Posted on 10/08/2021 8:58:12 AM PDT by Onthebrink
In 1958, the Navy proposed overhauling the Iowa-class ships by removing all of the 16-inch guns and replacing them with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine missiles.
The new “guided missile battleships” would also carry four Regulus II cruise missiles, each of which could flatten a city a thousand miles distant with a nuclear warhead more than 100 times as powerful as the bomb used on Hiroshima.
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
I appreciate that post as I know next to nothing about Navy stuff, though I have watched a bunch of movies. I think that I have viewed the remake of Midway at least 6 times.
Seriously though, I find it fascinating about those numbers regarding the potential damage that could be dispensed by a Battle Ship as compared to an Air Force Bomber.
Actually, I found the entire Post to be compelling reading.
Bless you.
Submarines aren’t much good for naval bombardments. Or boarding captured vessels. And when they’re “undetectable [mostly],” they also have limited radio comms, which means limited capacity to respond to changes in orders.
Yup. Submarines are for NUCLEAR war.
Battleships are for CONVENTIONAL war.
I think it would be cool to have 4 of them operating just for camel-jockey wars going on. But their range is limited to about 30 miles of shore bombardment. B52s, smartbombs, laser-guided missiles, A10s and AC130 Ghostriders have that beat. Just do a cost analysis to see which ones work better for the intended purposes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.