Posted on 09/18/2006 7:41:46 PM PDT by neverdem
On Dec. 4, 1983, 28 aircraft from the USS Independence Carrier Battle Group attacked Hezbollah and Syrian anti-aircraft positions in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Two U.S. Navy A-7s were lost on the mission and a third aircraft was damaged. One of the downed pilots died of wounds in captivity and the other, Lt. Robert Goodman, was taken prisoner and paraded before the cameras. Though Lt. Goodman was eventually released, the U.S. Navy had learned a hard lesson.
Ten days later, U.S. reconnaissance flights were fired on again -- but this time the response was different. Instead of launching air strikes, the battleship USS New Jersey opened fire -- and with just 11 2,700-pound, 16-inch rounds, silenced the anti-aircraft sites. This feat was repeated on Feb. 8, 1984, when Syrian artillery opened fire on Christian West Beirut -- inflicting heavy civilian casualties. Less than two hours of fire from the New Jersey's 16-inch guns eliminated the Syrian artillery threat. It wouldn't be the last time the World War II-era "battlewagons" would serve our national interests.
During the 1981-1988 Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollahs running Tehran decided the best way to influence the outcome of the conflict was to attack Western oil tankers transiting the Persian Gulf -- through which passes 20 percent of the world's oil. The United States responded by beefing up the 5th Fleet -- and deploying the USS Iowa. The battleship's captain, Larry Sequist, described the effectiveness of the 45,000-ton armored behemoth: "When we would sail the Iowa down the Strait of Hormuz, all southern Iran would go quiet. Iran's Revolutionary Guards were steaming around in boats with rockets, shooting at ships. When we arrived, all of that stuff stopped."
When Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the battleship Wisconsin was among the first capital ships to arrive in the Persian Gulf. By the time Operation Desert Storm concluded on Feb. 28, 1991, the Wisconsin and her sister battleship, USS Missouri, had delivered more than 1 million pounds of ordnance on the enemy from their 16-inch guns, Tomahawk TLAM-C cruise missiles and 5-inch gun batteries. Fire from the battleships was so overwhelming that an Iraqi garrison actually surrendered to one of the USS Wisconsin's unmanned aerial vehicles.
Despite the effectiveness of the vessels in modern warfare -- and pleas from the U.S. Marine Corps to retain them for Naval Surface Gunfire Support -- two of the four battleships, the New Jersey and the Missouri, were decommissioned and turned into floating museums. Until now, however, Congress has insisted that the Wisconsin and Iowa be maintained in "a state of readiness" for "rapid reactivation" in the "event of a national emergency."
But all that may be about to change. A House-Senate Conference Committee is now considering lifting the requirement that the last two "heavy gun" ships in the allied arsenal be kept ready for action. Apparently the lessons of recent history have been lost on the administration -- and perhaps even in the corridors of Congress -- despite new threats from Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and interfere with shipping in the Persian Gulf.
Just three weeks ago, Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval craft attacked a Romanian oil rig, assaulted the offshore platform and briefly took the crew hostage before evicting them. And last week, as President Bush was preparing to remind the world of the threat posed by Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a cheering crowd of supporters that "Iran has the ability to control the flow of oil the world needs."
Given the Jihad being waged against the West in much of the Islamic littoral, Iranian "saber rattling" and the lack of any replacement for the well-protected firepower of the Wisconsin and Iowa, turning them into floating museums now seems foolhardy. Yet, according to the green-eyeshade procurement wizards at the Pentagon, the two remaining battleships are too old, too expensive to operate and too costly in crew size to be deployed.
Instead of keeping the heavily-armored battlewagons maintained and ready, the brass at the five-sided puzzle palace and big spenders on Capitol Hill want the Marines to bide their time until 2012, when the Navy says it will deploy seven new DDG-1000 class destroyers -- at $3.3 billion apiece. These slower, thin-skinned vessels are to be equipped with an unproven Advanced Gun System designed to fire rounds weighing only 63 pounds but costing nearly $100,000 each. Even if the new ships eventually perform as advertised by their promoters, that's scant solace to the soldier or Marine who needs naval gunfire support at any point during the next six years.
