Saturday, October 11, 2008

Forum :: Equipment :: Recommissioning U.S. Battleships.

Page 1 of 3 Recommissioning U.S. Battleships.
Author	Oldest to Newest
Ghauri1003 Joined: 29 June 2005 Posts in this thread: 4	Posted on 29 June 2005 3:47 AM Greetings. I have been reading various pages on the subject of recommissioning the American Iowa class battleships as BBG. I have placed a link to one of the more detailed pages. The proposal seems quite reasonable. Pull the old Iowas, get these new shells for its gun and jazz em up a bit. As it stands their isnt a anti-ship missile out there that can sink one of these puppies. That said how long would it take to get a excisting missile and make it powerful enough to sink a battleship? Cheap alternative to, these days America really needs to spend more cash internally. And the coolness factor! Battleships back in the fleet. Thanks, Jared http://www.combatreform.com/battleships.htm Post Reply

Nimrod1001 Joined: 04 February 2005 Posts in this thread: 6	Posted on 29 June 2005 6:43 AM I absolutely agree with you that battleships are the coolest thing going, and it doesn't hurt that the Iowa class battleships (You could probably also term them battlecruisers, as they were developed off an existing battleship design with more power and a longer hull to allow 30+ knots) are arguably the sexiest battleships ever designed. I think they could be more vulnerable than you think though. First, larger missiles like the AS-4 and AS-6 are quite heavy, and have armoured bulkheads to protect them from CIWS defenses. I don't know what this bulkhead is made of, but if it's think and dense enough to resist 20mm depleted uranium slugs, it would make a fairly good penetrator by itself. These diving type missiles would arive at mach 4 or above, and would probably miss the main belt armor of the battleship. Even if the missile impacted directly on the thickest portions of the armour and did not penetrate, this is still bad for the ship. The internal spaces would not be damaged, but having 500+ kilos of explosive and left over rocket fuel go off at the side of the ship would certainly blow off radar antenna and the like. A battleship is as vulnerable to a mission kill as any other ship. This is probably the reason for modern warships carrying just enough armour to keep them afloat. And manpower considerations make them expensive to run. I'd still like to see it. How many do you have mothballed ready to go anyhow? Post Reply
Ghauri1003 Joined: 29 June 2005 Posts in this thread: 4	Posted on 30 June 2005 12:17 AM Greetings Its interesting you talk about missiles that are capable of sinking a Iowa class BB. In terms of odds the chances of a Iowa taking a fatal hit compared to a Nimitz class carrier are low, this in itself is a strong quality. Availability of these missiles would be less than that of the smaller variety, I would think too reducing the vunrability of the Iowa. There are four of these ships - USS Iowa, USS New Jersey, USS Missouri and USS Wisconcin. They were all Decommissioned around 1990. If acted soon I believe all could be bought back to service. In real terms I think only the Wisconcin and Iowa are a chance. Missouri suffered a magazine explosion in the 80s I think and the damage was never fixed. Also they say that installing a particular 'ship automation' system would reduce the crew down to 800 or so. Plus it has a huge fuel capacity and is capable of refuelling several ships. Machine shops, large hospital, huge gallies and big guns. You cannot deny it is a marketable idea. They just sell themselves. And what a wild card in the current political enviroment. China might build there own ships closely following Japanese Yamato class BB's and then its on! Anyway what would you think if they did bring them back? Thanks, Jared Post Reply
Nimrod1001 Joined: 04 February 2005 Posts in this thread: 6	Posted on 30 June 2005 12:54 PM The formulas for armour penetration are a little beyond me, but I can calculate KE . For a 1360 kg shell at 850 m/s, KE is 491 megajoules. For a 1000 kg warhead at 1360 m/s KE is 926 megajoules. Even discounting the extra weight of the guidance section and bulkhead, an AS-4 kitchen still dumps more than twice as much KE into a target as a point blank shot from a 16 inch gun. As I said, I have no idea if this would tranfer into armour penetration, but if the designers of a mach 4+ diving missile incorporated a depleted uranium armour bulkhead, I would guess it would have a good chance of penetrating. Also, Armour in battleships is not uniformly distributed, and gets put where it is most needed. I couldn't find armour layour diagrams for the Iowa, but it would be designed to resist plunging shells at longer ranges, and that may not be in the right places for the trajectory of an antiship misile. It would be very hard to fatally damage one regardless of what type of warhead was put on a missile, but I do feel that the acuracy of modern antiship missiles makes heavy armour schemes a dead end. Most ship to ship fights I can think of were over after only a few hits on an the other vessel. Whoever got the first few shots in won because of damage to sighting systems, electricals fire etc.. It might take longer to actually sink the other ship, but the result usually isn't in doubt after the range is found. Just my opinion. I am not an expert. As to reactivation? I am all for it, for flag carriers if nothing else. I missed my last chance to see one of the Iowa class, and I'd deraly like to see one that isn't just a museum piece. Post Reply
