Iowa class BB, they don't build them like that today

The crew would be protected by the thick armor, it's a floating blast shelter. The Iowa's have more protection and an underground ICBM missile silo.

 

Sorry but no. Iron and steel are (*)(*)(*)(*) for radiation shielding, and in anycase most of the crew are in the superstructure not inside the armored hull.

And for your information, ICBM missile silo aren't meant to survive. Once their missiles are launched they are of no use to anyone.

Give it up. You dream died in the mid 40's when carrier based plane came into force. No BB would last more than a few hour at most in a modern war theater.

 

Who do you think pays for the Marine Corps ? The Marine Corps falls under the Department of the Navy.

I think it was right after the Marine Corps was called obsolete and that there never would be another amphibious landing again. I think it was called the Inchon landings. That amphibious landing that everyone was saying wouldn't succeed.

Vietnam, trying to remember how many amphibious assaults took place during that war ? 49 seems to stick out but it might have been more. (*)(*)(*)(*) I participated in the last three amphibious assaults conducted in that little war when I was TAD too BLT 1/26 and BLT 2/26.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vietnam2-amphibious.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=q...bious assaults during the vietnam war&f=false

The Falkland Islands, that was an amphibious operation.

The last amphibious assault ??? That would have to have happened in 2003 during the Iraq war. When U.S. Marines and Royal Marines staged a successful midnight amphibious assault on the Al-Faw peninsula.

The runways have already been built but the concrete keeps coming. U.S. intelligence has already came to the conclusion last month that the chi-coms are turning the islands into defensive fortresses not as offensive forward bases. That's why I provided the link too NSFS missions of the battle of Iwo Jima. Remember ? -> http://www.allworldwars.com/Iwo-Jima-Naval-Gunfire-Support.html

Now resorting to nuclear war is no different than when liberals no longer have an argument and they yell racist and play the race card.

The main mission of the Iowa's was providing NSFS.

They are also capable of surface warfare where the Arleigh Burke's are nothing more than oversize AA / ASW escorts.

But here's why the Soviets gut their red diapers all soiled over when the Reagan administration activated the Four Iowa class battleships.

 

That's very impressive. I had no idea they were that well armored.

Lots of odd comments in posts about missiles, guns are obsolete, big is a liability. I disagree, something like this battleship could be used effectively. "Big" and particularly with that type of armoring means it can withstand more damage, which means it takes more hits and requires a larger investment (that's not just cost) from the enemy to take it out of action.

Remember the major threat the Iowa was designed for was the 16 inch gun and 2700 lb armor piercing shells which can penetrate 20 inches of armor plate (21 ft of reinforced concrete) - that gun far outperforms modern tactical weapons. One of the posts mentioned Bismark, it was hit by several torpedoes and 100's of shells including many hits by English 16 inch guns, and while it was disabled it didn't actually sink due to gunfire it was scuttled by her crew. I'll bet in a modern war the Iowa would not be a sitting duck at all.

But "big" also says it can carry the means to defend itself, not just in weapons but in EW and ECM and in the sensors required to detect the threats. Modern radar and sensors, modern missiles, modern fire control, can be added. Manpower requirements can be reduced with some automation. The 20 mile range and accuracy of a 16 inch gun can be extended with modern precision guided shells. The 155mm Excalibur precision guided munition has a range well beyond 20 miles, a modern shell and propellant in a 16 inch gun might have a range of 40+ miles, and with pinpoint accuracy.

Or take off the 16 inch guns and use that huge amount of real estate for other weapon systems.

Interesting subject.

 

Wrong about steel and iron, in fact dense armor steel is almost as good as lead in terms of shielding. Also, the majority of the crew are inside the armored belt. A modernized Iowa would have hardly anyone not protected to some degree. Even damage control parties outside the belt would behind STS bulkheads that provide very significant blast protection.

 

It is outright nonsense to claim that the difficult to sink a battleship is the issue. Why not just build thick steel balls filled with nickle-steel hollow balls and float the in the ocean boasting it is unsinkable? It would take little to blind a battleship's fighting capacity beyond line-of-sight without putting a scratch on the hull.

