We could fly B-52s from anywhere in the globe to carpet bomb anywhere else on the globe. We will never see an Operation Overlord (AKA D-Day) style amphibious assault. Carrier strike aircraft and cruise missles would make short work of any fixed “Fortress Europe” style fortifications as well as air defense and armored units. Marine helicopters would simply land troops behind or flanking them anyway.
The key to modern warfare is air superiority. I would say being enemy held territory would be in greater danger from the aircraft.
Its conventional wisdom, but its got a shelf life. In the next twenty years , its gonna be orbital superiority.
When Rutans design reaches the next evolution in production , the ability to carry six people aloft to orbit , will have most military planners thinking of dispensing with the live lumber and adding a weapons suite.
A thousand pound bar of depleted uranium on a ballistic path to a carrier is going to make for some interesting nights in the Arabian sea or the sea of Japan.
Probably not. Orbit is not a very good way to get things from point A to point B. It’s more about getting stuff into space and leaving it there.
When Rutans design reaches the next evolution in production , the ability to carry six people aloft to orbit , will have most military planners thinking of dispensing with the live lumber and adding a weapons suite.
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Probably not, and Rutan is not on an orbital development track anyway. It’s interesting to think about the military applications of X-type aircraft, but the deadliest payload in that weight class would be a small squad of James Bonds parachuting into Outer Mongolia for an extremely specialized purpose.
Search this board for previous threads on “why you can’t just drop stuff out of orbit.” For some time to come, ballistic missiles are going to be the preferred method of delivering uncomfortably large amounts of energy to undesirable neighborhoods.
There is only one scenario where I could see the era of naval ship to ship engagements return. The next class of destroyer is to be all electric, there is open talk now about outfitting them with a railgun Directed Energy Weapon. If technology also progresses with laser weapon systems and anti-missile systems you could possibly have a situation where more or less equal air forces (more than likely unmanned) spend their time negating each other. If the mission is to destroy the enemy fleet and air power is not an option, at a time when missiles are expensive and can be countered you might attempt to close and engage with your guns. Still pretty unlikely though but you never know, people were convinced of the death of personal armor and then kevlar happened.
Uh, could we get a clarification here? I was under the impression that a railgun was a projectile weapon. I mean, it would be directing energy to some extent, but I thought the term ‘directed energy’ was reserved for lasers and the like.
Also, for what specific purpose would the weapon be used? I could see a railgun as practical mainly for bombardment of armored, fixed targets. A laser (or other beam-type) weapon, however, would be most effective on moving, thin-skinned targets.
Anyway, I’d suspect that shipboard anti-aircraft lasers would be the first to show up (if they haven’t already). Seems to me that if you can shoehorn a high-powered chemical laser into a 747, as the Air Force is currently doing, fitting a destroyer-sized vessel with the same should be a relative doddle.
A number of events suggest China is planning to launch an all out assault on Taiwan. Starting with the EP- 3E incident China has actively engaged in a public relations policy that historically has been the precursor to war. The United States and Japan have been demonized publicly in what can only be described as political conditioning of the masses. Just this week there were public protests regarding Japan’s involvement in WWII. China has been building landing craft in large numbers for some time now and massing them on the Taiwanese border. They have also built a fleet of extremely quiet diesel submarines.
Japan’s sovereign claim to their coastal waters is the naval lynchpin in China’s ability to get close to American ships. Japan represents the only other power in the region and have been given the same political treatment by North Korea. When N Korea, held together entirely by China’s support, tests a missile over Japan, it is an extension of China’s ability to wage war.
If China attacks Taiwan and the United States fulfills its treaty obligations to defend it then the next naval battle will be in that area.
A laser-fitted surface vessel would be a sitting duck for a vessel with large ballistic guns. Ballistic projectiles have a parabolic trajectories and therefore can target objectives below the horizon. Lasers can’t compete outside the line of sight. Also, lasers are trivially defeated by countermeasures as simple as smoke, fog, or rain. Shells don’t have that limitation.
I am not aware of any development of any particle beams that can travel a curved path. But then, the pentagon doesn’t tell me everything they’re up to.
I believe they are developing the rail gun (or, more likely, an improved version of the famed Saddam Gun or Paris Gun,) in order to improve shor bombardment range. Currently the limit is around 25 miles, with improved guns you can stretch it out to more than 50 miles (and would probably be faster and cheaper than missiles, otherwise they won’t bother with it, and cheaper than battleships.) Very few population centers in this world are more than 50 miles from the ocean.
