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 Seaward wrote:

We don't need to strike below the waterline anymore. JDAM BLU-109s will do the job. We already know they will.

You mean the same ones that took seven direct hits to sink a tank landingcraft during Resultant Fury back in '04?

 Seaward wrote:

We have plenty of ways of making it very deadly to stick around and defend a coastline when the Marines decide they want to take it.

What AA fire? Those Harpoons you talked down earlier? They're for taking out the escorts.

What, you think that the battleship doesn't carry it's own? Might want to check their update specs.

As far as forcing defenders off a beach... not according to the Marines.

 djones520 wrote:
Tell that to the B-52/B-1/B-2.

I'll see your B-52s and raise you a USS Texas



This is Pont Du Hoc and this is what a battleship bombardment of a fortified position looks like... 70+ years later.

The battleship is a redundant system. No one is saying it cannot do the job. The issue is we already have a ton of other things, that aren't 70 years old, that can do the job.

They also don't require a crew of 2800 trained personnel to man them. The amount of money that costs is astronomical. That is almost an entire Wing's worth of personnel in the AF. The 36 F-16's that you'll have from that will be a lot more useful then a single Battleship.

So in a climate where we are already having to cut manning down to bare bone minimums, there no justification what so ever to have those ships anymore. Especially when no one else out there does as well.

 djones520 wrote:
The battleship is a redundant system. No one is saying it cannot do the job. The issue is we already have a ton of other things, that aren't 70 years old, that can do the job.

No, we don't. That's sort of the problem. Why do you think that billions have been spent of LCS programs?

 djones520 wrote:

The 36 F-16's that you'll have from that will be a lot more useful then a single Battleship.

Unless they can shoot back. Taking a defended position does entail a large number of SAMs these days, and a near guarantee that close support WILL come under fire. While I don't believe NK's army headcount for a moment, if they're even half what they claim it is, to land there, as an example, would have to deal with 5 mobile SAMs per mile of shoreline and 20 gun emplacements. (Because they have been digging in for....50 years now.) While their airforce is laughable, sensibly, they have been going out of their way to bring in more and more AA missiles.

 djones520 wrote:

So in a climate where we are already having to cut manning down to bare bone minimums, there no justification what so ever to have those ships anymore. Especially when no one else out there does as well.

Nice to know Russia is 'nobody' and that Germany and Italy and Mexico (who have all been trying to find something that does what a battleship does) are potential 'nobodies'. That said, compared to the cost of advancing the LCS program to the point it is as useful as a battleship will be more expensive than operating those 2k crewman battleships.

 djones520 wrote:
Tell that to the B-52/B-1/B-2.

Exalt!

Baron... isn't it why we have these guys?

 whembly wrote:
Baron... isn't it why we have these guys?

Well, 2 things: those guys, in an invasion situation, will be bombing C&C, airfields, and static missile radar and artillery positions that we know of. (SOP will also see the Navy pretty much piss away most of it's cruise missiles at similar targets in the first 2 hours and require resupply) Second, those guys are actually not as radar invisible as we'd like them to be. The Serbians found a nifty trick that makes them visible on old Soviet era gear, which is how they were able to shoot down a stealth during Bosnia.

Plus there are only 21 of them in existence.

The Russians? Their Navy is a joke. They have a handful of Missile Cruisers, and a single Aircraft Carrier. They no longer operate any big gun ships. And that is the largest threat to our naval supremacy out there.

The Mexican Navy's largest ship is a Destroyer, and their only future plans include small, fast, intercepting ships. Germany is the same. Their only future development plans for combat shipts are for Frigates and Corvettes.

Again, there is no naval threat out there that warrants an active battleship component, and it's other uses are not enough to warrant the cost of it's continued existance.

 djones520 wrote:
The Russians? Their Navy is a joke. They have a handful of Missile Cruisers, and a single Aircraft Carrier. They no longer operate any big gun ships. And that is the largest threat to our naval supremacy out there.

The Mexican Navy's largest ship is a Destroyer, and their only future plans include small, fast, intercepting ships. Germany is the same. Their only future development plans for combat shipts are for Frigates and Corvettes.

Again, there is no naval threat out there that warrants an active battleship component, and it's other uses are not enough to warrant the cost of it's continued existance.