It was not necessary to break a battleship's keel to sink it in WWI.

What has to be proven is that a the cost of building, maintaining and crewing a battleship is 600% more valuable than alternatives, or more accurately, how reducing the Naval force to 1/6th its combat ship size to have battleships makes for a more powerful navy.

 

EVERY Dreadnought type with one exception was destroyed by penetrating the armor belt with the majority of them battlecruisers and not battleships. The modernized Iowa's were formidable ships. In terms of shrugging off battle damage, underwater protection was never as good as protection against shell fire. As I mentioned before, Bismarck was hit 300 to 400 times with heavy caliber shells with less than a half dozen penetrations of the belt armor. The Iowa class was just as tough if not more so. Further there is nothing in the conventional surface to surface inventory of any navy in the world today to penetrate it. Capable ship launched torpedoes just don't exist anymore except in subs. Just remember line of sight for them is a very long way. BTW both the Yamato class battleships took extreme damage and were really sunk because of poor underwater protection design, mainly a centerline bulkhead with failure of the counter flooding measures to absorb shock damage from torpedo damage.

 

This thread demonstrated how dangerous old military personnel are to a nation's national security. Historically, time and again nations fell militarily because they had old, outdated military commanders. The most notable in modern history was the significantly larger French military rapidly falling to the German military in WWII. France still has aged generals from WWI.

Even the study of warships shows the huge tragedy of hanging on to old technology in warships. The resistance to giving up wooden ships. The resistance to giving up sails. The resistance to aircraft carriers.

The British basically lost all of Asia and the USA severely crippled at the beginning of WWII because of the delays in understanding the significance of aircraft carriers, with old Naval military claiming for years that aircraft could never sink a battleship. This thread of old ex military arguing for battleships shows just how dangerous old military personnel are to a nation's security for almost too many reasons to name.

1. Battleships are astronomically expensive to built, maintain and require huge crews. This means to have battleships the size of the combat fleet of the Navy would have to be significantly reduced. Arguing for a still smaller Navy is a terrible idea since primary purposes of the Navy is tranport of military equipment, patrolling and surveillance.

2. These old ex military actually believe the question of a ship's value is its sinkablility avoidance, because they believe big naval guns are aimed visually like looking thru a rifle sight. That method of aiming ceased before WWII. Blinding a battleship is relatively simplistic and does not require hull damage.

3. Big gun ships have no relevancy in the actual rare (and never happens now) at sea battle. The range of the big guns is so limited and battleships being slower than modern missile cruisers would mean the battleship could never even engage the other ships, could not run them down or flee. As a cost and crew factor of equality, it would be 6 fast missile cruisers out against 1 battleship that couldn't even come within range of the cruisers, or 50 aircraft against the 1 battleship, or 2 submarines or a combination of all 3, with those big guns offering no defense whatsoever.

3. Explaining that battleships also can carry missiles becomes pointless circular logic because it does not take a battleship's cost and limitations to have a missile capacity. Submarines are a superior platform for firing sea based missiles.

4. The big guns of a battleship cannot come even within range of 99+% of the world - and that is if you beach the battleship. A battleship couldn't even come within range of some shorelines. For example, A battleship couldn't get within 20 miles of most of the West Coast of Florida, which has a depth decline of about 1 foot per mile, and even less in many areas particularly at low tide.

5. Aircraft can actually see their targets. Battleships can't.

6. Iron bombs are as cheap if not cheaper than artillery shells.

7. Aircraft can reach a battle scene 2000% faster than a battleship. Aircraft are not limited attacking within a few miles of a coastline.

8. Aircraft can hunt and seek out targets and targets of opportunity. Battleships cannot.

9. A battleship cannot sneak up on an opponent. Aircraft can. Missiles can. Submarines can.

10. Battleship's big guns have no relevancy in a military conflict with another major military power. Aircraft become 100% relevant in a conflict with a major military power.