People in Washington who ought to know better -- like Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee -- have turned a deaf ear to the plight of the Marines. Thankfully, a handful of stalwarts led by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., have taken up the cause of preserving the Wisconsin and Iowa as mobilization assets. He believes that keeping the battlewagons ready to fight will save American lives. He's right.
"Don't know about the price, but the DDG-1000's AGS throws the LRLAP, a 250 lb munition with a 25 lb charge that is guided up to 90 nm to a precise kill 1 sq meter. Cyclic rate of 6 rnd per minute...That beats the reach and precision of a 16 inch at only 26 miles"
It does not, however, beat the volume of fire from an IOWA class. Not even remotely close.
I do believe the hulls should be recycled.
Well, unfortunately and sometimes things like a nuke submarine runnning head-on into an underwater mountain at almost 40 MPH then makes it back to port on its own.....kinda gives them an indication as to how strong.
For the most part, modern anti-ship missles would hardly SCRATCH the Wisc...
They just don't carry a large enough warhead to do much damage to armour plate, and modern anti-missle systems could make it VERY expensive to take on out...
Remember, it took ALL DAY for Air Forces to knock out the Yamato, and then it was destroyed by an internal explosion from fires, rather than bomb damage...
And a crew well-trained in damage control procedures, and with proper equipment could probabl;y have avoided that!
The Bushido Code prevented many Japanese from even considering damage control seriously, as that was considered a sign of defeat.....
Reminder to self: Always be nice to interrogatorgirl. :-)
"it's actually a much smaller explosion than a routine sort of bomb dropped by pretty much any Air Force or Naval aircraft"
NEVER, EVER forget the moral effect of Volkwagens flying over your head.
Against the SOVIETS, the BB would be toast. Against 1-shot wonders like Iran, they would be a potent and formidable weapon, able to respond FASTER to in-range threats than any Carrier..
Binny pops up in a coastal village square, and it disappears a few minutes later...
We'll have a little more to worry about than one battleship if we're facing any adversaries that can field 300 aircraft essentially unopposed over the Iowa today.
But you just wanted to use masturbatory in a sentence didn't you? ;-)
How did the anti-spam program work for you?
"the DDG-1000's AGS throws the LRLAP, a 250 lb munition with a 25 lb charge that is guided up to 90 nm to a precise kill 1 sq meter. Cyclic rate of 6 rnd per minute"
Updating the Fire Control systems with something resembling Crusader...
The possibilities for such a platform are ENDLESS, especially with modern artillery improvements, but if we kill the platform, we'll NEVER know what the potential could have been, will we??
FACE IT, in the Modern America we have today, projects of the is size and scale simply are not possible anymore. Besides the cost, the politics would be a nightmare.
Just look at what's happened with a bridge in Aalska that could have opened up an entire REGION to development, while a highway INTERCHANGE in Indiana gets a 2 BILLION dollar redo, and no one whines...
Bottom line: If they kill it, it's gone FOREVER...
Somethings just can't be helped. Far preferable to entirely losing the ship and crew.
Same comment applies in the case of the U.S.S. Cole, I imagine. Modern U.S. combatant, large amount of explosive delivered directly against the hull, dozens killed or wounded, extensive damage to the ship, ship doesn't sink, recovered, repaired, returned to duty. All on video tape.
Recently, we sank one of our amphibious "big decks." in a series of attacks from various missiles and set charges. (I should note that these sinkings are an opportunity to gather empirical performance data to validate ship design, so not all of the attacks/explosions were intended to fatally wound the ship. But if it happens, it happens.) After two days, it remained afloat even though there was no crew aboard to do damage control. Finally sunk at the end of Day Two with pre-set demolition charges. Sunk in very deep water for obvious reasons. Video tape of her final moments is up on the Internet somewhere. (Can't take time find the link at the moment but I will post it to you later today when I do.)