You totally misunderstood what I was taking about. All of those Navies are trying to create ships that do what a battleship does to a shore position, without building a battleship. So far, everyone who's tried to fill this role with something else has discovered they have a failure or a cost overrun so high as to make battleships look inexpensive. What's the Zumwalt up to? 4 billion each now? Still not a ship delivered? The Navy has had to ask Congress to ignore the law four times now to keep the various LCS programs going? And for what? A stealth ship that has to be in full view of the beach to hit the target and will sink if hit even once while firing (and only has, by the Navy's admission, 1/20th the firepower of a battleship)? How about those other options? Oh, wait, they had to be sent to the Great Lakes because they were dissolving in sea water.

The Germans tried a work around by mounting Tank Turrets on their version of it. That didn't turn out so well and they cut funding as soon as it reached 300m per ship.

The simple fact is that each of these programs has failed, and under US law, if the Navy cannot produce a working equivalent to the battleship, they have to recommission them. And so far, they've been failing miserably.

And, no, China is the biggest threat out there. Unlike Russia, they're not bankrupt and they are expanding their Navy rapidly.

I think you have a bit of a misunderstanding how the Battleship thing works.

Congress has ordered that the Navy

1.Iowa and Wisconsin must not be altered in any way that would impair their military utility;
2.The battleships must be preserved in their present condition through the continued use of cathodic protection, dehumidification systems, and any other preservation methods as needed;
3.Spare parts and unique equipment such as the 16-inch (410 mm) gun barrels and projectiles be preserved in adequate numbers to support Iowa and Wisconsin, if reactivated;
4.The navy must prepare plans for the rapid reactivation of Iowa and Wisconsin should they be returned to the navy in the event of a national emergency.

There is no mandate that they be replaced, or that they will be reactivated if a suitable replacement is not found.

Edit: Scratch that, I found you are referring to the 1996 NDAA.

 djones520 wrote:

Edit: Scratch that, I found you are referring to the 1996 NDAA.

I do, on occasion, know some things. When the US Congress allowed the Navy to take battleships off the books, they laid down some rules for it and what the Navy had to do in return. So far the USN is not meeting it's obligations, though they finally did get the AGS mostly working, the fact of the matter is the real issue is and always has been the platform. To fire the AGS, the Zumwalt has to flood ballast tanks and reduce the ships freeboard to a little under 2 feet. This means that it cannot fire under surface conditions rougher than absolute glass.

Further, with ballast flooded, she's very vulnerable to hits and her design, while very stealth, cannot self right if she starts to list. Her hull design was abandoned by most Navies following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, due to it's tendency to sink when hit, even if the pumps can keep up.

 djones520 wrote:
The amount of money that costs is astronomical. .

Compared to the Zumwalt?

What's the Zumwalt up to? 4 billion each now?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

You mean the same ones that took seven direct hits to sink a tank landingcraft during Resultant Fury back in '04?

That's the one. You should also look at why.

Hell, I've seen it take four AMRAAMS to down a QF-4 before. Doesn't mean the AMRAAM can't do it.

 Seaward wrote:

What, you think that the battleship doesn't carry it's own? Might want to check their update specs.

I'm aware they do. I'm aware it's not terribly threatening.

As far as forcing defenders off a beach... not according to the Marines.

Citation needed.

In fact, citation needed for the majority of this conversation.

This is Pont Du Hoc and this is what a battleship bombardment of a fortified position looks like... 70+ years later.

That's cute. I think it's more worthwhile to actually hit defensive installations and move on, personally.

You lose.

Awesome beats facts on the Internet!

 notprop wrote:
You lose.

Awesome beats facts on the Internet!

 djones520 wrote:
The battleship is a redundant system. No one is saying it cannot do the job. The issue is we already have a ton of other things, that aren't 70 years old, that can do the job.

I repeat, not quite.You can drop bombs and lob missiles, and those are grand and worthwhile things on their own accord. But they're not quite the same thing as a 16 inch Battleship cannon and cannot quite replace it. Why?

Firstly a Battleship is capable of a sustained bombardment for more or less as long as is necessary. Being a giant floating artillery platform, it's located on site, and can keep pounding a target until it says uncle. It doesn't particularly need to worry about running out of fuel within the hour, or ammunition.

Secondly, that sustained nature is somewhat more traumatising to an enemy than the bomb or missile. In the Gulf War, the battleships had a far more detrimental effect on enemy morale than the bombers generally speaking. IIRC a quote from one of the Iraqi chaps, it centred around the fact that missiles/bombs hit before you knew they were coming, and were gone after a short period of time. A battleship stayed there, and kept blowing chunks out of trenches and buildings for more or less as long as it wanted to with relative impunity.

