bring back the Iowa class !!!!

i just found this pretty cool article about the Iowa class battleships ........nothing more fearsome then a modern day Iowa class rolling into port able to withstand missle an torpedo strikes all the while handing out some serious ass kicking !!


try and read the entire article the guy brings up some very legit points
www.combatreform2.com...

what they really need to do is develope an entirely new battleship from the ground up with the latest in armor and tech ... i just dont see the point in these modern day ships that can be sunk with a single torpedo

''Another benefit of the battleship as it can stay on station by virtue of its armored mobility, is that if the gun boat diplomacy fails it can strike targets with precision using its 16 inch guns without risking any pilots and aircraft that could be captured as the Lebanese 1983 A-6 and A-7 air strike resulted in a man killed and LT Goodman captured. An embarrassing media circus ensued with the Reverend Jesse Jackson securing his release but any super power intimidation & respect to bring peace to the region evaporated until the USS New Jersey's 16 inch guns fired at Druze artillery positions. Consider that firing the main guns alone, and using light projectiles, an Iowa-class battleship can deliver 34, 200 pounds of ordnance per minute. That's 513 tons in a half hour, or the same as two full carrier strikes (72 F/A-18 aircraft) that take several times as long to deliver, assuming "the (fighter-) bombers will get through". The 1983 air strike debacle reminds us against an alerted and ready enemy with fully functioning Integrated Air Defense system, short of full-scale nation-state war to take out the air defenses, the ability to surgically strike while hoping in the aftermath to stay at a quasi-peace requires ordnance that delivers itself to the target. In over one hour's bombardment, an Iowa can actually dish out more surgical or area firepower than several Nimitz class carriers, and with the relative cost of the 16" shells, this is done much more cheaply, and without risking aircraft and pilots. The limit to this is, of course, range. However, this firepower is far more than any current vessel, and the current U.S. Navy is admittedly extremely lacking in naval gunfire capability for cheap shore bombardment. Even with the small caliber, guided gun projectile systems under development, things are not too good there, when you consider that these small 5" shells already don't have much explosive warhead content as guidance electronics encroach. Battleships are the only vessels that could actually survive the kinds of threats that are likely to appear in littoral areas once they get within gun range of their targets.

Detractors say battleships are too costly to operate because they currently require 1, 512 men to operate. However, Iowas have much more and different qualities of firepower than any other ship. For BBG-21 SMART SHIP automation could reduce manning to under 999 men; or for the cost of two Ticonderoga 347 man crews you get twice the ship missile capabilities. Not taking into account the many unique capabilities that in themselves stand alone and justify BBG reactivation, one BBG-21 equals two CGs. To put things in perspective, the Iowa operating cost of $70 million per year equals two F/A-18s lost in training accidents. The BBG-21 can perform the same missions as an assortment of other vessels, which combine to cost more in manpower and resources than the single battleship. In fact, the devastating and accurate firepower of battleships---that cannot be stopped by anti-aircraft guns and missiles---was so feared, that during the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese refused to consider negotiations while an Iowa was around, and demanded that it be removed before they'd even start. A high-profile, hard armored battleship has the advantage of drawing fire from soft armored ships that wouldn't be able to survive, thus increasing the survivability of the whole task force. And even soaking up a great deal of fire, they're hard to take down. ''

You might consider the source of your information. The website you linked is the property of a Mr. Mike Sparks. I don't intend this as any sort of personal attack, but Mr. Sparks is, to put it mildly, an 'interesting' fellow, with a great many 'interesting' ideas on how to make the US military work more effectively. It's always interesting to take some of his opinions and discuss them with other people who have considerable experience in military affairs.

In the specific case of battleship reactivation, Mr. Sparks seems to think that the Iowa's main guns are 'super weapons' with incredible range, accuracy, and hitting power. The reality is somewhat less impressive, at least when compared to a modern guided missile. The 16" 50 cal / Mod 7 gun used on the Iowas had a maximum range of 42,376 yards, using the 2,700lb AP shell fired at 45 degrees elevation. Sound impressive? It's not. At that range, a typical salvo of 9 shells would be spread over an elliptical area larger than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, which makes hits by more than one shell highly unlikely. The 2,700lb shell, if it hits, is mostly casing. The bursting charge is 40.9 lbs. No, it's not a typo. A shell weighing almost a ton and a half delivered 41 lbs of explosive. So...we have a 'super weapon' that can reach 30 miles (give or take) and hit a target with 41 lbs of explosive. This weapon weighs 268,000 lbs, requires a crew of around 90, and tends to spread its shots over a wide area. Compare that to the performance of, oh...a Harpoon SSM. It's not a fun comparison for the 16" gun. The missile has more range, more payload, and greater accuracy, while being lighter, more compact, and cheaper.


