Posted on 04/15/2005 2:27:55 AM PDT by Zero Sum
"There is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship." -- Retired Gen. P.X. Kelly, USMC
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Those words of the former Marine commandant resonate with me. In 1969, gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) saved my rifle platoon in Vietnam. During her six months in-theater, the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns were credited with saving more than 1,000 Marines' lives. The North Vietnamese so feared the ship that they cited her as a roadblock to the Paris peace talks. Our leaders, as they did so often in that war, made the wrong choice and sent her home. Now, 36 years later, Washington is poised to make another battleship blunder.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
AA was afterthought in early WWII even with the Yamato. (Had no logical or cohesive FC system)The US designs which came out the Iowa class with radar control were the best that anyone put out.
I beg to differ...Precision guided munitions DO NOT make BB's obsolete..Just ask the Kamikazes...Just ask yourself why 60 years after the advent of guided munitions and air power, which was supposed to make them redundant, those ships still came out of mothballs for three other wars. In fact, they might be the only ships afloat that can take that kind of pounding, but that's neither here nor there.
Ollie makes a very good point: BB's make excellent fire support ships for amphibious landings, even though the Marines haven't made one since 1950, it's still nice to have that capability, even in standoff mode. The Iraqis certainly didn't enjoy being on the receiving end of 16" shells either. At present, there are exactly zero ships available for direct fire support, that job being relegated to aircraft. Aircraft, while they can carry an enormous amount of firepower, cannot sustain it for long periods like a battleship can -- planes eventually have to land and refuel.
The knock on battleships, however, is that they are expensive to run and maintain, especially since most of the technology is vintage 1940's and you just can't get that kind of steel or ecpertise anymore -- which is why the Iowa was mothballed for good after it's turret explosion, the guns, and mounts could not be replaced.
No ship. On all of today's tinplated destroyers. Capital ships are heavily armored in these regions tom protect against mines and torpedoes.
I think the number of bomb hits was much higher, but misleading. The strike was thrown together quickly and two factors made the bombing very ineffective. First, most of the aircraft launched without AP bombs, second a very low cloud cover that day made dive bombing impossible.
Normally, it took an AP bomb dropped from above 3500 feet to penetrate a battleships top armor.
Gas turbines aren't big enough for that size ship, so you would have to clutch more than one per shaft.
Didn't look real hard, but apparently both Stump and Comte de Grasse (Spruance-Tico sized destroyer hulls) had engine fires/explosions.
Internal explosions, not external (bomb/missile) hit: they lost one engineroom/shaft until it could get isolated.
Roberts, Stark were combat losses.
As far as the Yamato and Mushashi are concerned:
Both were sunk while operating without air cover and bad ASW defenses. What defenses there were were simply swamped.
The Mushashi, if memeory serves, took 19 torpedos and 17bombs before she sank. The Yamato took similar damage and had even less of an escort.
The Yamato and Mushashi were extremely slow vessels for their day, capable of only about 26 knots. An Iowa class ship could make 33 knots.
Had Iowa and Yamato class ships slugged it out in WWII, the Iowas would have come out on top -- they were faster, had better armor and the rifled 16" gun was more accurate, and had similar range the Japanese 18" gun (I believe the difference was merely 2,000 yds or so).
In a stand-up slugfest, the Japanese would have been deficient in radar and fire control. The gun crews would also have worn out faster than the Americans because of the more intensive labor involved in slinging 18" shells.
Comparing the Yamato to the Iowas is a BAD way to try and make your point. The ships were constructed differently and for different reasons --the Japanese putting a premium on size and symbolism, the Americans on accurate firepower and survivability.
A better comparison to the Iowas would actually have been the Bismark and Tirpitz. A surface battle between these ships would have been a much more fair fight, although we probably still would have won.
I don't think you can compensate for a fully swung rudder with off line thrust (at least not from a stern driven ship. I always wondered if they couldn't have blown the top off of the rudder pin and allowed it to fall away.
Actually, the Bismark AAA defenses were quite good for it's time...The problem was the athe fire control systemn could not adjust hit slower moving targets, like British Swordfish torpedo bombers, which could make 60 mph on a good day with a torpedo slung and a tailwind.
The rudder was stuck between the center screw and the bottom.
Very good analysis on the Yamato vs Iowa. The Iowas were far more technologically advanced.
Could the Iowas be fitted with nuke power?
Naval History is my life...lol
Thank you.
It is a big part of mine too. You should see my model collection and library.
Probably not...The refitting would probably cost way too much and the hulls could not take the raditaion. Despite shielding, some radiation does escape. Those hulls are 60 years old and have been through hell on the high seas. It would also require that the ship be refitted electrically (miles and miles of cables), not to mention have safety systems installed that might affect it's weight, balance and draft, which affects stability. A battleship is no good to anyone if it isn;t a stable firing platform. A 16" broadside moves the ship about 8 fett sideways.
Actually, no, it can't. The planes have to allow each other to attack, which lowers the amount of ordinance they can deliver compared to a battleship. It would take a battleship between 9 and 20 minutes, depending on how many barrels were firing, to deliver 210 tons of ordinance. A Nimitz class carrier would take 12 hours.
With advances in targeting, munitions delivered from the air are more accurate than in the past, but many of the same advances can and have been applied to weapons systems on battleships.
In addition, as North pointed out, the planes can't work under all weather conditions. The ships can. The proposed 5" round that North mentions cannot be as effective against reinforced structures as the 16" round, which in its AP form is designed to cut through 20" of reinforced concrete (IIRC -- am I right on this, Junior?). The issue is not as cut and dried as some posters here would portray it.
For instance, I would say both posted examples of battleships being sunk in the past are not applicable to today. The Bismark was hunted down by combined forces including battleships, an unfortunate battle cruiser, cruisers, and an aircraft carrier. They all combined to kill it, which only goes to show that any ship can be overwhelmed. Yamato (and it's sister ship, Musashi), were sunk by planes bearing weapons designed to kill a battleship.
Care to name the modern weapon designed to pierce the kind of armor carried by battleships? There aren't any, because a weapon that would pierce armor would cut right through a modern destroyer without exploding. The weapons that crippled all the examples of destroyers and frigates posted here would bounce off a battleship's armor. And attempting to place an armor-piercing head on a missle without completely redesigning it would -- to use a technical term -- throw it out of whack.
On the other hand, Junior (a Navy man himself), makes a good point about manning requirements. But that same problem, including the need for escorts, also applies to the Navy's carriers. A battleship's compliment is in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 men, with the lower number more applicable to the last configurations of the Iowa class. A modern carrier's compliment is in the area of 5,000.
I believe many of the technological problems involved -- the sixty year old bits of the battleships -- can be largely overcome, but that will also require money.
So, as I said, I don't think it's cut and dried. It's worthy of additional study.
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