In true WW1 style, being hit by large calibre artillery over a prolonged period can do funny things to the people having to go through it.

Thirdly, whilst not overly applicable right now (as the US is fairly dominant currently), one has to consider the potential of a battleship in an area with contested airspace. If your bombers are at risk of being shot down by fighter craft or anti-aircraft systems and you're engaged with an enemy with even vaguely equivalent technology, your bombers may suddenly not be entirely much use, as you may be risking losing half of them just to pot a few holes in a warship that can easily take a few hits. And missiles don't particularly fill that hole, as hitting a moving target with a missile is quite hard (as the Chinese have been finding whilst trying to develop anti-carrier missiles).


Finally, being basically an oversized shell, the ordnance used by a battleship is actually not particularly expensive. When compared to missiles and bombs that achieve anywhere near the same level of damage and effect, they cost an absolute fraction in comparison.


Now as I said earlier, whether these advantages outweigh the maintenance/construction costs, and the relative vulnerability of a battleship to certain other ships is another question altogether. It's also one that I don't even begin to consider myself qualified enough to have an opinion on right now. But to claim that the airforce can do the same job as a battleship is quite simply not accurate.

Here is why the BBs should remain relevant.

No one wants to join the Navy to serve on an LCS with some lame mission module, running out of gas after 12 minutes of max speed.



And double the watches at Pearl Harbor!

 Seaward wrote:

I'm aware they do. I'm aware it's not terribly threatening.

Threatening? No I suppose that if you assume they won't work they're not. But then what weapon system is when it's broken. Missiles are not terribly threatening when they fail either.

 Seaward wrote:

Citation needed.
In fact, citation needed for the majority of this conversation.

Gen. Michael Hagee (Commandant, USMC at the time he made this statement) "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered." General Hagee further testified before Congress taht the lack of battleships for fire support put the Marines on the beach at 'considerable risk'.

PX Kelly, (Gen, USMC,ret, former Commandant of USMC) "I would hate to see a premature demise of the battleships . . . without a suitable replacement on station. In my personal experience in combat, the battleship is the most effective naval fire support platform in the history of naval warfare."

Or just consult GAO-05-39R 'Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support'.

"Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 and supports the Navy's modernization efforts to deliver a sufficient NSFS capability that exceeds that of the Iowa class battleships"

 Seaward wrote:

That's cute. I think it's more worthwhile to actually hit defensive installations and move on, personally.

That's Pont Du Hoc. Those ARE hits. That entire area was filled with trenches and bunkers and snipers and machine-gun nests and they were pouring down fire on a place called Utah Beach. You may have heard of it. As far as 'Hitting the position and moving on', she then blasted artillery positions on the Vierville Road, before nearly running up on the beach so as to fire directly down Dog 1 at 3k yards range. On top all those things she was also receiving wounded and prisoners from off the beach.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Seaward wrote:





This is Pont Du Hoc and this is what a battleship bombardment of a fortified position looks like... 70+ years later.

Those craters are from just 14" shells? I wonder if the 'super heavy' 16" rounds used by America would have an increased effect on shore bombardment over the sixteen inch shells used by other navies.

EDIT: pardon my poor use of the quote function!

 Ketara wrote:


Finally, being basically an oversized shell, the ordnance used by a battleship is actually not particularly expensive. When compared to missiles and bombs that achieve anywhere near the same level of damage and effect, they cost an absolute fraction in comparison.

Another advantage of a shell is that it's not vulnerable to ECM stuff.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Threatening? No I suppose that if you assume they won't work they're not. But then what weapon system is when it's broken. Missiles are not terribly threatening when they fail either.

See, here's the thing; shipborne AD can be dealt with. We practice dealing with it. It's a lot like land-based AD, only less scary.

What does scare me, though, if I'm part of a strike package, is opposing air power.

Gen. Michael Hagee (Commandant, USMC at the time he made this statement) "Our aviation is really quite good, but it can, in fact, be weathered." General Hagee further testified before Congress taht the lack of battleships for fire support put the Marines on the beach at 'considerable risk'.

PX Kelly, (Gen, USMC,ret, former Commandant of USMC) "I would hate to see a premature demise of the battleships . . . without a suitable replacement on station. In my personal experience in combat, the battleship is the most effective naval fire support platform in the history of naval warfare."

