Bring Back The Iowa Class Discussion And Debate

[Dreadnought]

The Legend of the Iowa Class as a teen.

We were there that morning sitting outside the Philly Naval Reserve on the Delaware river. I was approximately 17 at the time. A friend that worked in the yard had told us days before that something big was going to happen there that morning. Then the rumor came to us that they were pulling the battleships Iowa & Wissconsin away from their piers from which they sat for as long as I can remeber (atleast 12 -15 years since i was a child) all the way in the back and pretty much out of sight hidden by the likes of the carriers Forrestal (CVA59) and the Kennedy (CVA67) and Saratoga(CVA60) which were periodically moved in and out for servicing. My father used to tell us stories about the biggest guns in the yard and that they were the pride of the USN yard and certainly worth a war tale or two from my father as we would pass the yard but they were always out of sight out of mind.( from a child's point of view) At one time Philly was home to three of the Iowa class dreadnoughts for a very long time. Missouri (BB63) was mainly stored on the West Coast for these years from what i'm told whether Bremerton WA. or Long Beach CA. As a child the first time I saw them they were very dark and kinnda spooky even more intimidating looking then any other ship in the yard with the coccoons over their guns, the bridges and decks covered being the same color grey they came back from war with (Korean) not to mention the rust trails down the bilges etc that were probably older then me at the time in all they kinnda resembled a mummies tomb. However their solitude and silence told a tale of honor and courage beyond the range of all arrogant ears as if to say "because my country still needs me". Now years later they werent so scary looking anymore they were neat to say the least. We sat and watched them pull them out into the channel one at a time with no less then four tugs on each as soon as the first (Iowa BB61) entered the channel all traffic on the bridges became a parking lot. People watching in amazment snapping pictures pointing, cheering, old salts from the yard mummbling big gun stories and that Reagan finally "took the gloves off" as they tied up to them to prep for tow. You'd be surprised how many old men would call them sweetheart and yell "make us proud wherever you go" and "dont forget your home". We never did realize that they were going to leave us and their home as Ronald Reagan recalled them to active service and never return. Philly navy yard was home to a big majority of the battleships and severl carriers when they came home from conflict (check any vintage pic of the reserve basin youll be surprised). Finally they moored Iowa(BB61) in the river just off League Island (or to Sniper "Penny Island") and began to work on Whiskey (BB64). To see a 900 foot battleship being manuvered by tugs in such a tight area and be able to watch is impressive to say the least and like i said certainly stops traffic while she spanned the Delaware. They moored her (BB64) beside Iowa (BB61) surrounded them with oil skimmer booms then posted a guard. The two sisters would be reunited again after a 33 year long sleep. We were looking at ghosts from an era long past . The local radio staion was giving a little history about them (they knew very little) as they reported the traffic was stopped on the bridges and everbody would just have to wait until it cleared. Figure about 30 years or so (Korea) since they had seen any kind of movement in the yard or for that much the light of day. I felt as I was witness to a moment in history that i only heard stories about but would never witness and it was really truelly awesome. We came back a few times later that day to see different views of them but the Navy was very strict about letting anybody around them and told us they would be leaving for their assigneed dry docks by tommorow sometime. Well seems as though I worked on the river and had an excellent vantage point to watch them leave from so thats just what i did. Their (Iowas) sillowette against the setting sun the day after was a loss for words from me. I kinnda felt like a kid who had to give my toys back and got nothing in return..lol. But to my surprise some 20 years later another sister and former home town girl the New Jersey (BB62) would return home to us to stay for good. A fitting tribute to a once great Naval Yard. She may be in N.J. per say but shes in view of her real home..The Philadelphia Navy Yard.. The same people who built her as well as USS Washington (BB56) and Wisconnsin (BB64) and a few others just to name a few. From that day on always i've been a fan will always be a fan of the Battleships no matter what they say or even when they are gone. I was just happy to be as fortunate as to live in such a cool place for a kid growing up.

P.S. If San Francisco doesnt want that proud ship the USS Iowa give her back to us you ungratefull morons we will always appreciate her and she will always have a home here in Philly with us

[Defcon 6]

Sniper, I have posted all that information. And I even made a thread devoted to a potential combat scenario. step by step. Aside from the aim-54's its pretty accurate.

