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 ...
Ever since the Iowa exploded BB have not made much since since the oil fired boilers don't live up to gas turbines for power. Oliver North along with the Core is on the way out. 16 inch guns verse missiles. Old Ironsides is still viable if you consider its stealth.
Excellent point, however, the survivability of the platform is an open question. Thos Cleveland hulls were not all that great. In fact, the Clevelands were a very bad design, being top heavy and prone to roll when firing all out, which affected accuracy.
I like your MLRS soultion, but I recall that experience with rocket-launching ships was very bad at Omaha Beach, Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Again, the stability issue loomos large. If someone could knock that problem, it might work. Personally, I'd rather see that solution applied to a brown-water vessel, capable of moving close inshore and up rivers.
The "BBs are Dead" gang reminds me of the gang that has been writing the obituary for the tank...for the last 40 years.
"What Works When!"
Rumsfeld knows it and is trying to take us in the right direction. The traditionalists are fighting him every step of the way.
This century's major wars will be won or lost from hardened underground control centers in the heart of America, using unmanned aircraft and space-based technologies.
What happened to the Arsenal Ship concept?
I disagree. North wants to preserve battleships for amphbious assaults of a hostile beach, a scenario that has not been seen for over 50 years. It makes no sense to sink billions of dollars into an asset with limited flexibility and limited use. Carriers can strike targets hundreds of miles from the shore, something a battleship cannot. Carriers can strike multiple targets hundreds of miles apart, something that a battleship cannot. Carrier aircraft, contrary to what North says, can operate in virtually all weather conditions. Battleships would have been worthless in the most recent combat in Iraq and Afganistan, while carriers carriers much of the load. Carriers provide a flexibility that battleships do not, and represent a much better investment in ever-scarcer defense dollars.
What planet are you living on? Naval warfare obsolete?
Right now, as we speak, 26 nations have submarines, capable of interdicting trade and supply lines and attacking shore bases with standoff weapons.
Right now, as we speak, 6 nations have aircraft carriers capable of bringing airpower right to your front doorstep in varying capacities.
Right now, 3/4 of the world's crude oil is moved by ships that need to be defended. 40% of the world's raw materials are moved by ship.
Right now, five (and possibly as many as seven) nations have nuclear warheads on missiles sitting aboard submarines.
As long as we use the sea as a highway it will need to be defended by a navy. As long as other nations also have navies, we will need one. Naval combat is not obsolete, it has just changed it's character.
Concur!
(It didn't "look like" a ship the admirals wanted to drive/were used toi driving?) /curiousity
If that's the case,It would have fared no better than any pre- dreadnaught
In the 1950s, the Navy designed an built a prototype atomic round for the Iowas.
As a former carrier sailor, I agree with you vis-a-vis carier air poower versus gunfire. However, you have to realize that both ships have different missions.
Sure, we have seen the last of the BB on BB battles, simply because no one is capable of building those kinds of ships anymore, and especially at those prices. However, the BB still has life left in it doing those thngs carriers cannot.
- Carriers cannot defend themselves adequately against surface threats. They require escorts with AAA abilities, and a battleship can hold as much AAA capacity as several DDG-51's.
- Carriers cannot defend themselves adequately against submarines, again requiring escorts. A BB can screen a carrier from modern torpedoes, taking several hits which would severely hamper a carrier's ability to operate (not necessarily sink it -- it's not easy to sink carriers with torpedoes nowadays).
- Carriers can engage in gunfire duels with much better effect than today's escorts armed with 5" or 76mm guns.
- Battleships have almost the same range as a carrier air wing thanks to Tomahawk missiles.
The ships still complement each other rather nicely, I think, although whether the Iowas will ever be reactivated again is an open question.
Excuse me, that was carriers CANNOT engage in gunfire duels...
Didin't the Baltimore's have 8" guns?
I'm not saying carriers don't have their uses, or that there are things they can do that battleships can't. It's obvious that carriers are lethal. But there are still certain functions that a heavily gunned, heavily armored ship can do that a carrier can't. And the cruisers, DDs and FFs are, as has been pointed out, somewhat thin-skinned and have to operate even closer to the shore.
Carrier aircraft may operate in all weather conditions, but can they take off and land in them?
I don't agree that the BBs would have been worthless in Iraq. The most direct comparison would be the work they did in the first war with Iraq, both as attack vehicles and decoys.
At the close of WWII, the Navy had built the Alaska class battleship, which was faster, better armored and more stable than the Iowas. They were the Alaska, Guam and Hawaii. None was ever cokpleted because the conventional wisdom was that air power made the battleship obsolete. Had they been built, it's quite possible they would have fired the opening rounds in Desert Storm.
A follow-on to the Iowa class was the Montana class battleships, all of which were scrapped before the war ended. These ships were to have double the AAA capability of the Iowa while still retaining the 16" guns. These ships were believed to have been constructed specifically to take nuclear power plants, if and when they became feasible. The older oil-fired or electric turbine systems (whichever they would have used) would simply have been replaced with a nuc reactor.
Also, the last battle ship built was the Russian Kirov class, in the 1970's, which is regarded as more of a battle cruiser. It used anti-ship missiles in place of a main battery of guns and was nuclear powered.
The "BBs are Dead" gang reminds me of the gang that has been writing the obituary for the tank...for the last 40 years.
Correct...I mixed up Baltimore and Cleveland classes...My apologies...
Hey, I am a soldier, not a sailor.
When you fire rockets, or guns, on a ship the ship tends to roll, making it difficult to get follow-on rounds on target. Unfortunately, there is no way, at the present, to completly solve this problem. Stabilizers and achoring might work, but it's not a certainty. There wa salso the problem of setting fire to the launching platform.
Modern ship-launched missiles have a booster rocket which merely flings the projectile to a safe distance before the main rocket engine ignites. Launching MLRS-type rockets from a boat is a recipe for serious ship-board-fires.
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