11. There are huge crew and monetary costs for support ships for a battleship, that does not exist for aircraft.

12. Aircraft can be kept safely within the continental USA and still capable of hitting anywhere in the world within a day at the most. Battleships cannot nor can a battleship be hidden. Aircraft from the continental USA can hit anywhere in the ME within 24 hours, and within another 24 hours hit targets on the other side of the world. Most of the USA's bomber fleet (advanced bombers) are stationed in the USA, but can hit anywhere in the world. The view of the Air Force is that their most expensive and critical aircraft is safest 1.) based within the USA and if not 2.) when they are in the air. Aircraft can attack battleships. Battleships can't attack aircraft.

13. A battleship cannot defend itself against a mass missile or aircraft attacks. No ship can. However, the liabilities of losing a battleship are vastly greater than the liability of losing a missile destroyer by a ratio of about 6 to 1.

14. There is no vast to a huge floating hulk that is blinded by destruction of all its sighting and detection equipment, which cannot operate behind inches of nickle-steel.

15. Germany never learned that building a significantly less number of superior equipment is a mistake, most notable in their tank production. Generally, German tanks were vastly superior to American and British tanks, but they weren't 10 times superior, which is about the time and cost difference between a German tank and an American tank. 1 battleship isn't superior to 6 modern missile destroyers or frigates.

15. Every navy in the world would not have abandoned battleships and retired those they had if they were even worth the cost of maintaining. The reasons for doing so are obvious.

16. Battleships can not undertake high risk actions due to the huge number of personnel and monetary lose potential, while drones can be sent on high risk and essentially suicide missions, as can missiles.

17. There is no major conflict potential for which a massive shorelanding invasion is even relevant.

But like old Naval "experts" prior to WWI and even many prior to WWII, they will continue to argue that aircraft could never hurt a battleship. It is pigheaded ignorance, which is not uncommon among old ex military personnel, who bitterly complain against modernization and new tactics. It is disgusting reading such messages and they are a far worse adversary to military national defense even than those who want to dramatically reduce military spending. Old military personnel always oppose any modernization and never stop pretending that are going to fight wars of the past, rather than wars of the future.

 

That's not what this thread was really about. Most of the technology doesn't exist or has been lost. What the point was is about how the Iowa's survived as first class fighting vessels as long as they did, especially when modernized with modern weapons. Modern surface warfare is very often a one shot affair.
With regards to US tanks vs German tanks, there are many nuances. The US could have had the E8 Sherman much sooner but chose not to do so and the Pershing by D-Day but did not. Much of this was due to politics. The E8 was a pretty decent tank with good AP ammo and could have been made better. The German Panther was very weak from the side and had slow turret traverse. The 75mm gun also had better penetration than the vaunted 88 at medium range but had extremely poor Frag/HE with a small bursting charge. It was really used to fight other tanks and the Germans were more prone to use self propelled guns in the anti-infantry role.

No one is going to build BB's anymore. However, in terms of surviving battle damage, modern anti-ship weapons would not be particularly lethal against them.

 

The Bismark became worthless militarily when a torpedo off a biplane that barely went over 100 mph took out it's rudder. The Bismark ceased being a fighting vessel long before it was sunk.

"Modern radar and sensors, modern missiles, and modern fire control" do not function if put behind 16 inches of nickle-steel, do they? Even minor missiles easily take those out. At that point the battleship becomes irrelevant. Basically there are then 1000 blind personnel inside a steel box somewhere in an ocean, nothing else.

The talk of "sinkability" is irrevant. An island can't be sunk either, can it? Islands can have modern radar and sensors, modern missiles and modern fire control too. That does not make an island invinceable, does it? It would be like arguing that the strongest but blind man in a suit of armor couldn't be defeated by others without armor and no weapons that can penetrate armor. It is a pointless claim since a blind man in a suit of armor is irrelevant in battle. Just ignore him and take care of winning the war. If really wanting to kill the blind man, at some point just bury him with a few thousand rocks.

 

But it did sink the Hood and very nearly the Prince of Wales. Design flaws sank the Bismarck. The AAA was very advanced and the gun directors could not work out firing solutions to the Swordfish because they were so slow and so low to the water. The Bismarck stern was the weakest part of the ship and the triple screw arrangement that the Germans used made steering her extremely difficult if the rudder was damaged. If she would have four screws or dual/tandem rudders, she would have escaped. The Germans knew it, didn't correct it and paid the price.

