How many conventional cruise missiles to sink the USS Missouri?

Factual Questions
61

[QUOTE=Pushkin]
Would the same sort of torpedo that took out the Argentinian Cruiser “General Belgrano” have any meaningful impact on an Iowa class vessel.
[/QUOTE]
The General Belgrano was sunk using old Mark VIIIs, a pre WWII design. Unguided and straight-running, they would have impacted on the torpedo belt of a battleship and so probably would have inflicted only limited damage. The Belgrano was a light cruiser.

More modern torpedos can dive deep and detonate below the keel of the target, effectively “breaking the ship’s back”. I tried finding some details and ran across this regarding an Iowa: http://www.warships1.com/US/BB61stats/index-BB2-pst16.htm

62

From Ring:

I know your yearning. When I heard the USS Wisconsin (Also an Iowa class) was being mothballed I had to have it.

My wife Sherry (the ultimate kill joy) made the following points:

  1. Even if I sold my motorcycle I would be multiple millions if not billions short, and there would be very little chance the credit union would float me a loan.

  2. It is decommissioned, not “For Sale”.

  3. The ATF frowns upon private ownership of 16" guns and cruise missles.

  4. The only body of water any where near here that could even float a ship that size is 60 miles away ( I pointed out the Mississippi river is only 30 miles away).

  5. Getting the ship to central or southwest Wisconsin would be problematic. Priority mail is out of the question and even UPS frieght is likely to turn down that job.

  6. Slip fees would be outrageous.

So for now I have to settle for my fourteen foot Alumicraft rowboat and my six horsepower Evinrude (Both 1966 vintage).

63

[QUOTE=Eolbo]
Absolutely capable of sinking it, although you would expect a vessel of this size would withstand several torpedo hits before sinking. While it was also carrying modern torpedos the Conqueror sunk the Belgrano with a torpedo design that dated back to the 1930s and these were very capable of engaging battleship targets (as are modern torpedos). The hull is much thinner under the waterline. Most battleships sunk in WW2 were sunk by torpedo hits, often those dropped by aircraft but also fired by submarines and surface vessels. The earlier discussion about the Bismark is a good example about the relative vulnerability to torpedo and shell hits.
[/QUOTE]

Further to this, these were the causes of battleship sinkings in WW2

Royal Navy
Royal Oak, torpedos, from U-Boat
Hood, shellfire from Bismarck & Prinz Eugen
Barham, torpedos, from U-Boat
Prince of Wales, torpedos, from aircraft
Repulse, torpedos, from aircraft

German Navy
Bismarck, shellfire, torpedos, scuttling
Tirpitz, bombs from aircraft

Italian Navy
Conte di Cavour, torpedos, from aircraft
Roma, missile, from aircraft

French Navy
Bretagne, shellfire from British ships
(various ships scuttled)

Japanese Navy
Kongo, torpedos, from submarine
Hiei, torpedos, from aircraft
Yamato, torpedos from aircraft
Kirishima, disabled by gunfire from USN vessels, scuttled
Fuso, torpedos, from destroyer
Musashi, torpedos and bombs from aircraft
Yamashiro, gunfire, finished by torpedo
Hyuga, sunk in port by aircraft
Ise, sunk in port by aircraft
Haruna sunk in port by aircraft

US Navy
Oklahoma, torpedos, from aircraft
Arizona, bombs, from aircraft
Utah, torpedos, from aircraft

64

Interesting thread. My (non-expert) guess on this issue is that it would take at least six hits by Tomahawk-type cruise missiles to significantly impact the operation of an Iowa-class battleship, and that, since such missiles would tend to impact side-on at or above the belt of heavy armor (and above the watereline), would be highly unlikely to sink it.

It seems as though the “tanker war” in the Persian Gulf during the late '80s would provide a pretty good idea of the relative effectiveness of anti-shipping missiles with conventional warheads. The Iraqi attack on the USS Stark has already been mentioned, but dozens of unarmored freighters and tankers were hit by anti-shipping missiles (mainly Exocets launched by the Iraqis and Silkworms fired by Iran), mines and small-boat attacks during the course of the war.

I wasn’t able to find a complete list of shipping attacks and their outcomes in a quick search, but if my memory isn’t failing, not a single vessel was actually sunk by an anti-shipping missile during the conflict, despite their striking unarmored civilian ships that often contained large amounts of flammable liquids. There is no question that numerous vessels were severely damaged or effectively destroyed by the attacks, just not sunk. This makes sense since nearly all the hull breaches caused by the strikes were well above the waterline. In addition, if this Wiki article is correct, it was quite common that the warhead would fail to explode, with most of the damage casued by the kinetic energy of the missile impact alone. This sugggest that a heavily-armored vessel could pretty much shrug off multiple strikes.

