They are sixty-five years old.
I am certain that we need fast BBs for the Straits of Hormuz and other close-in combat situations.
The question is not why don't we keep the Iowa class. The question is, why don't we build the Montana class?
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.
Esactly, anti-ship missiles are designed to take out thin-hulled ships with speed and accuracy. It would take a torpedo to hurt a battleship.
They were JUST as effective in Desert Storm.
That's just it. It's not whether it is the most cost-effective platform. It's about DETERRENT. The 16 inch guns don't knock down buildings like a cruise missile. They knock down neighborhoods.
Better to scare the enemy into submitting than trying to fight them piece-meal.
The Sheffield was a destroyer.
They are sixty-five years old.
I am certain that we need fast BBs for the Straits of Hormuz and other close-in combat situations.
The question is not why don't we keep the Iowa class. The question is, why don't we build the Montana class?
Horse manure. We don't lack the ability, only the will.
The HMS Sheffield was aluminum. The Belgrano was the old USS Phoenix, a light cruiser of WWII vintage.
(I love good Navy ship porn)
Battleships were close to obsolete by the end of World War 2.
They are monumentally expensive to maintain and they all needed significant upgrades by the time we retired the final BBs....
Maybe we can come up with a new class of ship, but bringing back the old ones isn't in the cards.
The record of history is that naval gunfire support is ineffective against hardened defensive sites.
At Normandy, at Tawara, at Iwo Jima, the enemy poped up after the fire ended and killed many soldiers and Marines.
The preparation was sound and fury but accomplished little besides giving Marines a false sense of security.
My comment was only to point out just how tough our equipment is. :-)
Don't you think that the Chicoms and Ruskies said, "Uh-oh!" when the San Fran rammed a mountain then sailed home on its own?
Hang on there just a second...
The NGFS support provided by the "small boys" is still pretty good stuff...Maybe not the bang we'd like to see, but for the buck, I am sure there are a few Marines that love what is provided these days...
At least when we were just off the beach...I dunno about the pups these days...I hope they still practice it...
Yeah, but like my grandfather used to say:
"Age and treachery, will win over youth and skill everytime!"
Plus, I just figure its cooler to have an 11" advantage in caliber than a lot of other stuff out there these days...
I'm sure there would be no "real" complaints in the Corp in that regard...
Heck, yeah it got their attention! Given the fatal incompetence of the Chicom submarine force in the recent Golf II incident and the terrible state of maintenance in parts of the Russian fleet (along with the Kursk accident), they probably count themselves lucky every time one of their submarines surfaces after diving!
However this situation won't last forever (especially with the Chinese) and it is up to us to capitalize on the opportunity while it still exists by developing (and building in suffficent quantities) new classes of really superb naval combatants.
Not sure how (or even if) a modernized fast, big gun, heavily armored ship fits into that equation. Would love to see it though. There is nothing like a battleship for pure military sex appeal (Freudian pun intended).
The 5" guns are gone, but the gals and the coed heads are in. Quite and improvement, huh?
I'm glad my EAOS was up right before that happened.
That's a good question. When George P Bush runs for something perhaps nonmilitary service among perfectly capable young men will become an issue. I for one hope it does.
As a side note, after the September 11th attacks Duncan Hunter's son quit his job as an electrical engineer and is now a Marine Corps Artillery Captain. John McCain's son is a Marine as well. John Klines son is in the service along with a handful of young men from (mostly republican) congressman's families.
It has a lot to do with how a family brings up their young men. If you are a McCain, Kline or Hunter you take one option. If you are a Sununu or Romney or (you fill in the family)...you take another.
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