Praxus

A Battleship is obsolite in terms of technology, in terms of use it is anything but.

Nothing else in the world today can deliver as much firepower as just two battleships can short of Nuclear Weapons and the US's entire Strategic Bomber Fleet.

It would take the entire B-52 fleet to deliver the same firepower as one BB.

With new SCRAMJet and 11" Darpa rounds they can 800 and 200 nautical miles in land respectivly.

This is a ship that the Russians said they couldn't do jack to during the Cold War. You could hit the side of the thing with half a dozen anti-ship missiles and you wouldn't even get a mission kill. The easiest way to sink her would be torpedos and with the ammount of ASW support she would have it would make it extremely difficult.

The only reason it isn't back in service is because of Cronyism and Politics.

Why bring something back when you can build new ships doing half the things you need it to for two times the price?

By the way I am not suggesting the B-52 fleet is not needed, I am just using it for comparison purposes.

Anvilanthony

So it's not really a battleship anymore, it is more like Floating Artillary.

smilingassassin

The Battleships classic role is to control the seas and engage other Battleships in order to gain that control. Seeing as there are no other BB's that classic role is negated in addition to greater weapons being designed to take down ships.
Iowa can stand up to surface missle attack but if she gets one decent hit from a modern torpedo her back is broken. Like most ships they can soldier on in new roles when they can no longer achieve their designed role. Battleships have always been the cheapest way to put steel on a target.
One salvo of 16" guns is more effective than an airstrike or a cruise missle. Cruise missles are expensive and aircraft run the risk of missing a target or getting shot down.
If you miss with Iowa's guns (not likely) you can just crank out another salvo quicker than another airstrike can be deverted or another cruise missle can be programed. Battleship guns also have an incredible pcyhcological effect on those recieving the incoming fire, just ask the Germans at Normandy.

bigross86

Hell, I'm in awe holding a .50 cal in my hand, knowing the destruction it's capable of. I don't wanna think of 16" of that screaming at me

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Blademaster

The problem with the IOWA class battleships is not the guns, it is the support system structure that is required to maintain the ships. As often so quoted, "Amateurs think tactics, Professionals think logistics"

It would be more cost effective and better performance if they just buy merchant ships and take the 16 inch guns off the battleship and place on the ships and rig the ships to take the vibration and shock of those guns firing.

As Bismarck showed, there are other ways of disabling battleships. The mighty ship was severly disabled by having its rudder damaged.

The IOWA ships cannot defend adequately against air launched torpedoes in today's modern naval warfare.

bigross86

Just looking for an excuse to post this picture and the topic seemed right.

Marksman

if somebody can explain that grafic, I'd apreciate it.

I was not aware that we still had air launched topedos...
still a ship that caliber would not be sent out on their own, and those guns are, well they are a low tech solution to a high cost high tech alterantive.
after all missiles can be intersepted and with electronic warfare advanced enough they end up posing little threat, but a balisic round? intercept that...

ok, there is THEL, but I wonder how much of a radar signature a balistic shell really has...

Anon

In the graphic the red boxed section is the target area. Each of the black or grey circles is where a round landed(black at 25k yds, grey at 35k yards). You can see that at 25k yards 7 rds- or almost half- land directly in the target zone, and several more are near misses. You can also see that at 35k yards the number of hits drops to 3.

Each 16" HC shell has a lethal radius(airburst, vs troops or softskinned vehicles) of some 200 meters.

Anon

To reinforce what praxus said, it would take the entire US b-52 fleet 7 days of round the clock operations to deliver the same amount of tonnage as a single Iowa BB can deliver in 1 hour.

That's right....ONE HOUR.

lurker

If it can get so close.

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Praxus

With rocket assisted 16" shells you can fire a round out to 50nm. With rocket assisted 11" Sabot rounds you can fire the round out to 200nm. With GPS guidence you could hit that box you see in the picture well over 90% of the time at these range.

Another possibility is SCRAMJet rounds (Range of 500-1000 nm) but that wouldn't be for another half decade or so.

lurker

Well, all that is good. Those irons can still be useful to scare banana-countries.

In the Europian theaters - Mediterranian, Baltis etc. - that would be a good target for anything that flys. Including coastal-based SSM's.

Anon

50% of the worlds industry is in range of the Iowas 16" guns with existing munitions.

Bet you didn't know that, did ya lurker.

Praxus

No SSM's are designed to take out a Battleship and the Battleship would have numerous active defenses such as SM-2, ESSM, and SeaRAM. A battleship without new shells can still hit a great deal of European industry.

Anon

Praxus, the 13" DARPA sabot rounds were tested to 90 nautical miles.

Just figured i'd mention that.