Save the battlewagons

townhall.com ^ | April 15,2005 | Oliver North

[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.

[Gumlegs]

Aside from all the Technical and tactical stuff, SEEING the BB's and KNOWING they are as capable as they look sends a big message: Mess with this nation at your own peril!!!!

A neighbor of mine was a gunnery officer aboard USS New Jersey in the Korean War. He said they sailed into a North Korean harbor, dropped anchor, and then started blasting away at anything that got their attention.

[SampleMan]

Other than a photo op, their isn't a good reason to run a BB with a CVN. It serves no tactical purpose. In any case the photo you posted is just a photo op. The BBs had their own surface action groups, while CVNs can barely see a single escort a good deal of the time.

The BB provides no air umbrella and no ASW protection. Having it run with a CVN strike group just makes no sense.

[ww2eto]

What punishment? It only took a lucky hit from a British plane to disable the Bismarck by knocking out her steering. She went in circles until all those "400 shells etc." sank her.

[Gumlegs]

Other than a photo op, their isn't a good reason to run a BB with a CVN. It serves no tactical purpose. In any case the photo you posted is just a photo op.

I know I should believe you rather than my lyin' eyes, but I've managed to track down the photo in question. It can be found on page 278 of "Battleship Missouri An Illustrated History," by Paul Stillwell. That's Missouri in the lead, followed by Ranger (not a CVN, but probably a CVA at the time -- it's hard to remember with all the different designations the carriers had), and then Long Beach. It's identified as "Battle Group Sierra," steaming in the North Arabian sea in 1987. It strikes me as a tad unlikely for the Navy to assemble a battle group in the North Arabian sea soley for a publicity shot.

On page 298 of the same book is a photo of Missouri captioned thusly: "The Missouri steams as part of a battle group formation during PacEx '89 in October of 1989. The New Jersey is at left; the carrier Enterprise is just beyond the Missouri's foremast."

"Battleship New Jersey An Illustrated History," also by Mr. Stillwell, has on page 256 a photo captioned, "The New Jersey steams as part of the carrier Midway's battle group in the Western Pacific in July 1982."

Not that the Navy is above the good publicity stunt now and then, but the example I posted was not one of those.

The BBs had their own surface action groups, while CVNs can barely see a single escort a good deal of the time.

BBs indeed had their own surface action groups, but they were also used as needed for other purposes. I suspect the groups with the carriers were examples of the latter.

Regarding CVNs barely seeing a single escort a good deal of the time, you're simply wrong. True, they don't ordinarily steam in the tight formation pictured (that much is for the photo op), but I served aboard USS Chicago (CG-11) in the early to mid-70s, and we provided escort services for Kitty Hawk and Constellation, IIRC. We saw the carriers up close and personal. Once, in fact, our OOD missed a signal to turn, and the carrier's flight deck d*mn near cut off our superstructure.

The BB provides no air umbrella and no ASW protection. Having it run with a CVN strike group just makes no sense.

The carrier provides the air umbrella and the cans provide the ASW protection. You might just as well complain that the carrier provides no ASW and the cans provide no air cover.

[Rockpile]

I work with a guy who was on Chicago in the early 70s. He was an electrician.

Talked to a fellow a few years ago who spent 5 years on Missouri--late 80s-early 90s. One thing he told me I thought interesting was that in bad weather that the escorts could not keep up with the BB. Also, Missouri had something like 15,000 miles worth of fuel at cruising speeds and was able I think to refuel it's escorts.

[Gumlegs]

I work with a guy who was on Chicago in the early 70s. He was an electrician.

Jeez, small world. His name isn't Mike Borio, is it?

Your observations about the seaworthiness of the BBs vs the smaller escorts are correct as far as I know. But it's not really surprising, because the big ships were intended to be stable firing platforms. That would tend to make them more stable under all conditions.

I've seen Gulf War era photos of the Iowas refueling their escorts, but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

[Rockpile]

"Jeez, small world. His name isn't Mike Borio, is it?"

No, different guy. I know that the BBs will never be back but there is a definite need for gunfire support if we ever have to face an opposed landing. What are they gonna do--shoot howitzers from the decks of the amphibious ships?

You know, something else that may not be unthinkable would be advances in railgun or directed energy weapons that could perhaps hit missiles amd aircraft in flight. Be trickier to shoot down a salvo of artillery shells.