Ghauri1003 Joined: 29 June 2005 Posts in this thread: 4	Posted on 01 July 2005 2:37 AM I was sought of thinking along the lines an Iowa BBG and Nimitz CNV. A Iowa equiped with 6 F35 JSF's, totally modernized machinery automation, computer targeted 16" rifles firing those new whizbang guided scramjet shells, a modest crew of 1000, able to traverse the Panama canal vs a Nimitz with its air group, floating atomic bomb, petrol tanker, thin skinned, cough and ill blow up, take 6000 peoples with me, floating money hole. Modernanized Iowas could achieve they same impact on the battlefied, taking out targets up to 600km away with their JSFs providing realtime battlefield and targeting information to the computer targeted rifles. There vulnerability compared to that of a Nimitz is reduced - not illinated. Us humans are great at makin strong things, but we excell at breakin 'em. Cost less, smaller crew, more storage capacity and cooler. 'I'm sold, write the dam check congress!' i say. Really, i think maybe human piloted planes are where conventional battleships were before WW2. The future is guided missiles/shells so therefore carriers are a bit obselete. Or more that there still effective and should be kept, in lesser numbers maybe, and the BBG added to provide a strong alternative to the arsenal. Thanks, Jared Post Reply
Nimrod1001 Joined: 04 February 2005 Posts in this thread: 6	Posted on 02 July 2005 8:51 AM Just a real quick reply. No research done, so chew me out if you need to :) Can 6 JSF and associated deck gear fit without the (Expesive) removal of the third turret? And I think that considering scramjets of any sort have only just been demostrated to work at all (in a test that didn't work as planned), plans for gun launched projectiles hitting targets 1000 km away are a little optimistic. Especially considering Lockheed Martin, the company who never gets it done on schedule, says they are ready to develop them. I like the idea of it, but Recommissioning two or more battleships for weapons that don't exist yet would be a hard sell. Post Reply
Ghauri1003 Joined: 29 June 2005 Posts in this thread: 4	Posted on 05 July 2005 2:59 AM On that website it show a picture of the proposes design changes. The turret is still there but i dont know if this is just a drawing or an official picture. If the rear turret was to be removed i don't think it would be to expensive anyway. The turrets simply lift out, the barbette is then sealed at the top and decked over. Come to think of it, it might be worth spending the extra and using the rear magazine as a hanger. Surely it would be roomy enough. Then the JSF could be carried internally and in a heavily armored hanger! Jared Post Reply
Aquarius1001 Joined: 21 August 2005 Posts in this thread: 7	Posted on 21 August 2005 1:52 AM Actually it was the uss iowa that had the turret explosion but it wasn't repaired. And no ther is not any moder cruise missle that could come any were near sinking an iowa class battleship in any nation's navy. And are the most heavily armored warship's ever built. And i also belive that they could. Put the armor that is on an M1A1 Abram's battle tank in the area's of the ship that has the weakest armor protection. and could use this to increase the torpeado protection. even though it is already up to fleet standareds. and if they tare up the teak decking the could add more to the deck armor. and why they got the ship's deck off they could put more powerful gas tubine engine's in to make up for the extra weight. of the armor. and equipe them with ageis. They could even give them the top of the line sonar and give them light torpeado luancher's. with modified torpeado's that target torpeado's that are fired towards the battleship. head's towards the incoming torpeado and explode's near the torpeado and destroy's it before it get's near the ship to do any damage. they show also put more phalanx gun's on the ship. and put small but long range SAM batteries on the ship to make a much better anti missle/aircraft system. and lastly give them auto-mated 5 inch gun's and if you can 16 inch guns with the precision guided 5 inch and 16 inch scramjet shell's. not even a carrier will be able to sink one. And one last thing the warhead's on modern cruise missle are not powerful enough to penetrate. it took multiple 12,000 pound bomb's to take down the german battle ship tirpitz with multiple 2000,1000 pound bomb's on top of that. so no single cruise missle will ever sink an iowa class battleship it will take over 15 to do some sort of damage as they are now but with the upgrades i suggested it will take over 50 to do some sort of damage to one of the four Iowa's. Post Reply
Nimrod1001 Joined: 04 February 2005 Posts in this thread: 6	Posted on 21 August 2005 2:28 AM That's interesting. One of the reasons that Iowa and South Dakota battleships had such good protection schemes was because of efficient machinery that allowed extra weight to be allocated to armour. Aquarius, can you find a number for the weight of the current boilers and tubines of the Iowa class? They have about twice as much horsepower as a modern cruiser/destroyer, so we could calculate that the machinery that replaces it would weigh twice as much as for , say, the Ticonderoga. I'm basing this on (from memory) that Iowas had 212 000 hp, and numbers for Ticonderoga and Aleigh Burke are 80 000 to 100 000. You could have a fair bit of weight to play around with. Moot point anyhow. Post Reply
Aquarius1001 Joined: 21 August 2005 Posts in this thread: 7	Posted on 21 August 2005 2:51 AM the reason that i say put more powerful gas turbine engines in is to keep the ship's at 33 knot's. but in the 80's one was reported going 35 knot's but im not entirly sure about the 35 knot's. but when they were upgraded in the 80's they took off some 5 inch gun's and the shell's for the gun's so they were lighter it seem's, so they might have reached 35 knot's. so what im trying to say is upgrade the aromor but do not diminish there speed. plus they would have to be bigger/more powerful gas turbine's than what's in a modern cruiser. than is a give but they will be better power to weight ratio!!!! Engine's. don't forget there are lot's of engineer's that know how to run a gas turbine engine. not that many know how to run an steam turbine engine and even if there were some they are few and far between. and you can get part's for the gas tubine's easier than 60 year old steam turbine engine any way!!!! Post Reply
3 2 1

Copyright © 2003 - 2008 deagel.com. All Rights Reserved.