A more apt analogy would be one of those ultra-heavy monster tanks that the Germans were developing at the end of WWII. They indeed were unfeasible due to vulnerability and cost. And lots of smaller tanks had tactical flexibility, and didn’t put all their eggs on one basket.
Tanks can get closer to objectives than the battleship can, which currently would only be useful for shore bombardment.
That said, considering the lack of current opponents with main battle tank capability, I would not mind a little more concentration on a better-armored version of the APCs. And if we could increase the distance of the cannons cheaply (lets say when rail guns become mature) then I wouldn’t mind bringing back the battleship because then we could bombard 50 or so miles in.
Tanks are okay…but only in heavily mixed forces. Tanks alone are vulnerable, as Israel learned in 1973. You need a full combined-arms approach.
Tanks are one tool in the toolbox. They aren’t really the same as Battleships. The metaphors don’t cross environments well. (What’s the aircraft equivalent of a tank?)
Battleships don’t seem to solve any specific tactical problem. They were designed to kill other battleships – yes, much as tanks are – but tanks evolved to solve the tactical problem of trench warfare. They succeed very well at that. Battleships are a solution to a problem that other weapons systems solve also, but Battleships are vastly more expensive. Why pay $5 billion (or whatever) for a solution that you can buy for a tenth of that?
See…same thing goes on the sea. You do not just use one kind of ship. Each has a role to play and combined they are powerful. Aircraft carrier plus ASW frigates plus Aegis plus submarines and so on.
No different than combined arms on land and for the same reasons. A BB would benefit from this as well.
I would suggest that because a BB is more survivable it is valuable. I have noted how the HMS Hood in WWII and two ships in WWI and the USS Stark and HMS Sheffield were utterly undone by single hits. I have noted how battleships such as Bismarck and Yamato took insane poundings before they were undone.
Exocet/Harpoon missiles are ubiquitous and they can sink (or at least render completely combat ineffective) nearly all our ships except for an aircraft carrier.
Missiles sufficient to one-hit kill a carrier or BB are a whole other kettle of fish that cannot be carried by common aircraft so they become a huge cost in their own right and missiles are not a guaranteed hit anyway.
If the BB actually got attacked to make use of its defensibility then the whole battle group is in deep trouble. I’d expect the enemy to eliminate the other ships first, then finally destroy the isolated BB. And until the rest of the battle group can secure the region, the BB will not be able to do anything, and even then it will only be able to be of use if we happen to be attacking a coastline.
Okay, it would also be useful in intimidating pirates. But as much as big gun ships are cheap and tough deliverers of coastal ordnance, other naval and air options delivery more flexibility for the same price.
If the enemy is able to so completely overwhelm your battlegroup then sucks to be you. That is the job of the enemy though right?
Saying something would suck is one thing. Making that bad thing for your enemy happen is another. If it were otherwise we would not have the massive, expensive and highly populated aircraft carriers we have because someone might manage to kill them.
And as I noted earlier some huge portion of the world’s population lives near coastlines (not to mention giving it railguns which would be a natural fit). Further, the BB is a strategic weapon more akin to a B-52 strategic bomber than it is a destroyer. In the past its mere presence near a country’s coast was more than enough to scare them into talking.
Remember, a BB can sit and pound a coastal city relentlessly and in a way that scares people far, far more than a few missiles will. This has been demonstrated. Something no other weapons platform we have can do. That is not a small thing.
There is no ship today that can sit anywhere near the shore of a modern adversary. Just simply wrong.
Do you honestly think that in the event of war with China, the U.S. would send surface ships within say 100 miles of China’s coast? No way. No way at all. It isn’t going to happen.
If you read anything about concerns about future military strategy, the term “A2AD” comes up as frequently now as “smart bomb” did in 1991. “Anti access/area denial” is the biggest issue our armed forces have to deal with in terms of advanced weaponry disrupting our military plans. I have never once seen anyone suggest that the solution to A2AD is “more armor.”
Not only is it not workable, it isn’t a current strategic idea. We don’t shell cities any more. When’s the last time it happened? If we want a city dead, we have nuclear weapons to do the job, every bit as safely, and…
What’s the cost, anyway? How many nuclear warheads can we buy for the price of one Battleship (the whole cost, personnel, supplies, etc.)?
Again, a Battleship is a solution to a problem we don’t have any more.
What have you seen suggested? What do you think holds the most promise?
It seems that against the more sophisticated missiles, the best defense might be a launched or towed expendable* jammer/seducer.
*Expendable relative to ships costing more than a billion dollars and aircraft costing more than 100M$.
Sure that was 1983 and 1991 but I am hard pressed to think why the BB would be in more danger today doing the same thing than it was then.
Do you think China is the only place we would use one? I gave you two places above we used them that were not China.