[Defcon 6]

The Iowa's will never be gone. Just not fighting, thats all. Really we should preserve them. I hate the idea of installing some sort of BBG garbage on one.

We need a nuclear powered battleship, we need support ships.

[Defcon 6]

Distortions about ships
By James F. O'Bryon
Published June 17, 2005
Rear Adm. Charles Hamilton's June 13 Op-Ed article on battleships left me confused and
somewhat angry, not so much because of his bias toward building the DD(X) and against
retaining the two venerable battleships (BBs) still in our mothball fleet, but the apparent
distortions in the data he presented to make his case, relegating these two ships to permanent
museum status.
The 15 years I spent in the Pentagon was providing independent oversight of nearly 100
major Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps systems assessing their lethalities,
vulnerabilities and survivabilities. The one thing that we fought hard to achieve was to
ensure that competing systems were assessed on a level playing field.
I'm writing because I don't believe that Adm. Hamilton's Op-Ed has placed the DD(X)
and BB on a level playing field for comparison.
First, the DD(X) features two 155mm guns launching projectiles that contain 24 pounds
of explosives each, roughly the amount that a suicide bomber might carry. In contrast, each
battleship contains nine 16-inch guns, each capable of launching full caliber projectiles the
size of Volkswagens, capable of attacking both surface and buried hard targets or saboted
rounds traveling much farther. Furthermore, the battleship's guns already exist. The DD(X)'s
don't.
Adm. Hamilton claims that the 16-inch rounds couldn't be given precision guidance,
claiming "punishing muzzle energy." In Project HARP over 30 years ago, delicate
instrumentation packages were launched from such guns to altitudes of more than 50 miles.
While the admiral claims that "super-long-range 16-inch gun rounds are illusory," Pratt &
Whitney's design studies, backed by laboratory scramjet experiments, concluded that such
shells were feasible, reaching 460 miles in only nine minutes and could be fielded in seven
years, well before the first DD(X) joins the fleet in 2014.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is the comparative survivabilities of the
battleship and DD(X). I have overseen a number of ship vulnerability programs over the
years and, in my opinion, there is no tougher ship than the BB. While I believe that the DD
(X)'s focus on hit avoidance is desirable, sometimes you cannot avoid the fight.
When I hear the argument that the "passionate advocates" of battleships are uninformed
or just plain nostalgic, I'm reminded of the way that the B-52 has repeatedly been upgraded
over the past 50 years with improved fire control, avionics, propulsion, improved munitions
and a host of other upgrades that put this workhorse of the Air Force at the center of much
of our strategic and tactical defense. Is this nostalgia? No, it's recognition of the huge
benefits and low risks that retrofitting new technologies can bring to a proven platform. In
fact, there are 31 B-52 modification programs currently underway allowing this aircraft to
contribute to the nation's defense at least through 2040.
The same can be done for the battleships. The DD(X) continues to be plagued by
increasing cost and system complications with cost estimates ranging from $3.3 billion up to
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$7 billion per ship. Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman Roscoe Bartlett recently
referred to it as a "technology demonstration program." The admiral claimed that "spending
the billions of dollars to reactivate the battleships, develop advanced munitions, and pay the
very high costs to operate them would come at the expense of other vital programs." Is
several billion dollars for a destroyer also not a high cost? In fact, the fiscal 2006 defense
budget allocates 1.47 billion just to refuel the Vinson carrier. Why would $1.5 billion be to
costly to reactivate/modernize a battleship with much more firepower and survivability than
the DD(X) and be done in less than half the time at lower risk?
The nation's two remaining battleships have proven themselves over the years and, as the
B-52s aptly demonstrate, were not only effective at their introduction but can be retrofitted
with the latest technology to allow them to provide the fire support that the Marine Corps
continues to require.
Allowing these ships to become museums in the defense bill will be irreversible and place
our Marines at risk for the foreseeable future. My hope is that any decision on the future of
the DD(X) and the battleships be based on a solid analytical footing.
James F. O'Bryon is chairman of Mobius Business Solutions and owner of the O'Bryon
Group. He is also former director of the Defense Department's Live Fire Testing.

