Chinese Light Battleship

Originally posted by Harlequin
Think of it - yes an Arleigh Burke does have resonable fire power , but they are really teeny weeny compared to the Iowa or New Jersey or Wisconsin

Size does not matter and never has.
That thinking went out after the realizations learned in WWII.
Carriers all the way, at least per US naval doctrine.

And as teeny weeny as those Arleigh Burke's may be when compared to the Iowa, New Jersey, or Wisconsin, I would safely wager and assert that the Arleigh Burke class would lay waste to any of them.







seekerof

[edit on 20-10-2005 by Seekerof]

The Arleigh Burke class pound for pound IMO is the most powerful surface ship in the US Navy, of course Carriers come in a close second.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
The Arleigh Burke class pound for pound IMO is the most powerful surface ship in the US Navy, of course Carriers come in a close second.

close second? are u sure? carriers can pretty much win easily with the fighter aicraft from beyond the horizon where the destroyers cant find the carriers.

if the destroyers and the battleships duel each other with just guns well we know the battleships will win. as for missile duelin well the battleships do have tomahawks so its pretty much close to bein even with the destroyers.

deltaboy, those battleships equipped with the Aegis Combat System?
Bye-bye battleships of old, Tomahawks or not.





seekerof

Originally posted by Seekerof
deltaboy, those battleships equipped with the Aegis Combat System?
Bye-bye battleships of old, Tomahawks or not.

seekerof

true but remember that the battleships didnt go to sea undefended. they have heavy armor with lots of compartments as well as CIWS defense system. i wouldnt count them out yet. forgot to mention Harpoons as well. but dats another story. besides we dont know much of the battleships air search radar system so we dont know the effectiveness of the CIWS.

Come to think of it, is it possible for the 16inch guns on the battleships to fire, Nuclear rounds?

If its possible, I don;t see why its outdated. Fire a few rounds at the shore defences or a few rounds at the general location of the enemy at sea, basically doing it old school battleship way, still works.

There is only one reason why the battleship is no longer used: COST.

A single Iowa-class BB cost $100 million to build in World War II. Just imagine how much it would cost today. Not to mention the extensive maintenance for something big and it's massive weapon load. To top it off, the Iowa is manpower-intensive, requiring the crew of four cruisers.

To Seekerof, the Iowa can destroy the Arleigh Burke as well as the Iowa can destroy the Arleigh Burke. Arleigh Burke's superiority comes from it's more "full-spectrum" capabilities.

[edit on 20-10-2005 by sweatmonicaIdo]

Right across the bay from me in Norfolk, Virginia sits the battleship Wisconsin...one of the four remaining battleships in the Navy Inventory. I think the Mo is in Pearl Harbor. I do not know where the other two battleships are located. Some of you might fill this in for me.
She is still a ship of the line in service though she is set up as a museum display. Certain areas of the ship are not accessable and are in a state of preservation having humidifiers and such equipment to preserve these areas and a crew assigned to monitor some of this preservation.
Only certain limited areas of the ship are even accessable to the public.
The costs of operating one of these ships is very high for the practical usage they get from them. Their number one enemy would be a submarine or aircraft with standoff weapons. To easy to sink today and too difficult to protect. Todays destroyers are cheaper..even with all this high tech on them and much more disposable than a battle ship...this is why I laughed at the concept of even a light battleship. The modern high speed destroyer is much more usable and flexable ..especially those equipped with cruise missles.


Thanks,
Orangetom

Originally posted by orangetom1999
Right across the bay from me in Norfolk, Virginia sits the battleship Wisconsin...one of the four remaining battleships in the Navy Inventory. I think the Mo is in Pearl Harbor. I do not know where the other two battleships are located. Some of you might fill this in for me.
She is still a ship of the line in service though she is set up as a museum display. Certain areas of the ship are not accessable and are in a state of preservation having humidifiers and such equipment to preserve these areas and a crew assigned to monitor some of this preservation.
Only certain limited areas of the ship are even accessable to the public.
The costs of operating one of these ships is very high for the practical usage they get from them. Their number one enemy would be a submarine or aircraft with standoff weapons. To easy to sink today and too difficult to protect. Todays destroyers are cheaper..even with all this high tech on them and much more disposable than a battle ship...this is why I laughed at the concept of even a light battleship. The modern high speed destroyer is much more usable and flexable ..especially those equipped with cruise missles.


Thanks,
Orangetom

Actually, I hesitate to go against Tom's info but, the Iowas are one of the most difficult ships to sink with modern weapons because of their size, theoretically.
The theory goes that with their armour and compartments shut, the kind of missile (say exocet) designed to take out modern smaller ships doesn't have the punch to kill a heavy cruiser (and really that's what Mighty Mo and family are). Remember how many hits it took to sink Yamato? How much pounding the Bismark took? Now look at the Falklands, where one bomb was enough to kill a ship.
Plus a battlewagon at sea will naturally have CIWS and Aegis escorts.
And in 1991 a heck of a lot of Tomahawks were launched off a venerable 16" gun platform.
The USMC is so bereft at the thought of losing it's number one amphibious assault fire support weapon that the US Navy is investigating future littoral warfare and assault ships, basically "stealth monitors".