[DarthVader]

The Bismarck may not have been sunk by the British but been scuttled by her own crew. What point are you trying to prove? Muse this: Had those other BB's ran out of fuel or gave up the chase, the Bismarck would have been towed home, given a hero's welcome (for sinking the Hood and pummeling the Prince of Wales) and had her damage/defects repaired. What propaganda does that give the Nazis? She may have then sortied again with her sister Tirpitz or with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and maybe the War in the Atlantic turns out different. We are fortunate that the KGV and Rodney got to her. If she didn't sink she was so badly damaged and finished as a fighting ship.

German armored ships throughout history have been of stout construction. Nearly all of their heavy units survived severe attack or were tough to destroy. Many of their captital ships at the WWI Battle of Jutland survived shellings that would have sent many other ships to Davy Jones locker. Do some research and see what happened to the battlecruiser SMS Seydlitz and see the condition she was in when she returned Wilhelmshaven after the battle. The Bismarck is simply a product of the naval engineering school of thought and culture that the Germans followed. Their designs for the most part were sucessful, technically sound and survivable.

[Light Speed]

My dad has 13 bothers---7 of whom served in the Navy--and one of whom was aboard USS OBERRENDER

Thanks for sharing that....and by the way...invite to do vanity post on your family's naval history.....very much welcomed here : )

Learned alot about DE 344 and her sister Butler Class from Orange Texas...USS Abercrombie DE 343 while researching USS Isherwood DD-520, a Fletcher..named after a family member[Civil war period].

Obie and Abercrombie ...part of Taffy 2 at Leyte.

Obie had a close call in Manus....parked just 1100 yrds from Mount Hood.

Navy repaired her in a few weeks at Manus...Obie was ready for Lingayen...and the Kamikaze gauntlet run.

Later...Okinawa.

There was several really scarry places to get assigned Ping line or Radar Picket...one series of grid stations south of IE Shima were deadly for drawing Kamikazes.
Ie Shima's high volcanic mountain...looking alot like Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
The Japanese pilots would use the peak as a refpoint to break out and vector.
Alot of Cans and DE's got it in these stations...or just barely survived their rotation periods.
USS Isherwood was on call fire on April 16th..downed a Kamikaze that snuck in aft on USS Texas.
minutes later...they were sent flank speed to the meatgrinder unfolding out on RP 12 area.
USS Pringle responding to USS Laffey was lost.
DD-520 stood USS Laffey's RP for the next 4 days.

After resupply in Kerrama Rhetto...they went out to A34A where Obie was hit....and barely got out themselves.....40 killed/42 wounded.
A day or so later...some of USS Isherwood crew were killed when the Hospital ship USS Pinkney was suicided.
The Kamikaze tore deep inside Pickney..wiping out several operating theatres.
Isherwood suffered the same fate as Obie in a way.
The kamikaze was disintegrating from hits...yet the velocity and angle ment the wreckage would still hit.

USS Oberrender

They sure packed alot punch into the Bulter Class DEs. : )

[Gumlegs]

That Bismark's own crew may have helped send her to the bottom is a classic distinction without a difference. According to Burkhard Bron van Mullenheim-Rechberg (and "Mullenheim" should have an umlaut over the "u", but I don't know how to do that), in "Battleship Bismark A Survivor's Story," by the end of the engagement, Bismark didn't have a functioning weapons system left. He was in a position to know, being an officer in one of the main batteries and personal adjunct to the captain. With Bismark incapable of self-defense, the British would simply have used her for target practice until she did sink.

It's a great book, by the way. Have you read it? You sound like you'd be interested. IIRC, the good Baron repeats the story of the crew attempting to scuttle her, but doesn't know whether there's anything to it.

While Bismark's escape might have been a great propaganda victory for Germany, I doubt that it would have done much to alter the course of the War in the Atlantic. Hitler had little-to-no understanding of naval warfare, and there's no reason to believe he wouldn't have found a way to waste one more asset.

[Light Speed]

Watched a documentary on Bismarck ...a British group...intent on proving the Royal Navy did infact sink her.
Bismarck had several large fracture tears....the debate...wether these occured from the hull slamming the saefloor..or from torpedo hits.
There was one area which really appeared to be a torp hit from the angular fracture of the hull plating.
It was big....Bismarck may have had men attempting to scuttle her.
likley...the water volume pouring in margined the R.N. beat them to the punch.

