and F-15s flying around. They might be great planes, but they have a finite life. You can extend that time, but it eventually gets prohibitively expensive.

Are carriers also expensive? Of course. But a carrier is an integral part of US force projection. A BB is not. It is a luxury, and it is a luxury that the USN has decided it cannot afford. It is an anchronism. It is a weapon from another time, and another place. The world has changed, and the benefits to be gotten from a BB are outweighted by the financial cost of maintaining the platform.

The BB is vulnerable to submarines, especially since its primary job involves it getting in extremely close to land. Anyone know how quiet a Chinese diesel attack sub is when it is parked on the bottom waiting for the Iowa to cruise on by?

All these other ancillary benefits are moot. A BB can hold a lot of fuel? Great, build a fuel ship that can hold as much at 1/100th the cost. A BB can fire a lot of Tomahawks? Great, build a CNG that can do the same at 1/5th the cost, or better yet comvert on Ohio to a SSGN configuration that can do even more, and do it while being virtually indetectable.

The only thing that the Iowa brings to the table is an outstanding ability to deliver large amounts of conventonal firepower to onshore targets not protected by terrain (NGFS is limited by the arc that they can loft shells). That's a nice asset, but is too limited for the proposed cost.

Ohh, I forgot the "true" reason that people want the Iowa's, the real "asset": they are neat. They are a humongous ship with really, really big guns. Wheeeeee!

Jeff Heidman

[Hilltopper]

Interesting thought, Terence. I think the BB can play a valid role, especially arty support. Since we're seeing more limited military engagements, nothing like floating an arty platform in. I'd rather have that and push a 105mm Howitzer up over a hill.

Also several have made note how expensive they are to maintain and that a nuke would finish them off. Well, in that perspective, why not do away with all modern weapon systems and just use sticks and rocks? Certainly all weapons systems, especially the very expensive, can be vaporized with nukes. So lets just go with rocks...there's plenty of 'em lying around!

Really the fact of the matter is we have no engineering expertise to build or properly maintain battleships like we did 60 years ago. I am betting it's a "lost art". That's really too bad, cause I think they have purpose--even today.

[paullus]

I certainly hope that the Iowas are not fully retired - just mothball them in case we need to use them again. Also, since the 1980 refit, it only takes approx. 800 crewmembers to do the job that 2500 took sixty years ago.

BB's can also operate in enclosed waterways (such as the Persian Gulf) that you really would not put an aircraft carrier in times of war (real war). BB's are also many times more survivable than current US warships. The blast that almost took out the USS Cole would have, at most, scratched the paint on an Iowa.

I for one would not put my faith in technology 100% (aircraft, missiles, etc). There are times when a battery of unstoppable artillery (in the case of a SAM threat) is necessary.

And although a Battleship is much less expensive than an aircraft carrier to operate, I can see how people would want to retire them. I can only hope that they mothball them in case we need that kind of platform again. History does have a way of repeating itself.

Remember, the golden age of the aircraft carrier spanned 24 months (1942 - 1944) and only 5 battles ever took place between US & Japanese aircraft carriers (direct confrontations). Just because the aircraft carrier is the primary weapon today, does not mean the same will hold true tomorrow.

[Mark IV]

I don't think BBs and ACs do the same job.

Yes, the AC has the bigger footprint- but with far less power. Airplanes miss, a lot. The more precisely they strike, the greater the risk to the manned delivery system.

The whole Navy isn't against the Iowas, either. They have debated this in a lot more depth than we have.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>The only thing that the Iowa brings to the table is an outstanding ability to deliver large amounts of conventonal firepower to onshore targets not protected by terrain (NGFS is limited by the arc that they can loft shells).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that is sufficient, and so does the USMC, one of the big proponents of keeping them around. The most useful battleship role is now one of ground support.

[Major Tom]

The Prince of Wales, a King George V class Battleship, had thicker side armour (16") and as thick deck armour (11") and was sunk by conventional torpedoes and bombs. The Iowa isn't revolutionary. It is the last of a long line of battleships, which have certain weaknesses. Also, ANY design that is 60+ years old should be replaced. There is only so much you can do to upgrade a hull.

Assuming that your ships or navy is invincible will undobutedly result in a blooddy nose. These ships should be replaced by a more cost effective bombardment device. Having a 60 000t warship providing as effective amount of bombardment power as a 10 000t warship is rediculous. All that any modern bombardment vessel would need is ONE 16" turret. Radar tracking has negated the need for large battleships with multiple turrets to guarantee a hit.

No defensive system is flawless. It was proven in just about every engagement that "the bomber will always get through".