Prettiest thing I ever saw was standing outside on the foc'sle (front deck area) of the destroyer I was on at quarters...One bright and beautiful crisp morning off of the San Clemente Island gunnery range...The water was glass smooth, the air was still, just an absolute great day to be out there ready to blow something up...
The D.O. (Division Officer) was reading the plan of the day to us, and since we were due to move onto the range in short order (I was in Operations, and our job was to coordinate and run the NGFS practice that day)...Our wonderful IC rates (internal comm guys) had the NGFS range frequency piped inot the speakers outside for us to listen to the radio calls from the Marines practicing their trade calling in fire missions...
Since we knew what was going on, and could understand what the guys were talking about on the net...We would pause every now and then to listen in...
About 2000 yards (about a mile) away from us...The New Jersey was coming online and was getting their first practice call for fire...It was a "beach prep" type mission...Being that far away we thought would be kinda neat to see first hand what one of those would look like...
Since we had only a couple of 5 inch guns on our ship, we thought we would only see a 5 inch precision type beach prep volley from them (New Jersey)...Those gun crews need a little work every now and then too!
We were horribly wrong...
We saw all three 16 inch gun mounts traverse to the beach on San Clemente, and within a few seconds hearing the radio talker on the New Jersey give off the gun target line, time of flight, etc etc...
With a flash, and a big billowing cloud of smoke, a nine gun salvo was on the way...
A second later (watching the concussion wave rolling towards us) the shock wave hit us...
It was one of the most incredible things I ever saw in my life and career in the Navy...
Absolutely brought a tear to my eye! I would not want even to be in a neighboring county on the receiving end of one of those!
When they decommissioned all of them "again!"...I thought it was a big mistake...At least keep a couple of them online and deployable...We sat down one day and figured out what the daily operating cost of just one was...No big deal considering what we run on the water these days...
Once again it appears that our government is making a big mistake again in not keeping something like this, which in its history project power, intimidates, and can deliver something that is truely feared and respected by our enemies even today...
I actually believe they would save us money in the long run...
To some it may look like vanity, and living in the past...
But those ships, and many of its type both friend and foe do something obviously extra when you see them parked off your beach, and you may not have warm feelings about it...
Be somewhere else...Stop what you are doing for it to be there...
A very simple concept...And to me one worth every dollar it took to get that reaction...
And if you didn't...Oh well...sigh...The gene pool needed purging anyway...
Goat killer
Come on now...You know you said that with love in yer heart!
Bubbleheads need love too!
Not that I am (or ever would consider being) a Bubblehead...;-)
baaaaaaaaaahhaahahaaaaa...
;-)
You know what I'm talkin' 'bout!
hehehe
Made one trip there in 84 on some combined excercise with a Canadian infantry company. Fogged in so we didn't do much, we did lose a CH-53E and a 5 ton truck into Davy Jones locker. I don't think they even tried to recover the crew, but I don't know for sure.
That was almost 40 years ago.
Yes, the Air Craft Carrier is the heart of the modern fleet.. .but NOTHING projects raw power, or strikes fear into despots like an Iowa Class Battleship floating on the Horizon.
The US should not retire the Iowa class until a modern replacement has been built.
A full broadside of the Iowa Class is a thing of beauty...
At night even moreso..when it goes from pitch black.... to dailight instantaneously.... you just cannot comprehend unless you've seen it.
THe battlewagons give the US Complete ownership of everything from the coast to 20 miles inland at will. There is no counter defense to a 16" shell.
16" combined with a remote drone for targeting, and if you can find em, you eliminate em... period.
During Iraq War I, enemy surrendered on sight to our drones... once word got around what followed. If you saw a drone, you were sure to either have a 16" barrage or a Tomahawk shortly thereafter.
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