So a recent thread in General Questions got me thinking. An Iowa class warship’s claim to fame is that 16" main gun rounds and propellant are presumably cheaper than missiles or rockets of comparable payload. So as long as the enemy :
a. Are known to be guarding a coastline, but their positions are not precisely known so they can be bombed
b. Are in gun range - officially 24 miles, but you cannot put the warship directly next to the coastline, it drafts too much water and this is a bad tactical decision. (it gives the enemy a chance to fire back)
c. You need to suppress them in bulk
It’s great. It just seems like that situation wouldn’t come up very often. The enemy can just pull back from the coastline. You can probably make an uncontested landing elsewhere and flank. And the only real advantage over missiles is that the ammo is cheaper - but what about the fuel, salaries, and upkeep costs on a warship like this?
They have to be vastly higher than a tin can with vertical launch cells, and the guns themselves need massive trained crews to operate them. The armor of an Iowa - which is impressive, sure, but won’t save you from certain types of missiles and torpedoes - is enormously costly to drag around.
Were the Iowa class warships ever worth it? When the Iowa herself went on the 1943 shakedown cruise in 1943, the battle of Midway had already shown that the entire concept of a battleship was obsolete. I know they were used for shore bombardment during the pacific island hopping campaign, but I’m uncertain how effective this was.
For all intents and purposes, there are only two currently compelling reasons for having a BB in commssion - Prestige/nostalgia, and Intinmidation value.
A battleship is expensive to maintain and operate. I mean, approching Aircraft Carrier costs (though not quite). They have extremely limited tactical or strategic utility in the current political and technological world, so their military purpose is very strictly limited. BUT… To say you’ve got one, and it’s combat-ready and deployable, what yo’re really saying is “I’m so wealthy, I can afford this great white elephant of a ship.” That’s prestige and intimidation in one package right there. Plus, you can park it off somsone’s coast, in easy artillery range, and snear a the peasants - because any artilery that dares fire on it will also in range of those monsterous guns, and rapidly obliterated. i.e. it’s a big hulking, invulnerable symbol of your might - intimidation made mobile and present.
BUT - a BB still costs a HUGE amount to maintain and operate, and those same funds can support multiple smaller, more efficient hulls that can be in multiple different places at once - and can each pack the same amount of ‘bang’ which can reach MUCH greater ranges.
In 1943? Absolutely. The big gun battleships with their large primary weapons and scores of Anti-aircraft guns, alongwith fast speed meant that they could keep up with and protect the carriers.
I wonder how battleships fare when ammo resupply is considered? Missiles are complex things; shells are basically lumps of metal launched by bags of propellant.
The Iowa Class was credited as being quite useful in the Pacific as mentioned for Shore bombardment. But they were fast battleships and actually were very good anti-aircraft platforms escorting carriers by accounts I remember reading. They were very hard to sink, destroyers would flee from them and their 80 × 40 mm (1.57 in)/56 cal. Bofors guns & 49 × 20 mm (0.79 in)/70 cal. Oerlikon cannons made for a fierce defense of the fleet.
In the 80s, they were great flag waivers and fairly cheap to roll back into service though horribly expensive to operate once re-deployed. It was simple way to add to the 600-ship Navy that Reagan wanted.
Well, reloading the big guns at sea isn’t easy, though the USN has a handle on it. But, realistically, they hardly ever fired the big guns, so the main rearmament issue was 5" and smaller - pretty straight forward. Reloading and resupply magazine-fed missiles is just as easy as big gun ammo. Cell-mounted missiles are a bit more difficult; that’s more an in-port job.
Replace the turrets with heavy rail guns. Range 150+ miles. Relatively cheap ammo, fuel (electricity) comes from the ships engines.
Laser defenses, although honestly, the rail guns could be used against incoming missiles as well.
We could probably build a battleship that would stop pretty much anything from approaching within 100 miles - above the water. Attach two submarines and nothing gets close.