[Defcon 6]

Battling for battleships
By Dennis Reilly
Published June 21, 2005
This week a critical decision will be made regarding the defense of the United States as the
2006 Defense Authorization bill goes to conference.
The June 6th Op-Ed "Battleships fit for duty", made the case that our nation needs to have
the battleships Wisconsin and Iowa modernized and reactivated. The Nov. 19, 2004 GAO
report states "Marine Corps supports the strategic purpose of reactivating two battleships in
accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996...". The Pombo bill, would
turn those ships irretrievably into museums. Irretrievably, because, within days after that bill
passes, the Navy will be all over those ships with cutting torches to make sure that they
never again can serve.
Should we have to move against threats as North Korea, Iran or China, most of whom
have or will have sophisticated air defenses, battleships can provide superior support for
landing or air inserted Marines.
The Navy, in the June 13 Op-Ed, "Building a new navy" tried to counter these assertions.
However, the Navy's position supporting the DD(X) destroyer was thoroughly refuted in the
June 17 Op-Ed, "Distortions about ships" by James O'Bryon, the official who recently bore
the responsibility in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for evaluating the vulnerability
and lethality of weapons systems.
O'Bryon also affirmed that development of precision guided extended range projectiles
for the battleships 16" guns was a practical near-to-mid-term goal.
On May 19 the House Armed Services Committee abandoned the DD(X), a ship that
never could have supplied the necessary fire support.
Now the question is, "Which is more suited to the mission, battleships, more carriers, or
an even longer delayed DD(X)-derivative?" They have complementary capabilities, but
within the range of targets that will be available to the battleship's guns, out to 115 miles in
the near term, there are some notable differences. Long range shells will reach as far 115
miles in a life-saving time of only 3.2 min, clearly faster than aircraft response. Aircraft
could loiter over the battlefield, but that is probably not wise in the face of strong enemy air
defenses.
Now that the troubled Joint Standoff Weapon, which would have allowed aircraft to
safely stay outside of kill zones, is in danger of being cancelled, another option for the
aircraft is about to close. When battleships do the job, there are no lost airplanes, and, of
utmost importance, no lost airmen, no Hanoi Hilton.
Another significant advantage for the battleships is the cost in terms of both manpower
and dollars for adding additional firepower (measured in pounds of ordnance delivered on
target per day) to the fleet in support of the mission.
According to the Navy, a modernized battleship would require a crew of only 1100 men.
A carrier, with its aircrew, requires 5500 men. The Navy does not dispute the assertion that
a battleship has firepower (weight of ordinance deliverable per day) equivalent to two
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carriers for targets within the 29 mile range of existing heavy one ton projectiles.
This works out to the battleship (for a given level of firepower) being 10 times as
manpower efficient as the carrier. It should be noted that North Korea and the coast of
China opposite Taiwan have numerous targets within that 29 mile range.
In terms of adding firepower to the fleet, the cost of modernizing and reactivating a
battleship is $1.5B. The cost of building the two carriers with aircraft is about $22B, a cost
advantage of fifteen to one in favor of the battleships.
The Marines are also looking for naval surface fire support to protect deep incursions into
enemy territory via the V22 "Osprey" tilt rotor aircraft. The battleship's reach out to 115
miles exceeds the Marine's 72 mile objective by 60 percent.
Necessarily, the mass of a round that can be delivered to this longer range is markedly
less than that of a round that travels 29 miles, but it is still a substantial 525 lb. At this range,
the advantage in the number of ships required reverses; one carrier has the firepower of two
battleships.
But, battleships retain an advantage in manpower per unit of firepower and cost per unit
of additional firepower. The manpower advantage becomes to 2.5 to 1, and the cost
advantage becomes to 3.7 to 1, still very significant figures.
In this time of strained defense budgets Senator Warner and Rep. Hunter, respectively
Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committee, should not ignore such
economic figures. If uncertainty remains, the issue should be put before the Defense Science
Board, but the Pombo Bill should be removed from the 2006 Defense Authorization Bill.
After all, there is no imminent crisis due to a shortage of battleship museums. Then, six
months from now, when work on reactivation begins, the Nation can be assured that our
Marines will be getting the support that is their due.
Dennis Reilly is a physicist, who serves as science advisor to the United States Naval Fire
Support Association.