[I/O Error]

Have you actually SEEN the number of losses and sheer amount of WASTED (read: totally missed target) ordanance we've thrown away from WWII straight through to Kosovo?

You know it's a problem when a $1 Billion aircraft is shot down by a 1970's-era 57mm fixed AAA mount over Kosovo. That's just SAD.

Check the number of people we lost in training/combat/plain accidents from 1990-1992. Trust me. The number will shock you.

The bomber may get through, but only after pissing away thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of equipment...

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Honor, Duty, Courage.

Valhalla awaits you, honorable warrior...

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"If you find yourself alone, riding through green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled, for you are in Elysium, and YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD!"

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

I would not throw away my hammer because I am looking into beginning development of a nail-gun.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know man, nails themselves are becoming obsolete. My father has done several carpenter jobs in the last 2 years and he hasn't used nails in any of them, barring nailing sub-flooring. He uses Phillips screws and a cordless drill. Screws hold better.

[scoop88]

After reading all these posts, I would say I/O Error is winning this one. He's supporting his case with (hopefully accuracte) facts and figures. All I'm hearing from the loyal opposition are opinions. ("battleships are 60 years old," "they're maintenance nightmares," "their day is over," etc., etc.) I respectfully suggest the opponents give us some facts, please, to support keeping the Iowa-class BBs in mothballs.

[Major Tom]

Oh, so armour strength numbers, comparisons at the ease of loss of as strong battleships in history, a history of teething problems of the Iowa class (ie turrets exploding), and that there are weapons capable of sinking these ships in large numbers around the world aren't really facts?

I agree that 16" guns are good supressive fire weapons. I just don't think that their platforms are viable any more.

Stating that a 1957 Flak gun can shoot down a modern $1 000 000 000 dollar fighter goes only to further my point that even with today's technology NOTHING is invincible. If a single burst of Flak can shoot down a supposed invisible aircraft, then a single spread of modern torpedos has as good, if not better chance in sinking a battleship from 1943. Even if it was guarded by the best ASW ships in the world.

[This message has been edited by Major Tom (edited 01-08-2001).]

[Mark IV]

Major T, you have now twice set up and knocked down the same straw man.

No one is claiming that either Iowa-class battleships, nor the US Navy, nor any other weapon system, is unsinkable, invulnerable, or flawless.

The battleship is very difficult to sink. That is all.

As for the 60-year old hull... is it leaking? Breaking up? What leap forward in full-displacement hull technology has obsoleted it?

There are no 10000t warships with the "effective amount of bombardment" of the Wisconsin or any other Iowa-class. When there are, perhaps this will be a valid argument.

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by I/O Error:

Have you actually SEEN the number of losses and sheer amount of WASTED (read: totally missed target) ordanance we've thrown away from WWII straight through to Kosovo?

You know it's a problem when a $1 Billion aircraft is shot down by a 1970's-era 57mm fixed AAA mount over Kosovo. That's just SAD.

Check the number of people we lost in training/combat/plain accidents from 1990-1992. Trust me. The number will shock you.

The bomber may get through, but only after pissing away thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of equipment...

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What is your point? In probably 90% of the cases in Kosovo where ordinance did not hit its target, it was a matter of the plane dropping the ordinance exactly where the pilot intendend but poor intelligence meant that the target was not where it was supposed to be.

Its not like an Iowa could have done the job any better. It can place its shells with great accuracy, but it still is not going ot hit anything if there is nothing there to hit.

Of course, in the vast majority of the examples you cite, a battleship couldn;t have hit any of those targets anyway!!

Your posts are getting borderline manic. No matter how good a BB is at shore bombardment, it is not a replacement for air power, and never will be. It was not in WW2, it certainly is not today.

Would an Iowa have somehow kept that F-117 from being shot down????

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

As for the 60-year old hull... is it leaking? Breaking up? What leap forward in full-displacement hull technology has obsoleted it?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who said anything about the hull? We are talking about the rather large amount of equipment inside the hull that is 60 years old. It's not like they have torn everything out and replaced it with new stuff.

The ship is ancient. There comes a point where the cost to keep it afloat outweighs the benefit incurred. The Navy decided that point has been reached, and long since. hence it was mothballed. So far no-body has provided any reason to make me think they were wrong.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>

There are no 10000t warships with the "effective amount of bombardment" of the Wisconsin or any other Iowa-class. When there are, perhaps this will be a valid argument.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Only if there is a need for that amount of bombardment that is greater than the need for whatever it is that the Navy is not getting because they are spending the resources on the ability to make really big bangs in very limited areas under extremely narrow circumstances.