Or just consult GAO-05-39R 'Information on Options for Naval Surface Fire Support'.

"Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996 and supports the Navy's modernization efforts to deliver a sufficient NSFS capability that exceeds that of the Iowa class battleships"

So the Marines support something even better than the Iowa class. Not surprising. They haven't needed it since the Korean War, but they still support it. They support a lot of things, but we're not taking Normandy anymore.

They also support the DD(X), which isn't bad in concept but flawed in execution. We don't need to pepper a coastline with craploads of high caliber shells anymore, because we know how to be more precise.

That's Pont Du Hoc. Those ARE hits. That entire area was filled with trenches and bunkers and snipers and machine-gun nests and they were pouring down fire on a place called Utah Beach. You may have heard of it. As far as 'Hitting the position and moving on', she then blasted artillery positions on the Vierville Road, before nearly running up on the beach so as to fire directly down Dog 1 at 3k yards range. On top all those things she was also receiving wounded and prisoners from off the beach.

Great. Should we keep the longbow around because it did so well at Crecy, too?

We don't do coastal defense like that anymore. Anyone who does is wasting a massive amount of resources, given our ability to simply go around or over it or utterly destroy it from the air. And destroy it from the air we absolutely can, because the smaller boats can absolutely do the SEAD gunnery required.

Keeping battleships around on the off chance we get sucked into The Final Countdown doesn't make fiscal sense and provides us with an extremely expensive boat with extremely limited modern capability.

It needed to be done.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

We don't need to strike below the waterline anymore. JDAM BLU-109s will do the job. We already know they will.

You mean the same ones that took seven direct hits to sink a tank landingcraft during Resultant Fury back in '04?

And how many hits did it take to remove the ships ability to carry out its mission and or fight back? Most ships are too damaged to carry out their mission long before they are put on the bottom.

 JEB_Stuart wrote:

YOKOHAMA, Japan (AP) -- Japan on Tuesday unveiled its biggest warship since World War II, a huge flat-top destroyer that has raised eyebrows in China and elsewhere because it bears a strong resemblance to a conventional aircraft carrier.

The ship, which has a flight deck that is nearly 250 meters (820 feet) long, is designed to carry up to 14 helicopters. Japanese officials say it will be used in national defense - particularly in anti-submarine warfare and border-area surveillance missions - and to bolster the nation's ability to transport personnel and supplies in response to large-scale natural disasters, like the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

Though the ship - dubbed "Izumo" - has been in the works since 2009, its unveiling comes as Japan and China are locked in a dispute over several small islands located between southern Japan and Taiwan. For months, ships from both countries have been conducting patrols around the isles, called the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyutai in China.

The tensions over the islands, along with China's heavy spending on defense and military modernization, have heightened calls in Japan for beefed-up naval and air forces. China recently began operating an aircraft carrier that it refurbished after purchasing from Russia, and is reportedly moving forward with the construction of another that is domestically built.

Japan, China and Taiwan all claim the islands.

Though technically a destroyer, some experts believe the new Japanese ship could potentially be used in the future to launch fighter jets or other aircraft that have the ability to take off vertically. That would be a departure for Japan, which has one of the best equipped and best trained naval forces in the Pacific but which has not sought to build aircraft carriers of its own because of constitutional restrictions that limit its military forces to a defensive role.

Japan says it has no plans to use the ship in that manner.

The Izumo does not have catapults for launching fighters, nor does it have a "ski-jump" ramp on its flight deck for fixed-wing aircraft launches.

I think there is a good chance Shinzo Abe continues to beef up Japan's military and pushes for an amendment to their constitution. I mean, how are they going to justify the unveiling of Jaegers and/or Gundams with their current pacifist requirements?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, this site has decent pictures that AP did not: http://news.sky.com/story/1125173/japan-unveils-largest-warship-since-wwii. An aircraft carrier it is not. Is it a sign that Japan could build one if they wanted to? Probably.

1. Did Abe even considers the potential range of Chinese anti-naval long range missiles mounted on trucks? similar ones that able to mount Weishi MLRS? one accounts said it outreaches the best USN Arcraft carriers!!
2. Even so, didn't he consider building new Yamato designed to launch cruise missiles and UAVs that outranges chinese antinaval mechanism?
OK he had learned the lessons in the war against the USA some 70 years ago but the Carrier superiority over Battleships were because technologies to make cruise missiles that outranges naval aircrafts were not available yet. Vergeltungwaffens aren't designed to be launched from ship decks. the technologies to make UAVs were only experimentals. Today it's different.

RossDas wrote:
Those craters are from just 14" shells? I wonder if the 'super heavy' 16" rounds used by America would have an increased effect on shore bombardment over the sixteen inch shells used by other navies.

The super heavy I'm not sure of. I know it has superior penetration compared to the 16"/45.

Seaward wrote:
See, here's the thing; shipborne AD can be dealt with. We practice dealing with it. It's a lot like land-based AD, only less scary.

What does scare me, though, if I'm part of a strike package, is opposing air power.

SAMs and CIWS at once don't scare you?

Seaward wrote:
So the Marines support something even better than the Iowa class. Not surprising. They haven't needed it since the Korean War, but they still support it.

Well, first of all they found them very useful in Gulf War 1 and Vietnam as well. At one point New Jersey was in combat for a continuous 47 days during Vietnam. According to Marine Corps estimates, 80% of over 1 thousand aircraft losses during Vietnam could have been prevented with battleships on station. However, inter-service rivalry caused DoD to withdraw NJ and decommission her rather than return her for a second tour.

During the first Gulf War, according to declassified reports, Missouri had a very high rate of success engaging targets despite, mines, Silkworms, and internal fighting between the Navy and USMC/US Army, not being hampered by the limitations of the Tomahawk, which was found in declassified documents to have a much lower success rate than was painted by the Pentagon at the time, due to the nature of how it travels to target, among other things.

Seaward wrote:We don't do coastal defense like that anymore. Anyone who does is wasting a massive amount of resources, given our ability to simply go around or over it or utterly destroy it from the air. And destroy it from the air we absolutely can, because the smaller boats can absolutely do the SEAD gunnery required.

You overlook issues like China (who are apparently wasting a *lot* of time and money then) and North Korea (who have had a lot of time on their hands anyway since the armistice). The actual assumption by the armed forces is that the USMC will only ever have to infiltrate in small teams against a nearly undefended shoreline, which can be supported by that limited gunnery you talk about. This works if you're dealign wit ha very big shore and insufficent troops to defend it. However, atm there is NO viable option for a 'Forced Entry' scenario where we have to actually go ashore against a defended coastline, except the firepower of a battleship. I'll take the word of a CO of the USMC on whether or not US air strikes can be weathered by an enemy or not over yours, Seaward, because he would be a man who would know.

Jefffar wrote:
And how many hits did it take to remove the ships ability to carry out its mission and or fight back?

Against a destroyer sinkex a few years back? Two to do enough damage that she would be forced to withdraw, but only because one damaged her munitions elevator, rendering her gun useless. In a shore bombardment she'd have been out of the picture, though VLS would have been operational right up to the four harpoon hits (mind you this is all IIRC). It's hard to say with a battleship though, because of it's heavier passive defenses and more extensive redundancies. You can mission kill a destroyer or even a cruiser fairly easily, because they only have a small number of weapon systems to damage or destroy. A battleship however, can remain a more or less viable threat despite a LOT of damage. Historically, you would not believe the damage these things can take and keep fighting, or how long it can take even a mortally wounded battleship to actually die.

Battleships can also be rendered ineffective with surprisingly little firepower as well. I suggest you read up on the Battle of the Denmark Straight in that battle the British sent a Battleship and a Battlecruiser to engage a German Battleship accompanied by a heavy cruiser.

There were quite a few ineffective hits, but two very notable ones.

First, the British Battlecruiser Hood was struck by a lucky hit that passed through a weak point in her armour and caused her to explode.

Second, the German Battleship Bismark had her fuel tank torn open by a hit, the resulting fuel leak forced her to attempt to return to port , a mission kill.

In both cases, a single hit resulted in the opponent being unable to continue on it's mission.

Later, another single lucky hit by an air-launched torpedo damaged the Bismark's rudder, preventing her from making the trip back to port, a mobility kill on top of the mission kill.

Yes it took later hundreds of hits to put her completely out of action and her crew scuttled her, but that first single hit during the Battle of the Denmark Strait forced her to abandon her mission and she did not attack a single convoy (her primary objective). It also means that the British force that engaged the Bismark at Denmark Strait, despite suffering much higher loses, accomplished their mission, giving them a strategic victory even if they suffered a tactical loss.

Ultimately, even as tough a ship as the Bismark is vulnerable to a single hit.

Jefffar wrote:

Second, the German Battleship Bismark had her fuel tank torn open by a hit, the resulting fuel leak forced her to attempt to return to port , a mission kill.

Incorrect. The hit actually damaged the fuel line, making it so she couldn't access her forward fuel tanks. She did leak fuel, however. Combined with a failure to refuel previously, plus the DCTs being refused permission to effect repairs at sea, combined with the fact the element of surprise was lost, which the Germans believed to be key to the mission's success, Bismark withdrew. It was not 'just' the hit to her fuel.

And, yes, a lucky hit in the right spot can mission kill or sink pretty much anything (Luck beats skill and preparation every time). But you can't depend of the sort of long shot like Bismark's rudder hit or Prince of Wales' propeller shaft tearing apart the engine room. To use a modern incident where this STILL happens, HMS Sheffield shouldn't have sunk from the Exocet hit she took (it failed to detonate), but the dud missile happened to sever the main fire main on board, which combined with poor DCT training and equipment, doomed her to burn for six days.

You don't prepare for long shots, very true. But a bunker buster doing severe damage to an armored ship like a battleship isn't a long shot. It's a real possibility.

My point is you don't need to count on massive target overmatch to win a battle. As long as the weapon can reasonably be expected to hit and do damage (ie the BLU-116) then it can be expected that mission kills and mobility kills can and will happen.

No weapon system is invulnerable, not even a battleship.

Jefffar wrote:
You don't prepare for long shots, very true. But a bunker buster doing severe damage to an armored ship like a battleship isn't a long shot. It's a real possibility.

My point is you don't need to count on massive target overmatch to win a battle. As long as the weapon can reasonably be expected to hit and do damage (ie the BLU-116) then it can be expected that mission kills and mobility kills can and will happen.

No weapon system is invulnerable, not even a battleship.

True, but my point was not that they were invincible, just that they're far superior than any of the other options for close fire support and can withstand a great deal more damage than anything else afloat and remain operational. Outside of one of those lucky shots, even JDAMs would take quite a few hits to even mission kill it. Cumulative effects of even a very large number of mavericks can beat one to a mission kill, even if they can't sink it.

A lot of people like to look at those nice photos of a destroyer or frigate cut in half by a harpoon, and go 'Oh, that will kill a battleship' without understanding why that's not the case. Iowa class battleships in particular are basically covered in a system that works a lot like armor skirts, and this does include the deck in later classes.

Seaward might mock the idea of a battleship with AA on it, but if you swap out her secondaries and obsolete AA for modern CWIS, VLS, and RIM, you're flying into the teeth of a ship with more AA firepower than every escort in the average carrier taskforce put together, plus the added ability to withstand most hits that get through. The Russians can pack over 100 SAMs in the tubes on a slightly smaller ship. I think it safe to say that a battleship can also carry enough seasparrows to pose a real threat to a carrier or land based aircraft engaging it..

 BaronIveagh wrote:
SAMs and CIWS at once don't scare you?

Why would CIWS scare me? We generally don't try to land on the target.

SAMs - especially what few a single ship can launch - do not scare me anywhere as badly as opposing fighters, no, especially not in the scenario we're discussing. The problem with seaborne SAMs is that you know where they're coming from, which makes defending a lot easier, since we still base a great deal of it on "break hard at four seconds out." You're not going to get spiked by some unknown installation in an area you weren't expecting.

Our own basic theory on battlegroup air defense is that if the bad guys get through our air, we're in for an extremely rough time. Relying on SAMs to do the job of fleet protection at sea is suicidal.

Well, first of all they found them very useful in Gulf War 1 and Vietnam as well.

We found B-2s useful during the Gulf War and even GWOT, doesn't mean we needed 'em.

During the first Gulf War, according to declassified reports, Missouri had a very high rate of success engaging targets despite, mines, Silkworms, and internal fighting between the Navy and USMC/US Army, not being hampered by the limitations of the Tomahawk, which was found in declassified documents to have a much lower success rate than was painted by the Pentagon at the time, due to the nature of how it travels to target, among other things.

So did the A-6. The F-14 was also effective, as were Wild Weasels. We don't use any of them anymore because time marches on.

The Brits used destroyers and cruisers in southeast Iraq during their operations there in the latest round of unpleasantness, and it turns out they do the job just fine.

I have no doubt that Missouri shelled away happily and effectively during the Gulf War. Using that conflict as a litmus test of efficacy is flawed for many, many reasons, though.