65

[QUOTE=treis]
To be fair, I think most battleships hull’s are intact from bombing/shelling. What usually gets them is their magazines blowing up or torpedoes.
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t see any reference in this thread, but in 1989 the Iowa had an explosion in one of the main guns. While 50-something sailors were killed, the blast was contained so that the entire ship didn’t just explode.

66

Can cruise missiles dive under and explode, as was mentioned earlier? I know a subroc could, but I thought they were always equipped with the “sports option” warhead, in which case, as the article states, “a direct hit is not necessary.” Here’s a video of a destroyer (OK, yeah, a destroyer) being blown up by a torpedo explosion underneath the ship. If they can, would a cruise missile pack enough of a wallop to take out a Mighty Mo type ship?

67

[QUOTE=Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]
Can cruise missiles dive under and explode, as was mentioned earlier? I know a subroc could, but I thought they were always equipped with the “sports option” warhead, in which case, as the article states, “a direct hit is not necessary.” Here’s a video of a destroyer (OK, yeah, a destroyer) being blown up by a torpedo explosion underneath the ship. If they can, would a cruise missile pack enough of a wallop to take out a Mighty Mo type ship?
[/QUOTE]
A SUBROC (SUBmarine-launched ROCket) isn’t anything like a cruise missile; it’s deployed from a standard 21" torpedo tube, rises to the surface, fires off its two-stage booster putting it on a ballistic track, and then sinks to a prespecified depth where it then detonates its 5kT W55 warhead. Perhaps you’re thinking of the ASROC (Anti-Sumarine ROCket), which is basically a compact (Mk 46) torpedo that is delivered near the target via a single stage solid booster. It can be equipped with either a small conventional (~50kg) or tactical nuclear (10kT W44) warhead. The nuke would probably do some serious shock damage to any craft, though I doubt it would actually break the hull unless it detonated right below it; the conventional warhead would barely ping the armor and in fact was considered insufficient against the double-hulled Red Fleet missile boats. The SUBROC is retired, and the ASROC is no longer deployed with special warheads. Neither is a cruise missile. The Australian Navy did field a cruise missile/torpedo delivery system similiar to the ASROC, the Ikara, which had about twice the range and better guidance than the ASROC. (Despite the superior performance of the weapon the US Navy wouldn’t buy it 'cause it “wasn’t built here.”) It, too, would have little effect on a WWII-era battleship except for a lucky hit to props or rudder.

In general, a standoff explosion is going to do significantly less damage than a contact-detonation, and would likely be insufficient against even a lightly armored boat; modern torpedos are largely designed to sink subs by creating a small breach that water pressure will open up.

Stranger

68

[QUOTE=Rick]
I don’t think anyone doubts that aerial bombs can sink a battleship. It has been proven in combat several times. The OP is specifically asking about cruise missiles.
Five ton tall boys and GBU-15 are not mounted on any cruise missile I am aware of.
[/QUOTE]

The original question also included the statement:

“My view is that the Missouri, just like many of the late WWII battleships were so heavily armored that they are virtually impervious to conventional weapons.”

So mention of other weapons was relevant in my view, particularly given the apparent misunderstanding that american cruise missiles are particularly effective anti armour weapons.

Russian antiship missiles can have warheads up to 950kg (Shipwreck 750kg, Sandbox 950kg semi armour piercing) as well as remaining fuel etc, given they’re up to 10m long, I still think people are writing them off a bit prematurely.

Also one thing I forgot is that TASM has a ‘popup’ maneuver, so it will be hitting the top armour, not the side, I think some of the Russian antiship missiles do as well. Even that might do more damage than people are arguing.

Otara

69

[QUOTE=seenidog]
So for now I have to settle for my fourteen foot Alumicraft rowboat and my six horsepower Evinrude (Both 1966 vintage).
[/QUOTE]

Well, if the Wisconsin is out of reach for ya, how about the Admiral Graf Spee?

70

[QUOTE=Otara]
Russian antiship missiles can have warheads up to 950kg (Shipwreck 750kg, Sandbox 950kg semi armour piercing) as well as remaining fuel etc, given they’re up to 10m long, I still think people are writing them off a bit prematurely.