But do you need something the size of an Iowa?
Is the armor really that helpful in modern warfare?
Won’t the next version of the Zumwalt class be enough?
Carriers can carry a few railguns and plenty of lasers themselves.
Aircraft carriers killed the preeminence of battleships but the missile cruiser is what killed them. When you can fire off a single munition from several hundred miles away and let the missile find its target firing off a big gun just isn’t worth it.
The same requirments can be met with much cmaller ships. They’re putting railguns on destroyers already (for R&D purposes now, but realistically, they’re going to be on tin cans anyway, once finalized) - So no need for a massive platform. RAM anti-aircraft missiles, CWIS (or replacement - possible directed energy), Standard Missiles (yes, those can be used as anti-missiles), E-War, and a bunch of other layered defenses already exist on tin cans.
All that, at a cost where we can afford to lose a few. And they’re on multiple hulls, which means they can go multiple places at the same time - A battleship puts it all on one vastly expensive hull that would REALLY hurt to lose (thus is mostly undeployable), and can only be in *one *place at a time.
The strategic and tactical sutuation has passed the BB by. They were magnificent, but their day is done.
The thing is, to a third world country you can bully this way, a destroyer is just as invulnerable. You wouldn’t ever see it - it would be firing cruise missiles from a hundred miles offshore - all you’d ever see is the junk your obsolete military equipment shows on your radar screens from jamming and the explosions as your obsolete air defense network fails under the missile barrage. The destroyer may have thin armor, but you will probably not get the opportunity to shoot back.
First world countries would have the tech base needed to destroy the battleship, one way or another - the obvious method is a cruise missile launched torpedo. Iowa class warships don’t have any armor against a torpedo that detonates under the keel, do they, and they wouldn’t have been designed for acoustic stealth or low profile to active sonar. But if you don’t have one handy, there are many other advanced weapons that would work.
See, this isn’t actually true - For intimidation you need presence. Over-the-horizon doesn’t do the same. This was observed during the ill-fated Marine mission to Beiruit. When the battleship was over the horizon, even though they still had the range, and did fire, the Marines took substantial amounts of harrassing fire. When the BB moved in until it was visible, the harassing fire slackened considerably - without needing to fire a shot.
(as reported by personnel whom were there)
The point being, a battleship in-range is a great big “I dare you” that you don’t dare actually take up.
Now, I happen to agree with you on the military utility of a destroyer over the horizon, but I was laying out the case for the only reasons why you might want one - You may’ve missed where I noted why that was insufficient cause (even though you quoted it).
Again, you may’ve missed noting where I noted as much (albeit in fewer words).
Said another way, against a rational military actor the BB is a waste from end to end compared to a DDG.
Against irregulars who decide what to do based on looking out from their hilltops towards the bay, the BB is impressive on sight; the DDG not so much.
OTOH, if they scoff at the little DDG which then opens up with its single modern hi-rate-of-fire long-range precision-guided 5" bow gun and suddenly their hilltop disappears … well … they’ll learn soon enough.
I think one of the lessons being taught by drones that’s being/been learned by irregulars all over the world is that lethality and size don’t correlate real well.
Well, if it’s against a third world country or another Iraq, what’s the rush? You could also order a bunch more missiles made 6 months ahead of the invasion. If it’s against russia, let’s just say I don’t think you’re even going to get to fire every missile in your magazine before a nuke gets you.
Long term, I think on a ww2 level footing, mass numbers of missiles could easily be made. They just have a long lead time - but then again, so do 16" shells and propellant. There would at most be 1 tiny company making them, if you needed a bunch in a hurry, it’s not going to happen overnight.
Remember though that it is 1 missile vs a huge number of shells since most of your shells will miss and the ones that hit aren’t as powerful as the missile you could have shot. Plus the quicker you can take out an enemy ship from father away the less chance of your ship being damaged/sunk. Each ship is far more valuable than a missile.
