“16 inch guns are primitive and slow to reload. Missiles would carry the day against an “Iowa.””
Nope. The Iowa’s have missile defense in the form of screening DD’s with standard missiles specifically for that, and the Iowa’s also have CIWS.
Then, for the rare missile that makes it through, one final surprise. Modern anti-ship missiles are designed to attack modern warships that are essentially unarmored. They have splinterproof Kevlar armor in spots. A modern missile has no ability to defeat 12 inches of the steel armor from WWII.
This armor is not just a flat plate, in a BB it is sloped, and built in depth with critical areas of the ship getting even more special treatment.
A modern antiship missile carries a 500 pound charge, and impacts often with less speed than an old AP battleship shell. And it isn’t a hardened penetrator. So of the very few that get through, 90% of modern antiship missiles will leave scorches and little damage.
Modern ships can be penetrated by a warthog all day long. An Iowa ain’t the Sheffield or a pissant modern cruiser. For extra fun, no surface combatant has an effective way to attack a battleship, and had better stay at least 20 miles away.
Our armor plate using Nickle steel was the best out there. Highly resistant to pretty much any shell fire.
The fear with the Iowas in the 1980s was an under-the-hull proximity torpedo hit. Create a big bubble of air, have it hit the keel at high speed creating both explosive impact damage AND more importantly rapidly lift the hull in a very small point would snap their backs, rupture all sorts of things and possibly detonate their magazines.
I saw the missile-updated Missouri a couple years ago while touring Pearl.
I don’t think they bothered to do this with the BB-61 after the turret explosion.
The sailing range of these BBs was limited by the switch from N6 to diesel after they were brought out under President Reagan.
Haha, must of been a terror to contend with back in the day. I’d of liked to see footage of the Bismarck battle. Too bad they didn’t have all that on camera.