Once again, the guys who are a little over enthralled with the big guns fail to address the critical point. It is not a question of whether that gun support is desirable. Of course it is. No-body has argued otherwise. It is a question of whether it is *more* desirable than something else. The Navy has a fixed yearly budget for crews and maintenance.

Jeff Heidman

[Jeff Heidman]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by scoop88:

After reading all these posts, I would say I/O Error is winning this one. He's supporting his case with (hopefully accuracte) facts and figures. All I'm hearing from the loyal opposition are opinions. ("battleships are 60 years old," "they're maintenance nightmares," "their day is over," etc., etc.) I respectfully suggest the opponents give us some facts, please, to support keeping the Iowa-class BBs in mothballs. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"Battleships are 60 years old" is not a fact?

I respectfully suggest that if you cannot actually provide any input yourself, your contributions as an umpire are not really necessary.

Jeff Heidman

[This message has been edited by Jeff Heidman (edited 01-08-2001).]

[Terence]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Heidman:

No matter how good a BB is at shore bombardment, it is not a replacement for air power, and never will be. It was not in WW2, it certainly is not today.

Jeff Heidman<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jeff. I'm not sure that people were saying it was, just that the Iowa could be a useful component of the US forces because of its capabilities, fuel storage, gunnery, machine shops, etc.

As I said earlier, Im not qualfied to analyze the weapons system, but one of the things that would make makes me hesitate if the decision were mine is this:

If you look at the kinds of conflicts we are fighting now and the type of fighting we'll have to do in the future, will there be a need for the kind of fire that the Iowa class can deliver?

Would we need precise 16 inch gunnery? Maybe.

But do we need the Iowa to deliver it?

Maybe the need to deliver that kind of mayhem is not synonymous with maintaining the Iowa.

Maybe we could do it some other way. Im thinking of the SLAM perhaps, or the GBU-15/BLU-109 or maybe one of the AGM-86s. I know one of those AGM-86 conversions can contain a 3000 pound warhead.

These systems are cheaper than a battleship and don't contain 800 sailors who can drown if the ship sinks.

[TargetDrone]

Hmm.. I am not very familiar with the tech details (I am even not an American... but I still like these behemoths of war) but I guess the defensive side always gains an advantage... (see the example with the 57mm flak...)..

Sure, a BB can't survive long without a whole fleet protecting it... but don't tell me that carriers do.... on the other hand, a carriers main weapons are planes (which it has stocked only in limited amounts). Now, as shown above, plains (even invisible ones ) can be shot down rather easily... leaving the Carrier rather toothless... and I think that American public would revolt if the navy starts to send in waves after waves into an SAM cluttered area just to hit a vital target.... and every wannabe dictator could afford a decent AA-system. Maybe even buying it of America

on the other hand, we have a battleship... it too needs the protection of a small armada... but it relies on 16" arties as its prime weapon... now... I am not sure, but I doubt that a 16" shell in transit can be intercepted at all... and if this can really be done... I doubt that anyone will waste a tear for the poor shell...

So, my guess is that BBs are more effective when it comes to deliver destruction to a specific target that is well defended... Airplanes are just too fragile (and expensive in both resources and live costs).

Another nice effect of the battleship has already been addressed quite often... it is simply a psychological weapon.... I would feel much more uncomfortable when being shelled at with this nasty big unstoppable (?) arty than being attacked by airplanes when I have a good chance of bringing them down before they can deliver their ordnance...

well, just my 10 Groschen here (sorry, here in Austria we don't have Cents yet )

-- TargetDrone

p.s.: Anybody can tell me where i can get decent info on the phalanx systems and other ways to counter missiles and Cruise Missiles?

[Jeff Heidman]

Drone, you are forgetting one teeny little point:

A battleship can *only* hit targets that are within reach of those 16" guns, and that is a very limited reach indeed.

Furthermore, the BB can only hit those targets when there is complete air superiority, since it cannot defend itself from air attack, so it will need a CVN escort anyway.

Finally, the BB must sail into often restricted waters to even reach the 30 miles in or so that it can as is, making it extremely vulnerable to submarines and land-launched cruise missiles.

All that being said, Bush is talking about increasing the military budget by some $20 billion. If that actually happens, it might bear some thinking about keeping one of these floating, but not at the expense of a new Navy attack plane and a new Navy fighter, both of which are needed desperately after the A-12 fiasco.

Jeff Heidman

[Guest wwb_99]

I once worked in a Navy office where they looked at new weapons systems. One guy decorated his office with 5" shells that had been hit by an experimental version of the Phlanax(SP?) point defense system. If they can catch 5" shells, they damn sure can catch 16" shells. Now weather or not that will do any good is subject to debate.

WWB

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Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say,

Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus.