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chaos0xomega wrote:

The one advantage I will give to the battleship is that it doesnt use missiles. Guns, besides being considerably cheaper than missiles to purchase, operate, reload, and maintain, also have a much much larger ammunition capacity than vls cells. You know what an Arleigh Burke thats fired off all its missiles is? A target.

And they do that remarkably quickly. Pricewise, a 16" shell costs about $500. A missile can cost millions. An Iowa class can old something like 300 rounds per gun.\ in it's magazines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:

Again, how many carriers were sunk by battleships?
silence...crickets chirping...in the distance a wiener dog yawns.

Glorious, Gambier Bay.

Now, my question for you: how many battleships (not sitting at harbor or as motionless target ships) were sunk by weapons of a type used by modern aircraft?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:

The one advantage I will give to the battleship is that it doesnt use missiles. Guns, besides being considerably cheaper than missiles to purchase, operate, reload, and maintain, also have a much much larger ammunition capacity than vls cells. You know what an Arleigh Burke thats fired off all its missiles is? A target.

And they do that remarkably quickly. Pricewise, a 16" shell costs about $500. A missile can cost millions. An Iowa class can old something like 300 rounds per gun.\ in it's magazines.

Yep, pretty awesome*. Thats why the Arizona and Hood literally blew up when a bomb/shell hit one of its magazines. Its like a B52 strike going off inside the ship.




*By awesome I mean absolutely horrific if you're on it.

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a B52 strike going off inside the ship.

What exactly do you think happens now when that VLS takes a hit? KABOOM. (Plus the extra bonus of burning rocket fuel.)

And you still have not answered my question: How many battleships have been sunk by weapons of a type still used by aircraft? Jets don't generally drop torps.

No helicopters do.

POW!

Japan's back in the game!

 notprop wrote:
No helicopters do.

POW!

Japan's back in the game!

The light weight torps dropped by helos (or deployed via something like ASROC) are pretty useless against surface ships with even the most basic anti-torp protections, due to their extremely light warheads.

Glorious, Gambier Bay.

Glorious was sunk by cruisers and it was fundamentally criminal. If I layer in the list of cruisers sunk by aircraft the list is going to get really really long.
Gambier Bay was an escort carrier being chased by most of the Japanese surface fleet at the time off the coast of the Phillipines. It took multiple battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, to surprise and sink an escort carrier and some destroyer escorts. If you keep going you'll notice that fleet was hammered repeatedly by aircraft after, and they had to retire, never to come out again. Not exactly a glorious moment for the JN.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Its like a B52 strike going off inside the ship.

What exactly do you think happens now when that VLS takes a hit? KABOOM. (Plus the extra bonus of burning rocket fuel.)

And you still have not answered my question: How many battleships have been sunk by weapons of a type still used by aircraft? Jets don't generally drop torps.

Its a false argument. There hasn't beena signficant naval battle since WWII. But lets look at naval casualties in the last few decades. Don't see any sunk by shellfire. Cruise missiles and bombs seem to do very well however...

http://www.ausairpower.net/Warship-Hits.html

Again, how many carriers have been sunk by battleships?

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Now, my question for you: how many battleships (not sitting at harbor or as motionless target ships) were sunk by weapons of a type used by modern aircraft?

I don't believe battleships have been used in modern naval warfare. Largely because they're superfluous and at great risk.

 Seaward wrote:

I don't believe battleships have been used in modern naval warfare. Largely because they're superfluous and at great risk.

There's been exactly 1. The Roma was killed through a 'Perfect Storm' scenario by a Fritz X, an early smart bomb, though the Warspite was hit later by a similar round and damaged, she was not 'mission killed' per se, though she did undergo repairs afterward.

What Frazz is skipping around is that battleships very very rarely die to hits above the waterline. Battleships are designed to be battered to pieces by shell hits and keep working. By the USN's own admission, they are the most survivable ships in existence. However, like any other ship, punch enough holes in the bottom and she sinks.

Frazz is bringing up the 'how many carriers did battleships kill?' issue without bothering to acknowledge that carriers at the time were generally faster than battleships, and typically stayed out of range, even if they were utterly depleted of munitions and unable to engage. This ceased being the case with the launch of the Iowa class, but due to the fact a fleet is only as fast as it's slowest ships, battleship taskforces were saddled with slow moving Pre WW1 relics that simply could not keep up. This is why the existing carrier kills are small is simply that the carriers made a point to stay out of range and or run, unless caught by surprise. Operating with similarly fast vessels, a fast battleship the Iowas can run down even a fairly modern carrier.

Saying that this is a false argument ignores that the majority of ships sunk by early smart bombs and ASM have generally been lightly armored destroyers and transports, or been sitting targets. The majority of combat kills on battleships has been from torps, and even the fighting in the Falklands bares this out to a degree. (And also that well trained and equipped DCTs are still a necessity in this day and age).

Ok, so battleships are slower (scratches head about that with the IOWA class), shorter range and have less of an effective range of target acquisition.

So they're better than carriers...why? Because they have big guns? That never ever ever saved them from.

You can't catch a carrier by surprise.
A carrier has a substantially greater combat effective range.
A carrier has a substantially greater strike capabality.

Battleships are good against other ships. However, until new technology is developed carriers kill them.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Operating with similarly fast vessels, a fast battleship the Iowas can run down even a fairly modern carrier.

Provided the air wing's ashore, this is potentially true, given that the Iowa is a knot and a half faster than the Nimitz.

If the air wing's embarked? Not even a contest.

Frazzled wrote:
You can't catch a carrier by surprise.

Untrue. And that exact issue was brought up in Proceedings a year or two back. Carriers can in fact be ambushed, it just depends on a working knowledge of how they operate and where they supply. You can, for example, jump them in bad weather or other occasions where they cannot move at launch speeds.

Frazzled wrote:
A carrier has a substantially greater combat effective range.
A carrier has a substantially greater strike capabality.

The first is true.

The second, however, should read that a carrier has greater first strike capability.

Seaward wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Operating with similarly fast vessels, a fast battleship the Iowas can run down even a fairly modern carrier.

Provided the air wing's ashore, this is potentially true, given that the Iowa is a knot and a half faster than the Nimitz.

If the air wing's embarked? Not even a contest.

The entire wing or just the usual load-out? Remember that a Nimitz doesn't usually carry it's max combat aircraft, and of the standard number kept on board, only 15 of which can be fitted with ASM powerful enough to be a viable threat. If you factor in both ships escorts per PACEX 89, you're looking at a win for the Iowa. If she's carrying max possible combat loadout, it's a little dicier and depends on weather conditions, how far out initial detection is, and how bad aircraft losses are in the initial attack vs damage to ships.

Frazzled wrote:
You can't catch a carrier by surprise.

Untrue. And that exact issue was brought up in Proceedings a year or two back. Carriers can in fact be ambushed, it just depends on a working knowledge of how they operate and where they supply. You can, for example, jump them in bad weather or other occasions where they cannot move at launch speeds.

Ok, I’ll give. There is a theoretical possibility you could ambush a carrier. Outside of theory land, that’s a no.

Frazzled wrote:
A carrier has a substantially greater combat effective range.
A carrier has a substantially greater strike capabality.


The first is true.

The second, however, should read that a carrier has greater first strike capability.

Any strike capability. Their detection range is the range of their radar or the radar of their aircraft searching for you. The strike range is the range of their aircraft (I believe that includes refueling but not positive) + the cruise missile range the aircraft are carrying. That’s at least two or three feet more than a battleship.

Seaward wrote:
BaronIveagh wrote:
Operating with similarly fast vessels, a fast battleship the Iowas can run down even a fairly modern carrier.

Provided the air wing's ashore, this is potentially true, given that the Iowa is a knot and a half faster than the Nimitz.

If the air wing's embarked? Not even a contest.


The entire wing or just the usual load-out? Remember that a Nimitz doesn't usually carry it's max combat aircraft, and of the standard number kept on board, only 15 of which can be fitted with ASM. If you factor in both ships escorts per PACEX 89, you're looking at a win for the Iowa. If she's carrying max possible combat loadout, it's a little dicier and depends on how how far out initial detection is and how bad aircraft losses are in the initial attack vs damage to ships.

Ok so now you’re arguing the carrier isn’t carrying its full complement of aircraft in a wartime situation? Can I argue the battleship forgot to load up on shells and missiles before leaving port? You’re just reaching at straws now.

Plus we’ve completely glossed over whether or not those aircraft are carrying the joy of fusion bombs…

 BaronIveagh wrote:
The entire wing or just the usual load-out?

Standard cruise.

Remember that a Nimitz doesn't usually carry it's max combat aircraft, and of the standard number kept on board, only 15 of which can be fitted with ASM powerful enough to be a viable threat.

Nooooooope.

If you factor in both ships escorts per PACEX 89, you're looking at a win for the Iowa. If she's carrying max possible combat loadout, it's a little dicier and depends on weather conditions, how far out initial detection is, and how bad aircraft losses are in the initial attack vs damage to ships.

There I profoundly disagree, but it's pretty irrelevant. We don't have a use for battleships anymore beyond floating batteries for naval gunfire support, and they're too expensive to justify that narrow use. Anything they can do something else can do equally as well or better.

Aircrews looking pretty expensive these days, should we get rid in favour of drones?

Drones win on the rule of cool as well, plus are just the sort of expendable system to attack a battleship.

But battleships with an aged crew and a maverick at the helm can defeat aliens so its a bit of a stalemate really.

At this point aircraft are basically a glorified recoverable first stage on missiles. Build a missile that has the range and targeting capacity of an aircraft mounted armament while being less expensive and we will see "missile carriers" being the predominant military platform. That said, an aircraft's loiter capability is still a valuable asset.

 notprop wrote:
Aircrews looking pretty expensive these days, should we get rid in favour of drones?

Drones win on the rule of cool as well, plus are just the sort of expendable system to attack a battleship.

But battleships with an aged crew and a maverick at the helm can defeat aliens so its a bit of a stalemate really.

That movie was so bad you don't even get to make jokes about it.

 djones520 wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Aircrews looking pretty expensive these days, should we get rid in favour of drones?

Drones win on the rule of cool as well, plus are just the sort of expendable system to attack a battleship.

But battleships with an aged crew and a maverick at the helm can defeat aliens so its a bit of a stalemate really.

That movie was so bad you don't even get to make jokes about it.

Me and a friend of mine had a ridiculously long drawn out discussion about the motivation of the aliens in that movie. We ended up deciding that the aliens are driven by a 3 class system like Plato's Republic (why some aliens wear different armor and why they didn't intervene while the aliens were fighting the dramatic 1 vs 1 combat at the end of the movie) and that what we fought off in the movie was actually a mining fleet that had no idea the planet they were approaching was actually inhabited (seriously, look at that movie, doesn't the alien's weapons make more sense as mining equipment?)

 dementedwombat wrote:
At this point aircraft are basically a glorified recoverable first stage on missiles. Build a missile that has the range and targeting capacity of an aircraft mounted armament while being less expensive and we will see "missile carriers" being the predominant military platform. That said, an aircraft's loiter capability is still a valuable asset.

That indeed is a good argument. We have a version now - boomers. They've been staggeringly successful. Missile frigates have also been quite successful.

Now change the aircraft to drones. Does that make aircraft carriers just drone launchers- aka another type of cruise missile launcher?

 Frazzled wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
At this point aircraft are basically a glorified recoverable first stage on missiles. Build a missile that has the range and targeting capacity of an aircraft mounted armament while being less expensive and we will see "missile carriers" being the predominant military platform. That said, an aircraft's loiter capability is still a valuable asset.

That indeed is a good argument. We have a version now - boomers.

I do love me a boomer cruise. "go spin donuts in the Pacific at 5 knots. We'll see you back in 6 months."

 djones520 wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Aircrews looking pretty expensive these days, should we get rid in favour of drones?

Drones win on the rule of cool as well, plus are just the sort of expendable system to attack a battleship.

But battleships with an aged crew and a maverick at the helm can defeat aliens so its a bit of a stalemate really.

That movie was so bad you don't even get to make jokes about it.

I thought that was an motivational film about how you can be a jackass, have that umbrella bird as eye candy but still be able to be awesome and blow gak up. You know the Amurikan dreem!

I was just annoyed they killed Eric the 1,000 year old Vampire in the first ten minutes of the movie.

Missouri firing...epic cool. Every other second of that movie...not so much....

Frazzled wrote:
Any strike capability. Their detection range is the range of their radar or the radar of their aircraft searching for you. The strike range is the range of their aircraft (I believe that includes refueling but not positive) + the cruise missile range the aircraft are carrying. That’s at least two or three feet more than a battleship.

Under ideal conditions, yes. However, that detection range drops near resupply points, in bad weather, in areas with a large amount of 'noise' or with the use of marine grade radar absorbent paint or coating. (yes there is such a thing).

Frazzled wrote:
Ok so now you’re arguing the carrier isn’t carrying its full complement of aircraft in a wartime situation? Can I argue the battleship forgot to load up on shells and missiles before leaving port? You’re just reaching at straws now.

No, I know that Nimitz class carriers don't carry their maximum number of combat aircraft because they need room for utility aircraft. There's a difference between their maximum possible number of combat aircraft and what they can practically carry on a cruise.

Frazzled wrote:
Plus we’ve completely glossed over whether or not those aircraft are carrying the joy of fusion bombs…

Or whether the battleship is carrying W23 nuclear weapons and beehive rounds.

Seaward wrote:
Nooooooope.

Current cruise is 64 aircraft of all types, including 10-14 super hornets and two squadrons of 12-14 hornets. Harpoons and Mavericks are not going to cut it. This isn't some trawler or aluminum superstructure 'warship'. This is the ship selected when someone asked 'What do we have that can withstand being hit with everything a Kirov class can launch and then run it down and kill it"?

Seaward wrote:
There I profoundly disagree, but it's pretty irrelevant. We don't have a use for battleships anymore beyond floating batteries for naval gunfire support, and they're too expensive to justify that narrow use. Anything they can do something else can do equally as well or better.

Please point me to what does NGS better? Because according to GAO and the Navy's released papers, LCS's are inferior in every way to a battleship (including price). I know the Navy is 'warheads on foreheads' but they're also 'ten min and it's over, one way or the other'. By that logic we have no need for surface ships, or infantrymen anymore, because we have stuff that can do all the things they can better. For about ten min.

 Frazzled wrote:

Glorious was sunk by cruisers and it was fundamentally criminal.

Scharnhorst and Gneiscenau were battlecruisers, not cruisers, different MO, just thought I'd point that out

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Current cruise is 64 aircraft of all types, including 10-14 super hornets and two squadrons of 12-14 hornets.

That's based on pre-GWOT configurations when the S-3B was still around. It's actually usually four or five strike fighter squadrons. Frequently that can be two Navy Super Bug squadrons and a Marine 18C and 18D squadron apiece, and then another miscellaneous Navy squadron.

Harpoons and Mavericks are not going to cut it. This isn't some trawler or aluminum superstructure 'warship'. This is the ship selected when someone asked 'What do we have that can withstand being hit with everything a Kirov class can launch and then run it down and kill it"?

Harpoons and Mavericks aren't the only shots in the locker, fortunately. I think it's also important to remember that these are ships that had no trouble sinking to air power in World War II. They've had some fancy upgrades since then, but they're still eighty year-old designs that will die to air.

Please point me to what does NGS better? Because according to GAO and the Navy's released papers, LCS's are inferior in every way to a battleship (including price). I know the Navy is 'warheads on foreheads' but they're also 'ten min and it's over, one way or the other'. By that logic we have no need for surface ships, or infantrymen anymore, because we have stuff that can do all the things they can better. For about ten min.

Nothing's better at acting as a big floating artillery battery, but so what? We don't need anything to be. We don't teach infantry how to form a square to stop a cavalry charge anymore, either. Time marches on, and it boils down to this: a carrier simply provides more flexibility and more return on investment.

The big battleship killers carried by aircraft in WWII were armor piercing bombs. The modern Bunker Buster has greater penetration than those bombs and is precision guided for greater accuracy.

So there are battleship killers available for use.

Seaward wrote: I think it's also important to remember that these are ships that had no trouble sinking to air power in World War II. They've had some fancy upgrades since then, but they're still eighty year-old designs that will die to air.

You are missing the point: The thing the Navy used to do that allowed them to do that? They don't do anymore. Before air attacks played to a battleship's weakness, IE strike below the waterline. Modern attacks play to it's strengths. And saying 'it's an 80 year old design' shows ignorance to how old some 'modern' weapons really are.

Seaward wrote: We don't need anything to be.

If we don't, then we've wasted billions on the LCS program. Not that I don't think it was staggering waste of money anyway. 'We need something to do the same thing as a battleship, but not be a battleship. Cost 3 times what a battleship does for a fraction of the power? Sure!'. The reality is that the Navy cannot provide prolonged fire support for amphibious operations. Something that would desperately be needed in an invasion of, say, North Korea.

Jefffar wrote:The big battleship killers carried by aircraft in WWII were armor piercing bombs. The modern Bunker Buster has greater penetration than those bombs and is precision guided for greater accuracy.

So there are battleship killers available for use.

Wrong and no. If you look at battleship kills during WW2, bombs almost always did very little damage, it was multiple torpedo hits that succeed. There were incidents of armor piercing bombs hitting sitting targets for good effect, but at sea they almost always failed to do serious damage. Most battleships built after aircraft carriers became a viable threat include bomb decks in their defenses designed to cause premature detonation.

Secondly, most AP bombs of sufficient size to do damage to a target this large are either laser guided or GPS. The problem is that GPS generally sucks against moving targets, and laser requires aircraft to loiter while painting the target, while dodging AA fire.

While it's not a perfect examination, look at aircraft losses suffered during the Falkland's war, and tell me that modern AA vs Modern fighters would not suffer a similar rate of attrition.

GPS Guidance has been used to hit moving ships.

The Argentinians had nothing resembling modern Electronic Warfare and SEAD capabilities to reduce the effect of the British air defenses. The British also had fighter cover. Also the British lost some ships.

 BaronIveagh wrote:
You are missing the point: The thing the Navy used to do that allowed them to do that? They don't do anymore. Before air attacks played to a battleship's weakness, IE strike below the waterline. Modern attacks play to it's strengths. And saying 'it's an 80 year old design' shows ignorance to how old some 'modern' weapons really are.

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

(We can still hit below the waterline, though.)

If we don't, then we've wasted billions on the LCS program. Not that I don't think it was staggering waste of money anyway. 'We need something to do the same thing as a battleship, but not be a battleship. Cost 3 times what a battleship does for a fraction of the power? Sure!'. The reality is that the Navy cannot provide prolonged fire support for amphibious operations. Something that would desperately be needed in an invasion of, say, North Korea.

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.

The problem is that GPS generally sucks against moving targets, and laser requires aircraft to loiter while painting the target, while dodging AA fire.

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

And if you really want to compare Argentinian air power to what the Navy can do, I think we're on different wavelengths.

 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.

There are many varied and interesting bombs and missiles that the US airforce can drop on a place, that is true.

None of them can quite recreate the same effect as a barrage from a battleship though. A battleship is capable of a sustained level of bombardment that is incredibly damaging, both physically and psychologically upon an enemy, that bombs and missiles simply cannot quite equal. (as seen in the Gulf War).


Note that I'm not taking sides here particularly. I just feel it is important to point out that the battleship does have a potential role that the airforce cannot simply replace with bombs and missiles. Whether that role is worth the risk of an inordinately expensive and potentially vulnerable craft is another debate altogether.

Tell that to the B-52/B-1/B-2.