[Defcon 6]

Dread not the DD(X)
By James G. Zumwalt
Published July 7, 2005
I have followed with interest the debate in The Washington Times sparked by Rear Adm.
Charles S. Hamilton's article on the June 13 Op-Ed page on the need for the Navy to focus
on getting the DD(X), the next generation destroyer, out into the fleet rather than bringing
back our nation's two remaining serviceable battleships, vessels historically referred to as
"dreadnoughts."
Adm. Hamilton's article was criticized by James O'Bryon (June 17) and Dennis Reilly
(June 21), both of whom tout perceived advantages of the battleship over DD(X)
technologies.
I have a personal interest in the DD(X) as this new class of warship will be named after
my late father, Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr. Accordingly, I feel it appropriate to assess the
Zumwalt Class DD(X) from the same perspective as would he. After all, in 1966 my father
was the Navy's first director of Systems Analysis and was responsible for analyzing
competing weaponry systems to ensure the Navy got the biggest bang for its buck. His
honest assessments, regardless of the politics involved, earned him both respect and
criticism. Time eventually proved his assessments right.
I sense Adm. Hamilton, in similarly providing an honest, albeit unpopular (in view of the
battleship's popular "mystique"), assessment of the DD(X) versus the battleship, is suffering
such criticism but that time will prove him right as well.
A comprehensive systems analysis approach to this issue involves weighing numerous
cost factors -- hidden as well as directly related to hard costs of a battleship's modernization.
The defense budget's costliest element is manpower. An Iowa Class battleship requires a
1,500-member crew. That many sailors could man 10 DD(X) destroyers. No one on active
duty in the Navy is trained to operate a battleship's steam plant, weapons and fire-control
systems. Training personnel to do so would involve a costly expansion of the Navy's school
system.
There are limited shipyard facilities capable of handling larger warships like battleships
and carriers. Reactivating the former would greatly impair maintenance support of the latter
absent additional funds for expanding the facilities.
The battleship is a single-mission ship, with no viable anti-air or antisubmarine capability.
Unlike the DD(X), which has a multiple mission capability and can operate independently,
battleships require escort ships to defend them against those threats.
The battleship is particularly susceptible to targeting. Its very noisy propulsion plant, its
sheer size and the additional escort ships would make it easy to locate. The DD(X), with its
quiet propulsion system, stealth technology and ability to operate independently, would be
much more difficult to target.
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The battleship is the most heavily armored warship afloat. As such, it could survive hits
from conventional guns along the armor belt positioned on the sides of the ship; but such
armor is not optimally positioned for hits above that belt.
Reactivation of the Iowa Class battleships exceeded $2 billion in the 1980s. Reactivating
two battleships today, updating radars and communications, procuring spare parts from
firms no longer making them, and training crews would probably cost more than $2 billion
per ship.
While modernization and conversion is possible, it would take time, involve great cost
and leave unchanged certain aspects of these battleships -- e.g., their inefficient oil-burning
propulsion plants and the large number of personnel necessary to man their engineering
departments.
With the global war on terrorism stretching our defense dollars thin, we must now, more
than ever, maximize our return. Funds must be spent in a manner most capable of costeffectively
addressing the Navy's future long-term needs. Putting them into a short-term
naval gunfire support (NGFS) solution, such as battleships, is unresponsive to this
requirement.
Thirty-five years ago, the Navy faced a similar situation. Tough decisions were needed on
how best to spend defense dollars on short- and long-term needs while the Vietnam War
drained limited funds. As head of the Navy at that time, my father decided to retire older
ships early to fund new ones -- opting to address the Navy's long-term needs to counter a
growing Soviet threat to U.S. control of the seas.
As U.S. control of the seas face future Chinese challenges, we must meet that long-term
threat as well as the short-term need for NGFS. The DD(X) program will do exactly that.

James G. Zumwalt, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf and Vietnam wars, is a
contributor to The Washington Times.

[Defcon 6]