Bismarcks sister...the Tirpitz recieved alot of attention in fall 43.
USS Isherwood and a U.S. battlegroup joined up with a R.N. battlegroup at Scapa Flow...and went to get her.
I imagine German intel had the lay of it..and margined to tuck Tirpitz away in a Fiord.
A couple of bluejackets from DD520 shared with me at a reunion that they were scared indeed at the prospect of facing Tirpitz...glad she hid in the Fiord.
The weather around Spitzbergen was really nasty....with Luftwaffe out and about....plus subs.
Afterwards,...DD-520 became Flag of Des Div 98....keep the cold weather gear....your off to the Aluetians in the Pacific.

[DarthVader]

I would love to read BMR's book. It's like I said she was finished as a fighting ship and was a wreck. I doubt that if she remained afloat that the British would have stayed for target practice:

1) The British fleet was dangerously low on fuel and the main reason Tovey had the Dorsetshire torpedo her is he was aware of the situation and wanted to get out of there and get back to Scapa Flow.

2) The threat of U-boats. Tovey's fleet was not that far from German occupied France and there was a reasonable threat from the submarines or even possibly the Luftwaffe. Tovey's task force was critical to the British navy and he was not going to risk his assets on standing by too long and falling into a wolfpack trap. Had that happened victory would have turned to disaster.

" Hitler had little-to-no understanding of naval warfare, and there's no reason to believe he wouldn't have found a way to waste one more asset"

Good point about the little corporal's ineptitude with naval matters. Hitler was gun shy over the loss of the Graf Spee. Yes but such a victory might have emboldened him or even Group West into another operation. At the time the German raiders and U-boats were quite sucessful. The S/G raid which Gunther Lutgens commanded had bagged 22 ships.
They could have easily sent 4 heavy units out in any combination, Had they done this at this time it could very well effect the war, from a psychological standpoint alone. That's why the sinking of the Bismarck was critical. It made Hitler even more gunshy to use his assets and thus eliminated a threat that the Allies did not have to accountr for as vigorously as they had too.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Somewhere out there is an overhead picture of the old USS Missisippi toward the end of the war. Both sides of the main deck are lined with A.A. gun tubs; unbelieveable how much iron that old ship could put up into the air.

Regards,

[Gumlegs]

This exchange is sharpening my memory. Thank you. The Baron's book is a great read, and his attitude very much reminded me of the aristocrats pictured in "The Grand Illusion."

Another excellent book on the subject is "The Bismark Chase New Light on a Famus Engagement," by Robert J. Windlareth.

The Brits were pretty intent on sinking Bismark, which is the source of my target practice crack. Didn't they have another cruiser or two shadowing her? Target practice can involve torpedoes as well as gunfire.

I'm aware of the Luftwaffe and fuel problems. They're factors that made the task so urgent. And British fear of German subs was a big reason so few men survived the Bismark. Mullenheim-Rechberg was picked up by Dorsetshire and actually protested to her Captain when the cruiser suddenly left the scene in the middle of the rescue. (The Captain gave him a scotch. The ability to booze it up while in the middle of battle is an advantage the Brits still retain over us). There had been what the British believed was a submarine sighting, and they weren't about to loiter.

I suspect that had Bismark survived, further German operations would more likely have been more of the same -- a single big ship with an escort or two, acting as commerce raiders -- rather than concentrating his assets into anything resembling a cohesive force. Of course, that's just conjecture on my part. And I'm d*mn glad it is.

[Gumlegs]

Well, I found this one:

I would NOT have wanted to be in one of those 40mm gun tubs near turret 3 when the big guns were in operation.

The description of this shot in Friedman's "U.S. Battleships An Illistrated Design History," says it's 1945 and the ship has 16 5in/25s and 12quad 40mm.

[DarthVader]

Total British Forces that engaged Bismarck in combat or as an escort for its destruction:

Battleships - King George V (e), Rodney (e), Ramilles, Revenge, Prince of Wales (e)

Aircraft Carriers - Victorious (e), Ark Royal (e), Furious, Implacable, Indefatigable, Fencer, Nabob, Searcher, Pursuer, Trumpeter

Battlecruisers - Hood (e), Renown, Repulse

Heavy Cruisers - Norfolk,Suffolk,Dorsetshire,London (all e)

Light Cruisers - Manchester(e), Hermoine, Sheffield (e), Neptune (e), Arethusa, Edinburgh, Galatea, Birmingham, Aurora

Destroyers - Achates, Antelope, Anthony, Echo, Somali, Eskimo, Nestor, Jupiter, Electra, Icarus, Active, Inglefield
Intrepid, Assiniboine, Saguenay, Lance, Legion, Columbia
Punjabi, Winsor, Mashona, Cossack, Sikh, Zulu, Maori
Piorun (Polish), Tartar, Faulknor, Foresight, Forester, Foxhound, Fury, Hesperus (Tribals engaged Bismarck as class)

As you can see they had nearly the whole Royal Navy after her. They knew the morale problems that would happen if the Bismarck returned to port. Another great book is Pursuit by Ludovic Kennedy.