You overlook issues like China (who are apparently wasting a *lot* of time and money then) and North Korea (who have had a lot of time on their hands anyway since the armistice). The actual assumption by the armed forces is that the USMC will only ever have to infiltrate in small teams against a nearly undefended shoreline, which can be supported by that limited gunnery you talk about. This works if you're dealign wit ha very big shore and insufficent troops to defend it. However, atm there is NO viable option for a 'Forced Entry' scenario where we have to actually go ashore against a defended coastline, except the firepower of a battleship. I'll take the word of a CO of the USMC on whether or not US air strikes can be weathered by an enemy or not over yours, Seaward, because he would be a man who would know.
Yeah. North Korea's doing it, so it must be efficient. Are you actually serious with that argument?

A former commandant of the Marines would be a man who would know. Know who else would be? Every CNO who's signed off on dumping battleships. The weight of expert opinion swings both ways, dude, and the Marines always have their hair on fire over at least twenty different things at once. They wouldn't be Marines if they had a budget to speak of and everything they wanted from their sister service. But they make do. Maybe, for example, they don't reenact Saving Private Ryan just because guys on the internet still think we're fighting World War II?

The basic argument that you're making for battleships is that we can't win a war we're never going to fight using pre-GWOT Marine amphib doctrine without them, and even that ain't true, in addition to not being terribly relevant. Much of the Marines' perspective is based on the assumption that they'll be doing their self-contained combined arms thing with only incidental Navy support, and we don't fight that way anymore across the board. ANGLICO pushed everybody in Iraq and Afghanistan, not just Marine air.

As to the notion that there is "NO viable option for a 'Forced Entry' scenario where we have to actually go ashore against a defended coastline, except for the firepower of a battleship,' all I can do is wonder what the hell you're reading to draw such wildly inaccurate conclusions.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Jefffar wrote:

Second, the German Battleship Bismark had her fuel tank torn open by a hit, the resulting fuel leak forced her to attempt to return to port , a mission kill.

Incorrect. The hit actually damaged the fuel line, making it so she couldn't access her forward fuel tanks. She did leak fuel, however. Combined with a failure to refuel previously, plus the DCTs being refused permission to effect repairs at sea, combined with the fact the element of surprise was lost, which the Germans believed to be key to the mission's success, Bismark withdrew. It was not 'just' the hit to her fuel.

lil questions.
1. By WW2, did Diesel powered warship exists yet? ... apart of submarines.
2. Bismarc is oil-fired steamship. when did the sticky fuel oil replaces coal as a fuel for steamship? and what is a logic that supports the design of Bismarc to be oil-fired steamship rather than coal firing? by then Mechanical coal conveying systems already existed by now. What is a logic that said fuel oil is superior naval steam boiler fuel than coal? a logic for Germany of the 1930s where .. I don't think they have domestic petroleum deposits. they have to import oils elsewhere (possibly Soviets... and for that reasons (out of many), Hitler decided to invade Soviet in the late 1941...
The domestic fuel deposit that Germany has abundant of is coal. ALOT OF. by the 1930s the mechanical stokers made the operations of coal firing steam boilers less labor incentives. OK a system of coal conveyers aren't simple but sticky fuel oil needs hot steam to make it flow. after that it can be easily conveyed by pipe systems to the fluid fuel burners at firebox... OK this makes fuel oil a better fuel than coal but what else? the two are equally dirrty (some even said coals are actually cleaner)
Also in the navy and maritime industry, did the Diesel engine (... it is said that Diesel engine that burns fuel oil exists) completely replaced oil-fired steam engines ? latest googling revealed this.

http://www.nauticexpo.com/boat-manufacturer/steam-boiler-ships-24295.html

What are the purposes of these oil-fired boilers (i think it burns No-6 fuel oil). if not heating fuel oil to the said diesel engine then does it means oil-fired steamsthip still exists and remain in use?

1. If Bismarc is coal-fired steamship, will it has better chance against the Royal Navy and flee to the Norway before being scuttled offshore?
2. About Yamato. it is also steamship if the 1930s. but the Wikipedia doesn't say anything about its steam boiler except the manufacturer (And poor fuel efficiency). is it oil-firing too? (again! the only oil deposit the Empire of Japan has an access to is its colony of Manchuria. by 1930s coal can still be dug domestically, or can be mined at Manchuguo. if not by importing. where else could the Jap gets the oil from? and how?
Reasons why Japan went war against the United States in WW2.