Battleships misinformation
By Dennis Reilly
Published July 13, 2005
James Zumwalt's 7/7/05 Commentary "Dread not the DD(X)" could not have been more
aptly named. As was stated in the 6/21/05 Op-Ed "Battling for battleships", the Navy's
misguided effort to develop the DD(X) is effectively dead. Our purpose here is to correct
misstatements regarding the battleship, presumably obtained from the Navy.
Mr. Zumwalt appears unaware that his famed father was a proponent, not an opponent, of
battleship reactivation during his tenure.
Contrary to the Commentary, Admiral Hamilton did not provide "an honest... assessment
of the DED(X) versus the battleship", as is clear from James O'Bryon's 6/17/05 Op-Ed,
"Distortions about ships". A document, now under review by the GAO, and available at
http://www.usnfsa.org/ , presents a side by side comparison of official Navy Claims with
detailed rebuttal by USNFSA.
The Commentary implies that the battleship would be vulnerable. The latest Rolling
Airframe Missiles provide competent anti-air / anti missile protection to our carriers, and
even destroyers. Modernization of the battleships would surely include this protection.
The battleship's, deck and turret armor, not just the belt, as claimed in the Commentary,
were designed to, and proven to, take hits. Should a weapon get through, no other ship
would have a greater chance of remaining operational.
But, one has to ask why, in a high threat environment, would not a battleship, like a
carrier, be entitled to its own battlegroup with overlapping protections against threats
from above and below the sea surface. After all, within the range of its guided projectiles
(near term 52 miles, mid term 115 miles, long term 450 to 600miles) the battleship has
firepower comparable to that of a carrier. But, unlike the carrier, the battleships firepower
is all weather with tactical response times. Because its projectiles are immune to
antiaircraft defenses, the Hanoi Hilton problem disappears.
The Navy has failed in its attempt to discredit the battleship's firepower potential, so it
has turned its attention to the cost and availability of manpower. The rational way to
discuss costs of any weapons system is in terms of costs per unit firepower.
It would take nineteen DD(x)'s to put the same number of pounds on target per minute (at
the Marine Corp's near term goal of 52 miles range) as can a single battleship. The 1,100
men crewing a battleship with a $1.5B modernization and reactivation cost, will be doing
the work of the 1900 men manning nineteen DD(X)'s costing a whopping total of $32B to
build (at the unrealizable Congressionally mandated $1.7B per copy). Would not the
$30B savings pay for crew training and reconstitution of the spare parts, ammunition, and
support infrastructure trashed by the Navy, with some of this in clear violation of the law,
(PL104-106)?
The battleship's boilers are fired by "Diesel Fuel Marine", not oil, as stated in the
Commentary. It uses the same power plant and the same fuel as the AOE-1 fast supply
ships that support our carriers today. Presumably AOE-1 ships will be replaced by the gas
turbine powered T-AOE(X). There is wonderful synergy going on here. This would free
up a considerable pool of sailors who would be quite familiar with the battleship's
propulsion system, answering another manpower issue cited by the Navy.
Contrary to the Commentary, the battleships would be far from single mission platforms.
They would, in the near term, 1) meet the Marine Corp's near term requirements for naval
surface support, 2) be an extremely effective antiterrorist platform in the Pacific littorals
because of their unique capability to obliterate training camps before the "students" could
disperse, and 3) serve as deterrent to Chinese adventurism in Taiwan, and North Korea's
threat to the South. On the longer term, the battleship's long range guided projectiles
could 4) open a new strategic and tactical dimension, with guided ballistic projectiles
arcing over uncooperative states to reach targets many hundreds of miles away in a
matter of minutes.
The Navy has made decisions that 1) there never again will be a need for forced entry by
the sea, and 2) invasions, should they be called for, will be accomplished by audacious 50
to 100 mi incursions using the unproven V22 "Osprey" tilt-rotor aircraft. The Navy
suggests that fire support will be provided by $500,000 per copy cruise missiles and by
the (endangered) aircraft launched Joint Standoff Weapon, a GPS guided gliding bomb of
comparable cost.
The slow speeds of these weapons compared to battleship launched projectiles result in
inadequate tactical response times and vulnerability to antiaircraft defenses, severely
limiting the viability of this form of fire support. The costs per round are more than ten
times that of the tactically responsive, antiaircraft fire immune, battleship launched
guided projectile.
What in the world can the Navy be thinking? As detailed in the 6/6/05 Op-Ed
"Battleships fit for Duty", they do even not recognize the real strategic threats we face.
The Marine Corp Generals (Semper Fidelis?) dare not contradict their Navy bosses. It is
time for Congress to impose some rational supervision.