As with any doctrine your enemy is trying to stop you. Nothing new there. They have dangerous stuff. You have dangerous stuff. You lock horns and see who wins.
I have shown that a BB is far, far, far more survivable than the tin cans sailing around today. Yes it is a big, prime target. So are carriers but we use them despite the enemy employing “A2AD”.
The only reason I can think we do not use BBs is our military has decided we don’t really need to storm the beaches anymore. We will fly into a nearby safe country and drive the rest of the way.
For all the belligerence China as shown towards Taiwan over the years they still have not even tried to invade. Why not? Because they’d have to land on the beaches and despite being relatively close to Taiwan pulling that off would be near impossible. That or they are just nice guys.
My dad and uncle were in WWII in the Pacific theater. They can tell you how nice (and frightening) it was to have the BBs at their back. My uncle had to land ahead of the Marines to prepare the way (clear obstacles, mines, etc). The battleships were the only thing keeping him from getting shot. (I can’t imagine that scene or what it must’ve been like.)
It has been said a dozen times: anti ship missiles are far more lethal, numerous, and widespread today than three decades ago.
Let’s be honest, you probably haven’t heard of the term A2AD until last night. And carriers are not going a dozen miles off coast of adversaries today if they can help it. Shoot, one of the strongest arguments for the F-35 is that not only can it survive in an A2AD environment, it’s legs are almost double that of an F/A-18, so the carrier can stay further away from shore.
Your father and uncle would be far better served by today’s Navy without battleships than by bringing back 50 battleships.
No, you haven’t. You keep pretending as if you don’t know why no modern warship built has belt armor or turreted main batteries and hasn’t since WW2 ended. They are only useful if you intend to engage in surface gunnery duels or shore bombardment. One of those two is never going to happen again, and the other doesn’t justify the cost of building ships to haul around 16" naval rifles, particularly in the day of precision guided munitions.
That’s the only reason you can think of? See post 73.
If China seriously wanted to invade Taiwan, the very first problem they’d have to address is that they have a complete lack of amphibious lift with which to attempt it. I rather think that’s been a more limiting factor than the Chinese Navy lacking WW2 battleships.
And as I said, the battleship has a romantic nostalgia it, but like the horse cavalry it had its day and its not coming back.
Those were mainly PR missions by the navy. You’ll notice in both cases that the battleships were not brought into range of the shore until several weeks into the battle. The navy wasn’t going to risk bringing a battleship in close if it thought there might still be units on the shore that could fire missiles at it.
So you have the bizarre situation where an area has to be attacked and cleared in order to make it safe enough for a battleship to approach and fire its guns. The navy gets press coverage of its battleship blasting away but the reality is any threat in the area had already been neutralized.
How accurate were battleship guns? As I recall, the IOWA Class ships could lob shells as far as 12 miles-but given the fact that they are unguided missiles, how good would the accuracy be? If the ship was stationary, i think they could hit stationary targets, but targets in motion?. The modern battleship was obsolete long ago. It would be foolish to reinvest in 1920’s technology.
Actually 26 miles was generally considered the range of the US 16" guns for the Iowa Class. They were actually very accurate, though I am not sure to what range but I believe I recall it being about 20 miles. Better to think of the BB shells as giant explosive rifle rounds then unguided missiles. They shoot in their initial trajectory and there is no correction until the next round. They could shoot 2 rounds per minute and carried a total of 9 16" guns for a broadside of 18 shells per minute at a low cost compared to missiles.
The BB is obsolete, but not for the reasons of accuracy.
That’s the key question. What role can a battleship fill and does that role justify the resources?
Battleships can do things like fire missiles, launch drones, and act as surveillance platforms. But other smaller and cheaper ships can do these things just as well.
Battleships cannot launch aircraft.
Battleships can mount big guns. But big guns are no longer a major factor in naval warfare. Battles between ships will be decided by other weapons. Battles on land will usually be out of range of any naval gun. And littoral battles will generally be too dangerous a place for a battleship to be deployed.
Great nostalgia, and awesome to behold in operation, but what need would they fill in the conflicts of today? For that matter were they ever actually useful?
Yes they were useful. In WWII they really did help in the Pacific War but mostly for the Island hopping campaign for shore bombardment and as massive AA platforms to help protect the carriers.
In WWI, they ruled the waves, see Battle of Jutland in particular.
They were put to good use by the Japanese in The Russo-Japanese War. Though these were the Pre-Dreadnought BBs.
Their WW2 effectiveness in shore bombardment appears to have been minimal.
The Graf Spee and Turpitz were effective only against unarmed merchant vessels. The Turpitz was defenseless against attacks by midget submarines and allied aircraft.
Yamato was never heavily engaged in battle and was sunk by aircraft.
Today a battleship is a large, expensive easy target for destruction by any aggressor.
