Posted on 06/18/2005 5:32:42 AM PDT by SLB
The Navy wants to let go of its last two battleships. But a group called the United States Naval Fire Support Association is doing its best to torpedo that plan. Both sides are firing salvos across newspaper op-ed pages.
The issue: Does a weapon that was born in the 19th century and came to maturity in the 20th century still have a role in the 21st?
The answer could well decide whether the battleships Iowa and Wisconsin rejoin the fleet-in-being - or whether they'll join their sister ships Missouri and New Jersey as floating museums to an age gone by.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Because we haven't been in a shooting war with an ememy with the ability, .... yet.
If you believe that the enemy is stupid enough to nuke themselves.
Your point is that the close proximity of the BB makes it vulnerable to nukes but that means the enemy nukes itself.
Armchair logistics with no relation to reality.
"Even if you extend the offensive radius to 115 miles, you are still limited by a slow moving platform that must move into the teeth of shore-based missile and air defenses."
If your offensive capabilities are out of the range of shore based defenses then you hit them before they can hit you. The offensive capability of BB is not just limited to its guns but its missiles and its excorts capabilities. You are making an assumption that this platform would be the sole attacking platform in a littoral operation. The defenses you are speaking about would probably long be destroyed by both cruise missile and air attack like any other fortified area. Our armed forces destroyed Sadam's Fortress Kuwait in a systematic fashion utilizing multiple systems. I don't see that changing much today.
Which is it?
The BB's would attract nukes so we shouldn't use them.
We are not in a shooting war with an anemy with that ability.
So why not use the BB's?
Well I guess that put an end to discussion.
The cannon and the rifle were developed somewhere around the 1500's and use basicly the same technology now, five hundred years later.
No it doesn't put an end to anything other than ridicilous
theories that sound good but don't make it out of the family room where the computer is.
I agree strongly with you about a combination of things. A BB would only be another tool or option that the force commander has at his disposal.
Well that's what I heard from a guy who knows a guy who had a brother who was in the Navy once. Ha ha.
Of course Battleships could still have a use, but weighing that use against their target value is a decision already made by the top Navy planners. The Battleships lost.
No, but I am making the assumption that the BB needs to operate in a fairly low-intensity 21st Century enviornment.
For example, current thinking would position carrier battle groups to the east of Taiwan in any defense of Taiwan and any entry into the Straights of Taiwan in wartime is considered extremely risky.
So, as I understand the reasoning, the 21st Century use of the BB would be as a gun platform in a low-intensity enviornment where the enemy missile defenses and airpower have been neutralized.
In addition, its use would be limited to targets far away from any town or urban area since it is guaranteed that any shell landing within 25 miles of a populated area would score a direct hit on a "Hospital" or "Orpahage" or "Baby Milk Factory" and the footage of mangled children (which CNN keeps stock footage of ready to transmit at 30 seconds notice) would be all over the World's TV screens by dinner time.
So, it seems to me that, in the 21st Century, using the BB for littoral bombardment is like using a glass sledgehammer to kill flies in a china shop.
"Aircraft" and "battleships" are not analogous.
"Aircraft" would be analogous to "sea-going vessels".
A "battleship" is only a technological stage in the evolution of warships and that evolution has been progressing for thousands of years.
The question is not whether sea-going vessels have a future but if time and technology have made the battleship join the trireme and the triple-decker in the dust bin of history.
No. I asked a legitimate question based on having 2 BBs.
How do we provide sustainable firepower with what we currently have in inventory in a third theater of war? The question is to provoke some thought at what might me a very valid concern and in the not too distant future -- Pacific operations and the Gulf.
I suspect that good old American creativity will come up with something to meet the threat even if not ideal.
What you said was a scenario of as many as eight(or more) fronts. Post #111.
It is always possible to conjure up a scenario that completely overwhelms us no matter what we do. However that is way outside of reality.
The only real front we have now, or for the next ten years at least, is islamic terrorism using states wherever they can to try to defeat us by a thousand cuts and if possible one or two major hits.
If the two BB's can eliminate their gaining strength or sponsorship by some state and thereby diminish the cuts and the major hits, why not use them.
There has been many reports of the al-qaeda "navy" hidden somewhere.
Two battle groups in different areas could very effectively eliminate that threat.
That seems like a great idea.
Granted a carrier group could do the same but why not leave the carrier groups to the battles they are fighting now.
I think you're on to something.
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