Re: the laser. I agree it will mainly be used in a defensive capacity in naval combat. But I think it will likely perform an adjunct duty to the defensive anti-missile guns. If it’s powerful enough you might be able to take out incoming iron-sighted shells in addition to missiles and aircraft.
[hijack]But I think that as far as offensive destructive weaponry goes (as opposed to non-lethal or anti-technology weapons which are currently in use,) the laser will be first used on land. Units will probably be given laser-based anti-aircraft and anti-missile not too far in the future, and it’s only a matter of time before they will be used as an anti-personnel destructive weapon in a desperate case.
Granted we do not sail battleships any longer but it may be well to remember that an Iowa class battleship is near immune to most naval missiles. An Exocet, for example, would cause very little damage. The Soviets has built the Granit (aka Shipwreck) missile which was/is meant to seriously harm carriers and would probably hurt a battleship but beyond that a battleship is near immune to most modern missles. People forget just how amazingly well armored those ships were.
Do you mean 5" L/62? In that case, you’ve listed the barrel length. About 25.8 feet.
They’ve got plans for “arsenal ships”, which are essentially floating missile platforms. More expensive and less effective than simply using old Iowas, but probably sounds more gee-whiz to whatever congressman they sold it to.
Actually, I wrote a letter to my congressman years back about this issue as part of a big letter writing campaign by some “save the Iowas” organizations.
Forgive the spacing, it saved incorrectly.
This is a matter of relatively modest proportion but something I felt that
you should be informed of, and that has a letter writing campaign to which
I’d like to contribute. Fairly recently, the last of the Iowa class
battleships were decomissioned, apparently because a lack of a perceived
need and an analysis of being cost ineffective.
I’m not a professional in any way, I’m an amateur historian/military enthusiast, which, I know, are
a dime a dozen, but I feel, with a fairly good grasp on all of the factors
involved that this decision was potentially monumentally stupid. The
ships in question are over 50 years old, but their hulls still easily
have a service life of another 20 years, likely more. They received
a large upgrade in the eighties that made them more competitive in a
modern electronic battlefield environment, a cost that effectively goes
to waste if they’re to remain retired. The current cost of recommissioning
an Iowa class battleship is something in the order of $80 million. That
may sound like alot, but as far as military spending gos, its rather cheap.
A dd-21, the new proposed naval gunfire support platform cost about as much
to build. But… the armament of the dd-21, which has been undecided but
will most likely be either an 8 inch gun, or 155mm gun, designed with guided
rocket boosted munitions. These, I believe, would make good supplimentary
platforms, but fail to replace the Iowa’s 16 inch batteries in their role
of naval gunfire support. First of all, even with the rocket boosting,
their range is still rather limited in comparison to what a 16" shell,
(an order of magnitude larger) could reach with the proper ammunition.
Second, if I recall properly, an 8 inch projectile moves at a sub-sonic speed,
so that if, say, a request for naval gunfire support came from a marine
batallion 30 miles inland to the shore, the 8 inch guns projectile would
actually take, I may be mistaken, but I believe this is it, 7 minutes or so
of transit time. This is in comparison to the 1:30 to 2 minute transit time
of the larger 16" shells. They travel at a must faster rate on account of
being propelled by a much larger force. Guided fire support munitions are
a novel idea, but while that 8" shell is in transit, whatever target
the marines (or army soldiers) needed to be taken out could be gone, or worse,
could’ve overrun them. For about the same cost, 16" guided rocket-boosted
shells could be developed that would be both longer-ranged and have a lower
transit time to the troops that need their support. Time is urgent in such
a situation. Second, the potency of the 16" guns are of a magnitude higher
than that of an 8" gun. I don’t have the figures handy at the moment,
but I believe we’re talking about 300 pounds of high explosive versus
1900 pounds. It would actually take 5 aircraft carrier and all of their
aircraft to equal the hitting power of 1 hour of Iowa bombardment.
Third,
the iowa class battleship is very heavily armored. Modern ship attack
missiles are designed to destroy lightly armored surface ships that
dominate the modern electronic battlefield, and as such, the massive
armor of the Iowa class would make it not quite invincible, but very,
very hard to take down, especially if properly supported.