 

That is exactly what this thread is about - the viability of battleships (all factors involved including cost ratios to other weapons systems) is the ONLY relevant topic, not whether battleships are cool or even of surviving battle damage.

Numerous - virtually all - naval relevant weapons can easily eliminate the fighting capability of a battleship. While I do NOT agree there are no weapons systems that can sink an Iowa, even if so it is because there are no battleships requiring weapons to sink them. But I'm fairly confident a 15 ton precision bunker buster bomb would penetrate the deck or go down the smoke stack of an Iowa fairly easily and with devastating effect - since the massive steel hull then would work against the ship containing the full force of the explosion within the battleship itself. And once the battleship blinded by simple routine missile hits it would be defenseless against any aircraft including carrying guided bombs (or modified larger rockets) with such penetration warheads or bombs.

Seriously, a wave of missiles launched by aircraft, missile destroyers and/or submarines would take out all radar and detection equipment of the battleship easy enough. Then one or two bunker busters reconfigured against ships' 7.5 inch thick decks - or just down a smoke stack - would finish the ship off as it tried vainly to run and zigzag at flank speed - with nowhere to hide. Just a 1000+ personnel waiting for the inevitable of being blow apart trapped within the steel box containing the force of the explosion against them.

I could calculate the impact force of a 30,000 pound long bunker buster bomb dropped from altitude, but I think you get the idea. Actually, that is what they used some of the spare Iowa barrels for - bunker buster bombs. Long, sleek, massively heavy. Hitting the deck or down the smokestack at Mach 3. And that is assuming only gravity and they don't stick a big rocket engine on the back and then it'd hit the deck at around Mach 7. That is about 50,000% more impact than a 16 inch naval artillery shell - and against a 7.5 inch deck even if missing the smokestack. The only real challlenge would be having it go off while still within the ship before slamming out thru the bottom of the hull.

 

I was referring to Tiger tanks, not Panthers. It was calculated that it would take 4 ordinary Shermans to take out 1 Tiger, basically sacrificing 3 of the 4 Shermans.

The Hood was an antiquated cruiser, not a battleship, and in fact the Bismark was sunk. You really don't realize just how silly this debate is? It wouldn't be Swordfish carrying torpedos attacking the Iowa type battleship, would it? There were no workable missiles against ships back-then. There would be no anti-aircraft weapons or detection capability left very quickly today.

 

The problem with steel armor is that the thicker you make it - including the deck - the larger the ship as to become and the larger then engines need to be. So it becomes 1500 feet long, 2000 feet long etc as the armor is made thicker and thicker. And it is eating money (meaning cancelling other ships) to make it bigger. It would be a hell of a challenge to sink a 3000 foot battleship wearing as much armor as it could float, but what's the point? It takes missiles to have real effective range and then submarine launched missiles make more sense.

 

FYI Post:

21st Century Battleships

Expert Commentary -

There's more -> http://www.g2mil.com/battleships.htm

 

You're just repeating yourself. Old ex military fixate like that.

 

The line of sight from the height of a 16 inch Iowa gun is approximately 9 miles.

 

Hey, here's a solution. The Marine Corp gives up their amphibious assault ship since they are apparently indefensible and instead gets 2 outragously expensive Iowa class battleships firing dirt cheap big artillery shells. The weapons on the aircraft and helicopters are simply TOO expensive to use anyway.

Since battleships are impossible to disable that is all the Marines would ever need. They could land amphiously from ordinary transport ships perfectly covered by the battleship. The Marines shouldn't have aircraft anyway because they don't need them. All Marines need is a good rifle with a bayonet and big naval cannons covering them while they run ashore. Being invunerable, the battleship would be their command center and base of operation.

And of course any need for A-10s would be eliminated as well. A rifle, a bayonet and a battleship is all the Marines need. Give them those 3 things and they'd kick ISIS ass real quick. Send the Iowa into the Persian Gulf with 1500 Marines on it and Putin would flee Syria, and flee Uraine if the other battleship sailed into the Meditteranian because battleships terrify the enemy.