Dennis Reilly, a physicist, serves as science adviser to the United States Fire Support
Association (USNSFS)

[Defcon 6]

Battleships fit for duty
By Dennis Reilly
Published June 6, 2005
The 2006 National Defense Authorization Act would strike the battleships USS Iowa and
Wisconsin from the Navy register and turn them into museums. This sounds attractive, but it
would in fact erect monuments to folly, placing the lives of thousands of our Marines at risk.
It would void the previous law, PL104-106, that instructed the Navy to keep two Iowa-class
battleships readily available until the Navy certifies to Congress that it has fire-support
capability that equals or exceeds that of the Iowa-class battleships. The Navy is unable to do
this. Instead, it has taken steps detrimental to reactivation of these ships.
Why this reaction? Simply put, there has been a failure of strategic insight on the part of
leadership. A July 2002 meeting between then Navy Secretary Gordon England -- now up
for confirmation as deputy secretary of defense -- and the U.S. Naval Surface Fire Support
Association focused on reactivating the battleships to provide the fire support that was then
and is now missing. Mr. England stated that there was no need for that kind of firepower, as
the only remaining threat was terrorism. When I brought up North Korea, China, Iran, and
the impending war with Iraq, the Secretary replied: "We do not regard such scenarios as
realistic." Iraq is now history. Fortunately we did not have to fight our way ashore.
The world, however, remains a dangerous place, and the threat of terrorism is still but one
head on the hydra. While North Korea continues to churn out nuclear weapons, some 12,000
well-dug-in artillery tubes along the DMZ hold Seoul hostage with the threat of overnight
obliteration. China's rapidly escalating military capabilities, alliances and thinly veiled
threats are alarming. China clearly feels free to choose the time and means -- including force
-- to resolve the Taiwan issue. How events will unfold in these places and in others, such as
Iran, is anyone's guess. But one thing is sure. Should there be conflict in these areas, the
Marines will be involved, and it will not be an antiterrorist action.
Based on its vision, the Navy has focused on the development of a destroyer, the DD(X),
equipped with two long range guns. No doubt this would be useful in breaking up terrorist
camps scattered about the Pacific littorals, but it is not the gun you would want to bring to a
major conflict. The small mass delivered to target makes these rounds ineffective against
hardened positions. The cost per round forces the Navy to admit that high-volume fire is
unaffordable. Lacking armor, the ship is highly vulnerable, despite its low-radar cross
section. The cost -- Congress demands a cap of $1.7 billion per ship -- is out of proportion to
its usefulness.
What can a supposedly antiquated battleship bring to the fight? During the Vietnam War,
the New Jersey was on station for 6 months. It wreaked havoc on the DMZ and in the North,
including destruction of the deeply buried North Vietnamese Army (NVA) command
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headquarters. Had this ship been deployed throughout that war, a fair fraction of the 2,000
aviators killed, missing in action or captured as prisoners of war would have been spared.
No statistic conveys the impact of the New Jersey's assault on the NVA better than the fact
that North Vietnam demanded the withdrawal of the ship -- not the B-52s -- before it would
continue with the Paris peace talks.
Technology now allows battleships to do far better. GPS guidance will ensure one-shot,
one-kill of hard targets such as the North Korean gun emplacements and Chinese missile
batteries. Shells weighing 525 pounds can reach as far as 115 miles in a life-saving time of
only 3 minutes. Over the longer term, the battleship's potential is truly revolutionary.
Studies show that its massive firepower could be projected to at least 460 miles. With
enhanced firepower and the ability to steam between Inchon and the Formosan Straits in less
than a day and a half, two modernized battleships would have a chilling deterrent effect on
aggressive designs by either the Chinese or the North Koreans.
The Navy has misled Congress regarding the battleship's firepower, costs, survivability --
the Nevada survived two atom bombs -- and condition of equipment. The reality is that
these ships could meet Marine Corps fire-support requirements in the near future. Nothing
else can. Cost effective? Each battleship, with a reactivation and modernization cost of only
$1.5 billion, has firepower equivalent to two aircraft carriers using only oneeighththemanpower.
Moreover, the battleships' response is all-weather, is generally faster
and is impervious to air defenses.
As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously said, you go to war with the army
you have. If in the future our brave Marines are getting butchered because of insufficient
fire support, "the Army we have" then will be a result of the actions taken today. What
should be done? Reactivate the battleships now. Would you rather have a museum or a live
Marine?
Dennis Reilly, a physicist, serves as science advisor to the U.S. Naval Fire Support
Association.

[Gun Grape]

Would you like for me to post why most of Mr Reilly "facts" are BS or not relevant?
If you read the post between Sniper and I you would already have the answers.

But I'll be happy to go back over them with you

Just list the ones you want me to dispute.