As for the battleship's survivability, ignore the heavy armor belt...modern anti-shipping missiles and under-keel torpedoes certainly will. The missiles are more likely to hit the Iowa's deck armor (4-5") than its famous belt, and the torpedoes are going to cause all sorts of havoc on the rigid structure of the hull.

Even if the guns had some advantage over modern missiles (which they don't), and the ships could survive a modern battlefield (which they probably can't), there's still the issue of operating and maintaining 70 year old systems...not only do we not have parts for the key systems of an Iowa, we don't have the factories to make those parts (gun barrel liners come to mind). We don't have ammo, propellant charges, or trained people for the main guns, nor do we have the schools to even train the people.

Let's go one step beyond...let's assume that all of the problems with battleships are solved by a heavy application of techno-fairy dust, and somehow, we find the billions of dollars it would take to totally rebuild all four Iowas to modern standards of habitability and communications. You *still* only have four ships...which gives you two deployed at any one time, which *might* mean that *one* of them was somewhere near the right place. "Near the right place" meaning "In the same hemisphere".

Does it really sound like such a great idea now? If so, I'd suggest that you ask friends of mine on other boards their opinions. Places like:

www.navweaps.com...

or

History, Politics, and Current Affairs

are frequented by folks who have been there, done that...and in some cases, are STILL there, and STILL doing that. As an FYI, if you think I'm pulling the numbers for the 16" gun out of my anatomy, you can check them against the Navweaps site...or against Norman Friedman's "U.S. Battleships", if you have a copy.

Battleships were engineering masterworks, and massively destructive weapons...60 years ago. Now? They're as obsolete as the "Line of Battle Ships" that were the origin of their names.

The iowa`s have had there day - the first issue is tooling - no one can actually make the sleves for the guns anymore - and crewing , how many gun chief`s are left for firing drills?

and as mentioned above - modern torpedo`s can be set to not actually hit the target - but detonate underneath making a hole in the water , which the superstructure suddenly has to support the ship rather than use the water as well - the result is a broken back

yeah i kind of figured the author was a bit ''out there'' but i still enjoyed the read for what it was .... you guys bring to light a lot of good points but i guess id just like to see something afloat that can take some hits , would hate to see our ships sent to the bottom durring the opening stages of a conflict with an opponent with modern anti-ship capabilities like iran for example

Originally posted by Harlequin
The iowa`s have had there day - the first issue is tooling - no one can actually make the sleves for the guns anymore - and crewing , how many gun chief`s are left for firing drills?

sleves??

What nonsense, to suggest that we are incapable of building something today that was being built 70 years ago.

As for gun crew chiefs, they didn't have much trouble finding them when the battleships were brought back into the inventory in the 1980s.

The real problem is that air power rendered the battleship useless, just look at the effort it takes to protect a single carrier.

Today's battleships are multi-mission submarines like the Navy's new SSGNs, the big battlewagons are magnificant beasts, but so were the dinosaurs.

reply to post by Retseh


Actually, the Navy had serious problems finding adequate staffing for the Iowas. They were calling in retired personnel in their 50's to fill slots, because there weren't any younger men for the job, and no schools to train them...and that was in the 1990s. Add 10-20 years to their ages, and those men, no matter how gifted and willing, simply aren't going to be able to come out of retirement again.

As for not being able to make things we could make 70 years ago, I can tell you first-hand that there are a LOT of things from 70 years ago that, if they CAN be reproduced at all, are hideously expensive. I'm a long-time member of the Confederate Air Force (long enough that I still call it "Confederate", rather than "Commemorative"), and we deal with that issue on a daily basis. Please prove me wrong by finding a reverse-rotating prop so we can get our P-82 Double Mustang back in the air...or a cheap source of Wright radial engines for our B-17s and 29. You don't have to go back 70 years, even. How many people do you know who can work on a four-barrel progressive-linkage carb? Tried finding parts for a 15 year old impact printer? As technology marches on, for better or worse, it leaves things behind, and the battleships are no exception.