Posted on 09/05/2010 9:52:39 AM PDT by SmithL
Edited on 09/05/2010 9:55:55 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
ROTFLMAO!!!! Who told you that?
ROFLMAO at your ignorance...
Google it. Only hundreds of articles since the 1st gulf war, multiple military blogs, and missile defense groups discussing it. Welcome to the last 20 years of military progress. We’ve been waiting for you.
Of course they did. Then you shouldn't have any problems providing some links?
Gerald Bull used two 16 inch gun barrels from US battleships (eventually extending the barrel lengths) for his famous tests (Barbados, wasn’t it?) and sent shells to high altitudes, actually into space. He used sabots, small diameter projectiles, and gas fill-behind to get that kind of performance. Later he built a usable field howitzer with a 40 mile range. Battleship guns were enhanced due to falling under fire off the coast of Vietnam during that war from enhanced eastern-bloc artillery.
All these were either inspired by or loosely based on the WWI-era German field gun built by Krupp, which had a range of 80 miles and were used as a terror weapon to bombard Paris. There have been *suggestions* to use 16 inch battleship guns for SDI, but their best *range* would be 100 miles, which is not the same as 100 miles *altitude*.
Putting a projectile to work to hit suborbital missiles could possibly work provided there’s accurate and timely tracking and targeting of the missiles, and the ships were stationed far enough north (ICBMs take the great circle route, and would come across the Arctic Ocean if from Russia, and across the northern Pacific if from China), and if the guns and gun crews worked fast enough (sixty seconds) to get the shots aloft, and the ships were not preemptively sunk by enemy subs.
http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1559-3584.1988.tb01501.x/abstract
Project HARP firing image (appears to have been colorized):
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b198/Rithesa/Project_Harp.jpg
[Livermore eventually broke Bull’s altitude records with gas guns, which research resulted from President Reagan’s SDI program]
Great post. Thanks.
I usually ignore the posters who act like they are from 4chan and say “post me a link”. I ain’t their beotch. But, yes, you are right. 100 ranged miles is not the same as altitude. Altitude is actually easier to hit with those sabots than is “range” which was like 115 Km with those guns in the 90s. And that is less than 100 Nautical miles. In my original post I was speaking directly of “space” range not “land” range. Suborbital is between 60 and 100 miles UP.
Also, most of the objections or risks, including many you pointed out, are based on old cold war strategies. For 50 years we have used other means to disuade the former USSR or China from launching nukes. That is not the problem, nor are these ships needed for THAT threat.
But, for a rouge cargo ship, with a platform nuke launcher, say from Iran or Syria or Al Quada? Yes. Then these babies are PERFECT.
Also, for those low level high threat conflicts, the old Iron Sides in plain sight able to drop cheap ordinance on your coasts or 50 to 100 km inside your country is a SIGNIFICANT deterrent to most crazies.
The time has come to bring the Battleship into the 21st century. And our next President needs to do what Reagan did when he brought them back in the 80s.
Oh, I forgot, about your timing issue. The types of missiles likely to be shot from ships by Iran, et al, have a 2 minutes to altitude time, 4 minutes in sub orbital and then either EMP up that high, or a 90 second arc down to a normal detonation altitude. So, a Battleship WOULD have 3-6 minutes in which to act. MUCH easier for them in that time than scrambling any other defense.
I agree battleships like this would be a far more effective tool against low tech warfare such as Iran would use or any country with pirates hijacking ships.
What I am implying is that naval warfare with countries like Iran will involve disguised vessels with modern weaponry, the armored brute strength of these battleships would make them much more the victor than a thin hulled vessel.
bombardment of land targets,,,
The New Jersey was on station in ‘69 and proved this,,,
A unit of Marines were trapped on a hill in danger of
being overrun,,,
The ship fired some 1,100 rounds of 16in. and near 5,000
rounds of 5in.,,,
All night long,,,burned the paint off one side of the ship,,,
The best/fastest way to take out ICBM’s/etc. is with the
PAT-3/AEGIS systems,,,
No Contest...
These days? And 1969 in the same example proves you are NOT discussing the 21st century.
In 1969 my PARENTS were kids.
That is TWO generations ago.
We need NEW Battleships using the 21st century weapons and tactics for this generations evil doers.
Vietnam? That is like 8 wars ago and entirely without any semblance to today.
Heck, 90% of the casualties in Nam were due to POOR medicine.
Today, a soldier gets an arm or leg removed by a bomb or something, and they pour a powder on it, which stops the bleeding seconds later. He is then drugged out, and wakes up later in a state of the art hospital miles away if not in another country!
We need the Battleships on THAT level of tech. Then we will see serious improvements on that front as well.
Agreed. Nothing short of a direct hit with a NUKE will take out a Battleship. Whereas a $10,000 missile will put any lessor ship on the bottom of the sea in minutes. Just ask the British about the HMS Sheffield during the Falkland Islands’ war.
an incoming ICBM/etc. at this point in time,,,
Back in the 60’s I worked on the S.A.G.E. ADA system after I
came back from the war,,,
(Blue Room Clearance),,,
Nuke/HE armed Hercules,,,
~~~
Heck, 90% of the casualties in Nam were due to POOR medicine.
Today, a soldier gets an arm or leg removed by a bomb or something, and they pour a powder on it, which stops the bleeding seconds later. He is then drugged out, and wakes up later in a state of the art hospital miles away if not in another country!
~~~
Totally incorrect,,,
Booby Traps cost the most,,,
And it was a spray form of super-glue,,,
No,,,The wounded cannot be given all the drugs to stop
their pain,,,
That would kill most of them,,,
Hopefully you never see these things...
I'm pretty sure an Exocet would cost a bit more than $10K. I don't think you can get a GPS guidance package for a dumb iron bomb for that much.
You are correct. They cost $75,000 each in 1980’s dollars and sell today for $250,000. I knew they were Cheap, but missed that mark. Still. You cannot build any kind of destroyer battelship or carrier for a micro fraction of the cost of a cheap missile. And the Exocet was first designed in 1967. I don’t think they had GPS in the 70s, which were the versions used by Argentina in the Falklands war.
Thanks RF. The major threat is from ICBMs, which means the USSR, oops, I mean Russia, and the Chinese. Iran does not yet have the Bomb, and even if they manage to obtain one and survive (which is unlikely), delivery systems are inadequate to hit the US. The Iranian navy will be on the bottom before any such launch. Likewise North Korea. The Chinese will have to roll in and physically remove the NK regime, or the US will simply blast it out of existence, which would be a major humiliation for the Chinese despotate. Their only choice will be to man-up and take Pyongyang’s toys away from it.
I didn't mean to imply they did. GPS was around in the '70s (so was I and knew people working on GPS sets for aircraft), but you wouldn't use if for moving targets anyway, unless you had a way to constantly send updates to the weapon about the targets location. The Exocets, like our Harpoon, are radar guided, with a little radar in the nose of the missile, plus inertial (function could now be GPS) guidance to get the weapon into the "basket", where the radar could acquire the target. Early Exocet was rocket powered, Harpoon has a turbojet. Later Exocets had turbojet as well. GPS is used in the JDAM guided bomb kit. That's about as cheap as guided weapons get.
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