The U.S. Navy’s Iowa-Class: The Best Battleships Ever

19FortyFive ^ | 2/5/2021 | Peter Suicu

[Onthebrink]

Armed with a main battery of 16-inch guns that could hit targets nearly 24 miles away with a variety of artillery shells, the Iowa-class were among the most heavily armed U.S. military ships ever put to see. The battleships’ main battery consisted of nine 16″/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three-gun turrets, which could fire 2,700-pound (1,225 kg) armor-piercing shells some 23 miles (42.6 km). Secondary batteries consisted of twenty 5″/38 caliber guns mounted in twin-gun dual-purpose (DP) turrets, which could hit targets up to 9 miles (16.7 km) away.

[chrisinoc]

Check out the videos from the curator of the New Jersey.

https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleshipNewJersey/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

[kvanbrunt2]

There are fireposer videos of the guns going off. Check them out. The New Jersey is in Camden and i took my Dad who served on the Iowa during Korea. There is a large metal housing on the stern of the ship that was completely twisted by the firing of the guns at some point.

[sarge83]

I think the South Dakota class battleships would have given a good account of themselves against a Yamato class BB. They were slower but had a good armor and design. They were devastating AA platforms in the carrier battles during Guadalcanal.

The North Carolina class BB USS Washington pretty much stomped on a Japanese BB and support ships in one of the last few surface actions at Guadalcanal, radar targeted gunfire did the trick.

[kvanbrunt2]

That’s why eye brake in two averse
Cuz eye dew want too please.
Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye
This soft wear four pea seas.>>>

Can i nick your post?

[FatherofFive]

Can i nick your post?

Not mine. Saw that years ago somewhere, and copied it. Still cracks me up. I like clever humor.

[CedarDave]

While on duty on a patrol boat in Viet Nam in 1968 I had occasion to watch her fire 16-inch guns on Viet Cong strongholds. We never got close enough to get a good photograph, but even from a distance, we could she was massive.

[LonePalm]

Actually it was the Mk 8 Rangekeeper which is the heart of operations in the plotting rooms.

It serves a similar function as the Torpedo Data Computer in submarines. The math involved is essentially the same.

I had my guys at Dam Neck, VA in 1981 for NGFS training when President Reagan decided to bring back the battleships.

One of my uncles was a gunnery officer in the A turret of USS Washington (BB-56) when it wrecked IJN Kirishima off Guadalcanal the night of 15 November 1942. It is hard to imagine what it was like for the Japanese to get hit with those guns at only 8500 yards.

WWG1WGA

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[jpsb]

See the invasion of the Philippines by US Forces. Sea power played a very important role. Google task force 34.

[ro_dreaming]

Chill out Okie.

The person posted the article, with the title kept as required on FR, and made zero comments.

So, why the hate?

CTT3, 1988-1992

How ‘bout asking me if I put out to sea?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Your uncle's ship! One of the few battleship encounters in the pacific in WWII. (Of which I am sure you are aware!)

https://www.historylink.org/File/7128 BB-56

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/sites/default/files/styles/wide_large/public/2017-11/USS%20Washington%20maneuvers%20at%20high%20speed.jpeg

[LonePalm]

USS Harry W. Hill (DD-986) was named for his father, Adm. Harry W. Hill. My aunt was the sponsor for the ship when it was launched.

The Admiral, my uncle, retired as a Captain, and my aunt are all buried next to the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.

WWG1WGA

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[PTBAA]

They kick alien ass! Saw it in a documentary called Battleship.

[Nabron]

The battleship’s main problem is putting too many people in ONE place. 24 mile range for the big guns is meaningless nowadays; 1 plane can do more damage with 1 bomb in 1 minute than those guns can in an hour. I imagine any new weapon system that might “resurrect” the battleship would require so much retrofitting that a new design would be cheaper.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Here you be!

USS Harry W. Hill (DD-986), named for Admiral Harry W. Hill USN, was a Spruance-class destroyer built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Industries at Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Harry W. Hill was the only Spruance-class destroyer not to be armed with Tomahawk missile armored box launchers or the Mark 41 vertical launch system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_W._Hill

[PapaBear3625]

I think if I was storming, let’s say, a Taiwanese beach being held by a couple divisions of PLA, I would like the ability to call for some of those 16” shells. If there’s a better ways to kill thousands of Chinese soldiers in the space of a few minutes, I’m all for that too.

The Chinese have taken old frigates, and equipped them with a whole bunch of MLRS rocket pods

[RC one]

The MLRS is good against troops in the open. We always said it could kill everything in a grid square (a square kilometer on a military map). Troops that are "dug in" in fortified trenches and bunkers would be less vulnerable to a MLRS. The 16" armor piercing shells of the Iowa class battleship would be better at killing those entrenched soldiers.

Our Navy seems to revolve around the aircraft carrier group these days and a battleship might be too much to defend. It would have to be upgraded to nuclear power and would have to be able to keep up with the carrier group or, better yet, be faster than the carrier group and it seems like it would require it's own support group.

I don't know that though. I was infantry, not Navy. I just know that if I had to attack a couple divisions of Chinese infantry on an island, I would want all kinds of naval gun fire available to support my beachhead as well as air support, drone support, cruise missile support, everything in the combined arms arsenal. You aren't going to beat them any other way. there are just too many of them. If they had a chance to dig in, you would need ground penetrating shells and lots of them.

It would be the war to end all wars I think.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

That section should be copy pasted not manually typed.