The "survived 2 atomic blast" is one of my favorite.

[Dreadnought]

We have all debated this one over and over and I find it funny how both sides have kind of bent the information but not in its entirety. To me using two of the battleships now especially off of Iran and Iraq and Syria I believe would quiet things down a bit however at a significant cost. I can side with how much they cost to operate and man but to me dollar for dollar I would take them over the DDX anyday of the week. Im sure those countries (Iran,Iraq and Syria) would rather see a U.S. DDX off their coast line much more then they want to see one of our U.S. battleships. Should prove to be an interesting fight though but maybe just maybe if we were to put one in for refit (Missouri,Whisky, Big J, or Iowa) while all this business is taking place since we all know it will be awhile we would have something to immediately arm them (marines & navy) with until this middle east business is over. IMO I think they would add an intimidation factor to Iran and Syria to mind their own business about Iraq and stop the outside flow of insurgents. Or we could just use one battleship to focus on the boarder problem with UAV and shoot to kill anyone that attempts the crossing illegaly. Then prove to Iran and Syria and the world buy having them count the bodies that land on their side of the border...lol . Is there still hope? who knows but mind you an interesting debate it will be. I for one would love to see them reactivated until our troops have a suitable counterpart capable of watching their backs. Remember planes and tanks make noise when they approach but shells dont make noise until its already too late. I'm really surprised that they still havent settled this matter yet. Guess i havent checked much after the last round of discussion. Question guys..after the hurricanes etc how many yards are still in shape to refit them if needed i mean beside Long Beach?

[Gun Grape]

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

I'm really surprised that they still havent settled this matter yet. Guess i havent checked much after the last round of discussion. Question guys..after the hurricanes etc how many yards are still in shape to refit them if needed i mean beside Long Beach?

Actually it was settled. As posted by RickUSN

Senate Amendment July 21, 2005
Amendment No. 1399 proposed by Senator Warner for Senator Dianne Feinstein, CA (Sponsor) and Senator Chuck Grassley, IA (Co-Sponsor) has been agreed to in Senate by Unanimous Consent yesterday (07/21/2005).

Text of the Amendment below :

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AMENDMENT NO. 1399

(Purpose: To provide for the transfer of the Battleship U.S.S. Iowa (BB-61))

Strike section 1021 and insert the following:

SEC. 1021. TRANSFER OF BATTLESHIPS.

(a) TRANSFER OF BATTLESHIP WISCONSIN.--The Secretary of the Navy is authorized--

(1) to strike the Battleship U.S.S. WISCONSIN (BB-64) from the Naval Vessel Register; and

(2) subject to section 7306 of title 10, United States Code, to transfer the vessel by gift or otherwise provided that the Secretary requires, as a condition of transfer, that the transferee locate the vessel in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

(b) TRANSFER OF BATTLESHIP IOWA.--The Secretary of the Navy is authorized--

(1) to strike the Battleship U.S.S. IOWA (BB-61) from the Naval Vessel Register; and

(2) subject to section 7306 of title 10, United States Code, to transfer the vessel by gift or otherwise provided that the Secretary requires, as a condition of transfer, that the transferee locate the vessel in the State of California.

(c) INAPPLICABILITY OF NOTICE AND WAIT REQUIREMENT.--Notwithstanding any provision of subsection (a) or (b), section 7306(d) of title 10, United States Code, shall not apply to the transfer authorized by subsection (a) or the transfer authorized by subsection (b).

(d) REPEAL OF SUPERSEDED REQUIREMENTS AND AUTHORITIES.--

(1) Section 1011 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996 (Public Law 104-106; 110 Stat. 421) is repealed.

(2) Section 1011 of the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999 (Public Law 105-261; 112 Stat. 2118) is repealed.


They are gone for good.

[The Chap]

Many thanks

[Defcon 6]

Lets just reactivate already. The military needs to learn to quit wasting money in the first place.

[Dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Defcon 6

Lets just reactivate already. The military needs to learn to quit wasting money in the first place.

Plus the time to muster those who "know" just how to use those guns properly and tell the press and the outside world **** off were going to war without you and actually get something done for once without the political correctness.

[Dreadnought]

I think San Francisco just figured out how much the Navy really liked the idea of them shunning the Iowa but yet wanted to launch their newest ships as well as removing their ROTC programs in schools.