 

Wrong, you have no way to lift a 15 ton bunker bomb much less aim it. The OP was about ship vs ship. No one put in any parameters into the event either. Would you really want to be a modern destroyer in a place like the slot or the Straits of Magellan where your sensors might not be so good, no room to maneuver against a ship that can run you down? My point is this. You're just not going to hurt an Iowa with modern weapons unless the expenditure is massive and you're not going to have that in one ship. What you're doing is changing the scenario to suit your own selected outcome.
Here's the clincher in naval warfare, sometimes old meets new and the result is outstanding. Case in point is the British Admiralty to re-gun its first and some of its second rates with the earlier and lighter 32 pounders when the French and Spaniards were going to 42 pounder and better in the bottom decks. After all the, the 42's could go a farther and hit harder. However, the Brits understood that to go further didn't mean you could hit anything with them. They used the 32's combined with a lock fire system, knowing they could load and fire with better accuracy. The rest was history. Same principle.

 

Ship versus ship is irrelevant. However, the big guns of the battleship could never come within range so would be irrelevant. The sensors and targeting could easily be knocked out, making the other weapons systems irrelevant.

Shifting a huge portion of the Navy's budget just to be able to sail thru the Strait of Magellan is really having to search for any possible application, isn't it? Even then, in a REAL war situation that would be a horrific idea without enourmous air support protection and even ground support. Ordinary RPGs, minor artillery and mortars could take out the radar, bridge and all anti-air systems. Do you even understand what navigating the Strait of Magellan involves? The ship would be within 1/2 mile of shore even if capable of remaining perfectly in the center. I can not think of an easier passage to mine either.

You really are thinking back in WWI. Every bomber we have can carry 30,000 pounds. Some could carry 2. "Aiming it" as it fell would be no different than aiming any other smart bomb. Even the F35 could carry a 9 ton bunker buster, which would go thru the Iowa's 7.5 inch deck like a 5.56 Nato round thru plywood. Calculate the impact force of 18,000 pounds at Mach 2.5. An F18 can carry 8 tons. That'd be enough. I could do the same calculations for Russian, French and Chinese aircraft, but the point is obvious enough.

 

That would total lift and not a single bomb. I'd have to check the lift capacity of the various F model aircraft, but you're probably way beyond combat parameters. There's not rack in the inventory that can hold that much and that's not even close. In a lot of places getting close is not that difficult, that's why the move toward a Littoral combat vessel. And yes, aiming a bomb at a ground target is very different from a ship, especially something that big. BTW the stereoscopic range finders are good for beyond 20 miles in the Iowa.

 

I have already stated a modernized Iowa Class would win.

We are discussing a WWII Iowa Class.

AboveAlpha

 

There is no reason to have a rack that can carry that weight, is there? Not a particularly serious design challenge. The reason there are not weapons systems specifically for sinking battleships is because there are no battleships. That is the only reason.

What I am posting is obvious. A battleship is not defensible with out air cover protecting it from attack by air and keeping missile launching systems out of range. That is the reality of a battleship. Everything has to be shifted towards protecting the battleship. So it isn't just the cost of the ship and crew, but the cost of all the support ships (aircraft carrier, submarines, destroyers) necessary to protect it.

Notably, you 100% avoid the question of how to you protect the radar array and AA batteries?



Line of sight calculations are simplistic. You seem to think the upper bridge also can't be destroyed, right?

 

That is my point isn't it.

You start hitting an Iowa Class with missiles and destroy it's communication, radar and other detection systems and it can only target by sight.

The Iowa class has an old Analog Dialing Method of targeting it's main guns and if you hit those guns with a 1000 or 2000 lbs missile it might not totally destroy the cannons but it's enough of an explosion to throw them out of alignment especially if they are hit repeatedly.

Maybe the turrets survive but that doesn't mean they will be able to turn properly.

AboveAlpha

 

The gun directors are not on the bridge. We could describe a scenario where the BB would clean your clock. BTW the OP mentioned an modernized ship and not a WW2 version. The fact is that the US has no current surface ship with capability of killing a WW 2 battleship in a one v one scenario of any type, nor is there is a current weapon system available that can. Unfortunately both systems that have the potential have been curtailed, delayed or cancelled.