Fourth, The Iowas are a demoralizing weapon. In the Vietnam war, the
USS Missouri, (I believe it was her, it may have been one
of her sister ships) was a huge nuissance to the Viet Cong and NVA. It was
specifically requested to be withdrawn in order to continue peace talks,
something not even all of the aircraft carriers were singled out for.
In the Gulf war, soldiers actually surrendered to an unmanned recon
plane to avoid being shelled by the battleship.
Fifth, the Iowa serves
many non-combat purposes. It is a very large ship, largely modernized and
needing less crew than it was designed for, and capable of carrying
a huge amount of supplies and fuel for the naval fleet. In addition to being
a potent shore bombardment weapon, it could serve as a forward logistical
base to a task group that would be practically untouchable. It could serve
as a large naval hospital, and be used for evacuation of troops or civilians.
It also has many machine shops that could be used to fabricate parts to
repair damaged ships and serve various other purposes. When you consider
that an Iowa class battleship costs about the same amount to recommission
as a dd-21 costs to build, the failures of the current naval policy become
more obvious. Not only is the dd-21 much, much more vulnerable to the Iowa
battleships, but they provide less effective fire support, and also
can’t serve well in the other functions in which the Iowa excels.
Just because the Iowa class is old doesn’t mean it isn’t useful anymore,
and its actually, I believe, an amazingly cost effective naval support
platform. It is practically a nearly invincible platform that can chuck 1900
pound shells to areas containing 75% or more of the worlds population (with
R&D for a rocket boosted munition). An amazing feat, very useful for regional
conflicts or more serious wars. I wouldn’t want our marines to face an
enemy with insufficient fire support, especially if it is potentially readily
available, would you?
I ask you to consider overturning the decision to decomission the Iowas, and
support any initiative relating to that goal, and, if possible, research
this subject for yourself and make your own decision about it.
Thank you for your time.
Pretty much yes on all counts. Even battleships armor is much thinner below the water line. Add to that that modern torpedoes generally blow-up under the keel of the ship (thus breaking its back so to speak) few ships can withstand them and certainly would not hold up against several. Torpedoes also have quite a long range and are pretty accurate.
The only real defense against this are the picket ships (destroyers and such) that hopefully find the sub before it can shoot and shoot it first. I have heard tell of naval war games that pit subs against surface fleets and while several subs get “killed” they generally manage to win the overall engagement by “killing” (just a game in this case) the better part of the surface fleet…in particular the carriers.
Argh, we had an exhausting and good thread about the effectiveness of naval gun fire in a thread called “Battleship gun range” a few years back. It appears to have been purged from the board.
Just a nitpick, but it would have to be an extremely high quality, supercooled mirror to deflect a laser powerfull enough to take down an aircraft. Any energy not deflected is absorbed by the mirror. In other words, making ships and aircraft up like disco balls won’t work.
Are you saying there is no defense against torpedoes here, or that there is no defense against subs…or what? IIRC, there are various methods that surface ships can use to distract and evade torpedo attacks…just like subs have various defenses against such attacks. Not saying such defenses are going to work all the time but you seem to be implying that there isn’t any defense at all which is not correct.
Also, I think you have a bit of a skewed notion here. When US subs attack US carriers in simulation its not exactly the same as if Chinese (or any other nation likely to have subs and go agaist the US) attack. I doubt the old soviets did as well against US carrier groups as US attack subs do. And we are pretty much the only nation with large carrier fleets these days. Again, not saying that our surface fleets are invulnerable, but considering the likely sources of attack I doubt that it would be such a grim picture as you are attempting to paint…at least not if the US Navy is the one being attacked.
I believe that there are no more arsenals making shells for the 16" guns…and a possible factor (in the accidental explosion inside the turret of the USS New Jersey), was the deterioration of the silk ammo bags used in the guns. Anyway, its fine to discuss the merits of the battleship-but these ships were obsolete as far back as 1924 (when Gen. Billy Mitchell sank five german warships in the first ariel bombing of armored ships).
So there are very few gunner’s mates left in the US Navy who would know how to operate the 16" guns correctly…I’m sure the youngest would be pushing 50 by now.
Are there any foundries left which have the capability of boring 16" gun barrels?
Talk about a lost art!