I bet had the Bismarck survived, Raeder would have sent at least two to three groups of ships as task groups.

Group 1: Bismarck or Tirpitz with Admiral Scheer or Lutzow
Group 2:Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

plus 1 heavy, 2 light and four to six destroyers as escorts per group.

To send these ships out at the same time would have created bedlam with the Home Fleet. With their Fleet in Being concept it would have given them great versatility.

[SampleMan]

I'll stand by my photo op assertion. As for 1982, the New Jersey would have just been recommissioned and thus they hadn't put together its SAG.

I'm not the all knowing source of the universe, but in nine years of flying from the Kennedy, the Eisenhower, and the Kitty Hawk, I never saw an escort come up close (inside 5 nm) unless it was unrepping or doing a photo op. Usually, they were much farther out. I understand that it had been customary to use them as plane guards in the past, but we always used a helo for plane guard.

My point about the BB not having a tactical role in a CVN strike group is that it serves no good purpose. You can attach any ship you want to a strike group, but the Navy usually likes to have a reason. This isn't to say that the CVN strike group wouldn't be tasked with air cover for the SAG, but the BB will require DDGs or CGs to provide protection. If you put it in the CVN strike group, you then must take ships away from guarding the CV or you must run the BB in close proximity to the CV. The latter is counter productive, as the BB must be close to the shore to use its guns, while the CV does not desire to be that close. The BB can launch Tomahawk, but the CG can launch more of them. It would make far more sense to attach it to an amphib group.

Like I said, I'm not the ultimate source of all knowledge, but if you've got a good tactical reason to run a BB with a CV, I'm all ears.

[Gumlegs]

I understand that it had been customary to use them as plane guards in the past, but we always used a helo for plane guard.

Could be we're talking about different periods. I was on board Chicago from '73 to '76. Like I said, we had a near miss with Kitty Hawk (I think it was the Kitty. I know it was a near miss). I don't believe an unrep was involved. As far as I know, we never did anything like that with a carrier -- only various supply ships.

The BB can provide a considerable amount of defensive fire, even in a carrier battle group. As for air ops vs. shore bombardment, that would be an excellent reason to have different groups.

We could well have a couple of more-or-less ad-hoc situations pictured, but there they are.

[SampleMan]

CVN's have a lot of extra space, so it isn't uncommon for small boys to urep fuel from them.

What do you see as the added defensive capabilities that the BB would provide? It certainly has a lot of anti-surface capability inside of gun range, but that is of very limited value (yet great in the right situation). I don't think they ever mounted even a short range SAM, and the Phalanx can't provide much in the way of supporting firepower.

In exactly the right situation, I could see a CV being tasked with setting up an umbrella to protect a BB. Say you really needed to pound the coastal area, or perhaps wanted to force a seaway, where you expect to be fired on, but want to minimize losses. But in a modern environment, the air wing could certainly deliver an enormous amount of bombs on target as well, instead of flying CAP.

Again, I'm not professing to be the final authority on this. I was curious as to what the tactical benefit would be, as I couldn't see much. I appreciate your inputs. I hope you find some value in mine.

[Gumlegs]

Of course I find value in what you post; it's why I'm responding. You're speaking from experience, too, which is all too rare in this sort of conversation.

The BBs would need some reconfiguration to provide the kind of defensive capabilities they did in WWII, but I believe this can be done at lower cost than building FFs or DDs from the keel up. In addition, the scenario you propose in your paragraph three, "In exactly the right situation ... " is important to consider. I realize this puts the carrier in a rather unaccustomed supporting role, but as long as we're all fighting on the same side ...

And again, I think BBs and CVs operating together would be situation specific, not SOP.

The last time the BBs were used, I believe they too served as oilers for some of the smaller ships in the group.

When were you in, by the way?