Also one thing I forgot is that TASM has a ‘popup’ maneuver, so it will be hitting the top armour, not the side, I think some of the Russian antiship missiles do as well. Even that might do more damage than people are arguing.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t doubt these missiles could do a significant amount of damage to the superstructure. They might, even despite the deck armor described in detail by Tranquilis, penetrate the belowdecks and gut major portions of the hull. I don’t think it would actually penetrate the hull or cause sufficient damage to sink it, except by pure luck of hitting a powder magazine or finding some kind of flaw in the armor.

Stranger

71

:::Mod sticks nose in, reads thread, notices posters giving damn good info, admires their knowledge, leaves::::

72

[QUOTE=Ring]
I want the USS Missouri.

I live on a lake, and if she were mine I’d lower her on my boatlift, back her out of the dock, and take her out to the center of the lake. I’d then tell my gun control officer to train our 16 inchers on every God damn SeaDoo on the lake and blow them to smithereens.
[/QUOTE]

You might find the operating cost for this to be a bit more reasonable.

73

[QUOTE=seenidog]
From Ring:

I know your yearning. When I heard the USS Wisconsin (Also an Iowa class) was being mothballed I had to have it.
So for now I have to settle for my fourteen foot Alumicraft rowboat and my six horsepower Evinrude (Both 1966 vintage).
[/QUOTE]

look here and prepare to go broke

http://www.bderc.com/page4.html

74

[QUOTE=Tranquilis]
Bear in mind that this ship was designed to resist and contain damage from shells that penetrate more than 9 meters of reenforced concrete, weighting in at 1200 kilograms, arriving at nearly 1700 feet per second, roughly 1150mph, or mach 1.5.

[/QUOTE]

Putting this in context though, it did this with armour that is 19 inches thick at its strongest point but only 12 inches thick in the main belt. This armour thickness can be easily penetrated by modern anti-tank weapon systems. 105mm and 120mm tank guns, TOW, DRAGON, hell even RPG-7s can penetrate armour this ‘thin’. You’d just need a lot of them to sink a ship this big!

Ships of this size and level of armour protection could be and were sunk by 1940s era weapons, so it is certainly well within current technological capabilities to design conventional weapons that would utterly pulverise an Iowa class battleship. It would be a fairly trifling engineering task to design modern naval missiles with the required armour penetration capability if there was any reason to actually do so. In a world where navies all went around with heavily armoured battleships, navies would be deploying standard conventional warheads capable of sinking them. And the big ships would promptly vanish again for the same reasons they vanished in the first place.

75

[QUOTE=Ranchoth]
Well, if the Wisconsin is out of reach for ya, how about the Admiral Graf Spee?
[/QUOTE]

Not too shabby. Bummer that it has to have a State of Maine registry number on the bows, though.

76

Does anyone remember the USS Arizona? 1 bomb dropped from a plane, pierced the decking, and sunk the ship. I see no reason why a harpoon missile could not do the same sort of thing. Don’t they pop up before they strike their targets? Is this the lucky strike scenario that people mentioned earlier?

Has anyone considered a Tomahawk missile? I think they can carry larger warheads. What about some of the bunker buster bombs or the MOAB that were made popular by the shock and awe phase of the latest Gulf War? Are those conventional weapons?

The thing is, there are very big ships in the navies of other countries. Some of these ships have been sold to other countries from the United States. And, the United States Navy has already considered what we need to do in order to sink these vessels if the need should arise.

So I think, the harpoon or the tomahawk missile may not be the one, but I am sure that there is a conventional missile that can be deployed to sink such a ship.

Ok that’s my 2 cents.

Later

Ficer67

77

[QUOTE=Ficer67]
Does anyone remember the USS Arizona? 1 bomb dropped from a plane, pierced the decking, and sunk the ship. I see no reason why a harpoon missile could not do the same sort of thing. Don’t they pop up before they strike their targets? Is this the lucky strike scenario that people mentioned earlier?

Has anyone considered a Tomahawk missile? I think they can carry larger warheads. What about some of the bunker buster bombs or the MOAB that were made popular by the shock and awe phase of the latest Gulf War? Are those conventional weapons?

The thing is, there are very big ships in the navies of other countries. Some of these ships have been sold to other countries from the United States. And, the United States Navy has already considered what we need to do in order to sink these vessels if the need should arise.

So I think, the harpoon or the tomahawk missile may not be the one, but I am sure that there is a conventional missile that can be deployed to sink such a ship.
[/QUOTE]
The sinking of the USS Arizona was basically a lucky shot that detonated the munitions magazine, and in fact most naval experts believe that the kill shot didn’t even penetrate the upper deck, but rather ignition was due to a train of events from loose black powder starting a fire that went through an improperly secured bulkhead.