After all, the ANZAC class' 155mm gun proved more effective for NGS off the Al Faw peninsula that the RN's 4.5 inch guns did.

Now, give your 16inch guns a laser fire control system, ala ABRAMS/Challenger, and you can put your ordnance exactly where you want it, and in a more timely fashion than waiting for a Harrier to be tasked to your problem.

And nothing impresses a jarhead more than a really big bang right where a problem used to be!

edit: MORE, dammit!

[edit on 21-10-2005 by HowlrunnerIV]

Well, we all just have to face it... China is advancing on the military arena... And there is nothing we can do about it... carriers, subs, frigates, planes...

I have to agree that an Iowa class would not be an easy kill I mean look at the specs compared to say a Burke

Here is a great article on the armour package
www.battleship.org...

Other

The deck consists of three parts, the bomb deck, the main armor deck, and the splinter deck. The bomb deck is 1.5 inches STS plate, the main armor deck is 4.75 inches Class B armor laid on 1.25 inches STS plate and the splinter deck is 0.625 inches STS plate. The bomb deck is designed to detonate general purpose bombs on contact and arm armor piercing bombs so they will explode between the bomb deck and the main armor deck. Within the immune zone, the main armor deck is designed to defeat plunging shells which may penetrate the bomb deck. The splinter deck is designed to contain any fragments and pieces of armor which might be broken off from the main armor deck.
Turret armor is constructed from a combination of Class A and Class B armor and STS plate. The faces of the turrets are 17I inches Class B armor over 2.5 inches STS plate. The side plates are 9.5 inches Class A armor on .75 inch STS plate. The back plates are 12 inches Class A armor and the turret roofs are 7.25 inches Class B armor.

The conning tower is constructed from segments of Class B armor 17.3 inches thick. BB61 is three levels and BB62 on had 2 levels (the flag level was omitted). Roof plates are 7.25 inches Class B and the floor is 4 inches STS. The conning tower is connected to the citadel by a communications tube with a wall thickness of 16 inches of Class B armor.
ships.bouwman.com...

If outfitted with a modern air defence package RAM, CIWS (already on), and perhaps forgo the aft turret in place of a whole lot of VLS cells, plus an aegis system, you would have one hell of a air defence platform. It would take alot to sink her. But with any modern warship, the damage to the electronics is the big concern.

Originally posted by Seekerof

Originally posted by Harlequin
Think of it - yes an Arleigh Burke does have resonable fire power , but they are really teeny weeny compared to the Iowa or New Jersey or Wisconsin

Size does not matter and never has.

That thinking went out after the realizations learned in WWII.
Carriers all the way, at least per US naval doctrine.

And as teeny weeny as those Arleigh Burke's may be when compared to the Iowa, New Jersey, or Wisconsin, I would safely wager and assert that the Arleigh Burke class would lay waste to any of them.

so if size doesn`t matter to the navy , why are 4 BB ships still sitting around ready to be re activated then?


The 16" guns are radar guided - if , say the first shell is 200m short , the other barrels in the battery are repositioned before the first (or spotting round) lands , so the other 11 rounds arrive on time and on target

i wonder if they could modernize the battleships? new engines less crew new "stealth" addons, extended range for the rounds and ship, lazer anti-missile/aa systems, laser guidence system and uav launchers.

The operating cost would be less and there is nothing more physcologically intimidating than a 16inch shell slamming into a target and leaving a swimmingpool.

Wonder if they could make bunker buster shells or rocket assisned rounds at are gps or laser guided plus if say they were stealth they could detect an enemy fleet and open fire hopefully sinking most of the enemy ships before they can react. I mean how many navy ships are built to with stand a 16" APHE round? I would hate to see what a 16" round would do to china's new aegis destroy/cruiser.

or you could study the old for ideas to create new version of the battleship with rail or exstend range cannons.

times are changing the rebirth of the battleship in near, might not be the traditional form but they are coming.

Originally posted by Harlequin
[so if size doesn`t matter to the navy , why are 4 BB ships still sitting around ready to be re activated then?

Actually they are giving them away to be floating museums. The city of San Fran and Stockton are currently vieing for the Iowa. These ships will not be back in the USN. BTW the Iowa's turret was never repaired after the explosion

well , to put it another way - if they are museums then why is teh bulk of each ship off limits to everyone but military (and ships) personel??

The A-12 on that carrier deck isn`t , and they kinda made alot less of them

Originally posted by Harlequin
well , to put it another way - if they are museums then why is teh bulk of each ship off limits to everyone but military (and ships) personel??