The Harpoon Block Ie and Block II have a 221kg warhead. The 'Hawk carries a standard 450kg (1000lb) bombload as one of the options, but it’s intended for striking buildings and complexes; it’s not a shaped charge for penetrating thick armor or heavy bunkers.

What seems to be missing here is an understanding that it’s not really necessary to sink a ship in order to put it out of action; destroying the propulsion system or engineering plant, blowing the superstructure into the ocean, or even disabling communications is just about equivilent in terms of effect. Naval strategy is no longer two ships facing each other at line of sight, firing broadsides and blasting away with AA guns at attack fighters. Modern naval combat involves over-the-horizon exchanges of missiles, fired from ships, planes, and submarines, with everybody trying as much not to get hit as to strike the other guy, and the first one who loses communications or maneuvering being pretty much out of the game. Capital gunships like battleships and battlecruisers aren’t fielded by anyone of significance, and aren’t really of much use against modern missile cruisers and destroyers, much less the submarine fleets that are likely to be the dominant striking force in a full scale naval engagement.

Since these much lighter hulls have much greater maneuverability, and cost a hell of a lot less to operate and maintain (although the equipment on board is much more costly than the old mechanical computers and manual loading systems of the old battlewagons) nobody sails battleships anymore; the aircraft carrier has replaced the battleship as the premier capital flagship, with smaller navies making do with medium cruisers and thru-deck cruisers and the like. Aircraft carriers are big mothers that are widely regarded as being, if not unsinkable, certainly capable of absorbing a lot of punishment; however, stopping an aircraft carrier from doing its one primary task–conducting flight operations–is almost laughably easy, and the Soviets had several weapon systems designed specifically to do severe damage to US Navy supercarriers so as to prevent them from being of any use. From a NATO surface strategy standpoint, protecting carriers and cargo vessels in the North Atlantic Theater is the primary strategic mission, whereas the Soviets regarded surface navy as being a secondary priority compared to the ability to harass and destroy merchant ships and escorts via their fast and deep-diving submarine force. While these strategies are obsolete in a post-Soviet environment, the extant weapon systems–particularly US Navy systems–were designed for these types of missions…not for sinking battleships from sixty years ago.

Stranger

78

[QUOTE=Ficer67]
Does anyone remember the USS Arizona? 1 bomb dropped from a plane, pierced the decking, and sunk the ship. I see no reason why a harpoon missile could not do the same sort of thing. Don’t they pop up before they strike their targets? Is this the lucky strike scenario that people mentioned earlier?

Has anyone considered a Tomahawk missile? I think they can carry larger warheads. What about some of the bunker buster bombs or the MOAB that were made popular by the shock and awe phase of the latest Gulf War? Are those conventional weapons?
[/QUOTE]

sigh

I keep going over this, and people insist on ignoring it. The “aerial bomb” that detonated the Arizona was a bunker buster - An AP battleship shell with fins slapped on it. The Harpoon is a pipsqueak with a non-AP warhead. Hit armor, innitiate, go boom between bomb deck and armor deck, leave impressive smoking non-critical hit. Ditto the Tomahawk, albeit with a larger warhead. In addition, both would have to succesfully execute pop-up attacks on a moving target, substantial portions of which were armored even more heavily than the armor deck - big areas like the turrets, the conning tower, and so on. You want to sink a battlewagon? Bring AP bombs or torpedoes.

Edit:
Oh, and the Arizona was an older class, designed without aerial bombs given so much consideration. The Iowas were designed specifically with aerial bombs in mind. I believe that has been adressed, too, but ignored.

79

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Not too shabby. Bummer that it has to have a State of Maine registry number on the bows, though.
[/QUOTE]

At least the registration number (ME109E) is ALSO the number of a WW2 German fighter

80

[QUOTE=Tranquilis]
Edit:
Oh, and the Arizona was an older class, designed without aerial bombs given so much consideration. The Iowas were designed specifically with aerial bombs in mind. I believe that has been adressed, too, but ignored.
[/QUOTE]
In fact, USS Arizona’s hull was laid down in 1914 and the ship was commissioned in 1916, long before aerial bombardment would have even been a concern. Arizona was, at the time of her sinking, one of the oldest capital ships still on the Navy’s register in active service. Her resistance to damage is not comperable to the much newer and more heavily armored Iowa-class battleships.

Stranger