Any number of reasons. Liability, boredom of you average tourist etc etc

Its seems that Stockton won the contest:

Retired USS Iowa headed inland after San Francisco's antiwar rejection

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.

Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.

Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.
www.picayuneitem.com...

I dont know if you guys are aware of this but the number one nemisis of all surface ships is submarines. While aircraft are very dangerous to them...all types ...the submarine is the most dangerous because of its almost absolute stealth capabilities.
While it is true that battleships of the type we build are very heavily constructed the weapons used by submarines ...especially the modern torpedo has increased in potential substantially since the days the battleships of the type we built.
The WW2 torpedo is about 19 inchs in diameter. Standard torpedos today are 21 inchs in diameter ...there is also a 30 inch diameter torpedo. What does this tell you about the power of the punch with modern chemical explosives packed in one of these weapons?? They are obviously guided weapons not straight running as in WW2.
If you watch closely the test videos of modern torpedos...the manner in which they work is to run under the vessel attacked and explode violently. They displace the water under the vessel. They do not strike the vessel directly. The power of the explosive is such that they remove so much water under the vessel that the vessle drops into a void and breaks its back. Depending on the size of the vessel this is not necessarily done with one torpedo but can be done with several as in the case of an aircraft carrier. The power of one of these explosions is such that it is capable of blowing the entire hot well condensers off its foundations including the sea valves which feed water to the condensers..flooding a entire engine room and a battleship of the type we build would have at least two engine rooms with two condensers in each. Most large equipment on a ship like this is hard mounted making it extreamly vulnurable to powerful explosions of this type. If not sunk or its back broken the ship would be dead in the water making it more vulnurable to the next round of attack.
This is known information among most navys. The costs verses the vulnurabilitys of the modern battleship have made it pretty much obsolete.
Todays cruisers carry tomahawk cruise missles in batteries foreward and aft of the superstructure...in addition to thier guns and missles. They are much faster also than a battleship. Also submarines today are carrying tomahawk cruise missles. This has changed strategy alot since the days of the battleships. I believe this change in the fast cruiser construction has made battleships obselete along with the huge improvements in guided bombs and standoff missle accuracy. Even field artillery support has changed alot since WW2. Much of this being guided by GPS targeting..much more accurate than in the olde days and definitely very mobile.
No doubt battleships of the type we build are very impressive to look at but looks can be decieving. Billy Mitchell proved this.

Thanks,
Orangetom

I think it's apparent that despite being on the list, the reactiviation of the battleship is highly unlikely, especially in today's low-intensity world.

The supposed "replacement" to the battleship, the Arsenal Ship, is supposed to come about within the next 10 - 20 years. That alone makes the temporary reactiviation of the battleship unnecessary.

In light of this, let me take the time to say that the Iowa-class battleship's finest moment was when Cher filmed her music video for "If I Could Turn Back Time" on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri back in 1989. She likes those big guns!!!

Thanks to America's ultra-conservative douchness, the video also had the dubious distinction of being the first music video ever banned on MTV.

Grow up, America.

[edit on 21-10-2005 by sweatmonicaIdo]

Originally posted by sweatmonicaIdo
I think it's apparent that despite being on the list, the reactiviation of the battleship is highly unlikely, especially in today's low-intensity world.

The supposed "replacement" to the battleship, the Arsenal Ship, is supposed to come about within the next 10 - 20 years. That alone makes the temporary reactiviation of the battleship unnecessary.



[edit on 21-10-2005 by sweatmonicaIdo]

You mean the same Arsenal proposal that Congress rejected in 1997?

Article outlining Arsenal Ship program

"The Program was officially canceled 24, October 1997."

"... Phase III proposals were not submitted. The official reason given for the program's termination was insufficient funding for FY98."

Shattered OUT...

The Iowa class battleships were retired simply because on a cost-per-foot basis they were the most expensive and complex ships in the fleet. The crew of one Iowa class battleship could man 2-3 destroyers easily, and many of the iowa systems have been out of production for so long, it would be too expensive or complex to repair or replace them. Some technology, like the 16 inch barrel liners, hasn't been in production since the 1940's.

That being said...the Iowas were nearly invinceable in ASUW operations. Their armour belt, massive size, and super-redundant damage control systems make today's ASCMs seem like mosquito bites. These ships were desinged to fight Japanese Fleet battleships of comparable size and firepower, like the Yamato and the Nagato. there is no modern day ASCM (non-nuclear) that could be considered a serious threat to the Iowa BB. I once saw an interview with the Captain of the USS Missouri, the the interviewer asked the Captain what would he do if he were attacked by Exocet missiles? The Captain smiled and said "I would get out of my chair, go to the 1MC, and make the following announcement......"Sweepers, sweepers! man your brooms! Give the ship a good sweep-down, fore and aft!"

The only true threat to the Iowa BB would be certain Soviet torpedos, such as the Type 65 and later, which might have enough firepower to severely damage the less-armoured underside of the BB.