What Should the Next Gen Destroyers....

[Bill]

"I would like an old salt to back me up on this, but I believed the 16" guns to be highly accurate."

The Mk7 16"/50 guns of the Iowas are capable of sub MOA accuracy with the 2,700lb AP shells.

[Bill]

Battleships are great for the "wow" factor but in practical terms they aren't so great.

First off, the bigger it is, the easier it is to find and the harder it is to miss. In modern sea war, a battleship would go down real fast. It would need protection and end up sailing with the carriers, behind the picket of smaller ships and fighter cap - rendering it useless as an offensive ship-to-ship platform.

With the advent of anti-ship missiles, even frigates are heavy hitters now. In fact, if you took the tonnage of one battleship and sent out the equivilent tonnage of frigates, the frigates would kick a battleship's butt quite handily.

Battleship guns are great at shore bombardment but - stealth aircraft and smart bombs are much better at actually taking out land targets. For one thing, you just have to be on the inland side of a hill and the battleship cannot hit you. Them sneaky planes have no such limitation.

Basically, Battleships are outdated. Modern weapons technology has made smaller better.

It depends there dude.

If the modern BB finds the FFG taskforce before the FFG taskforce finds them, the FFG's are toast.

First look, first shot, first kill really applies to naval warfare.

A modern purpose designed 40,000 ton battleship would carry more AShMs than dozens of FFGs do. And of course there's rough sea capability, staying power, speed, range, battlegroup support, C4i, etc....and ALL those things favor a BB over a frigate taskforce.

IMO, the only way i'd mess with a modern BB if i was a foriegn admiral was with submarines.

Armor is of no particular value against under keel or wake homing torpeodos, and even the best multilayered air defense systems in the world(of which a new build BB would obviously have the best) is totally worthless against torpedos.

Against air and missile threats a modern BB would be very well defended. Against subs, it would have only it's speed and helo suite to rely on, and would be far more vulnerable.

The ONLY reason we don't have something like that is money. BB's are very expensive.

[Dreadnought]

The 16"/50 Mk7guns of the Iowa class and other fast battleships were very accurate and certainly very devestating even for this day and age. When the proper screening is in place the battleships were the formost formidable surface combatants ever in existence. Technology has however far outpaced the Iowas 64 year existence. Yes they are dinosaurs in a much more advanced age. They are a breed apart from all other ships leaving no doubt of their power. The Navy's 4 big sticks have always been their safety net and always will be if all else fails or unless they were scrapped. The failure of the navy to float anything that could even begin to give the fire support and accuracy they did has proven this since their retirement and also why Congress has for very many years has always insisted that the Navy to keep 2 in Cat b status instead of scrapping. What we have now is pinpoint accuracy such as gps guided missles etc that can be launched from several different classes of combatents including subs. This has made the game much faster, much smarter and launched from much greater distances. If you think about the Navy still has 7 (4 Iowas and 3 fast) battleships at their disposal if ever called upon again. Yes they are homeported but the Navy could easily get them back without question it was built into the homeport contracts for all of them. Will they ever be used again very doubtful. The Carriers proved to be the queens of the oceans since WWII came to close. We have much smarter weapons these days with less manpower. But nothing strikes fear as the site of a battleship just off your coast and its firepower is unmatchable for its age.

[B.Smitty]

Next gen destroyer for whom? The USN?

[Maxor]

Of the forgotten things lets please start with things every DD must have to be a DD. Depth Charges and hopefully/preferably torpedo tubes. It should also in my oppinion have A least one and preferably more fast firing 5 in. or greater guns for landing bombardment. I'd put at least 4 of those double harpoon launchers on the fantail, I'd put another on each side of the superstructure near the phanax mounts. It'll need LASM launchers since I don't know what the specs for these will be I can't really specify how many it should have. It'll also need a few Standard 2 etended range missles or what ever they've decided to replace/upgrade that 2 in the next 8-10 years before these things would get laid down.

I know it won't happen but I'd like to see a catamaran hull with a turbine in each and the reactor directly above between the two. It should be doable to put the beam at about 65 feet and the legnth at about 450-460 The draft on something like this should be about 17' that would give it more space than current destroyer classes and be significantly faster.

[Dreadnought]

IMO As far as the odds of a frigates beating a battleship all I can say is that those modern frigates had better detect the BB first and fire first and repeatively. If the BB closes the range and brackets the frigate first shes definately toast make no mistake. The modern navy frigates armor could never withstand the hit of even one turrent salvo (three shells) from the 16"/50's of the BB just imagin all three turrents finding the frigate with nine shells at once. If the BB puts one salvo on her carrying all those missles shes destroyed and going under rapidly in what would be a blinding fireball. It will certainly take more then one missle hit to send the Iowa to the bottom shes armored far to well. Iowa herself absorbed a devistating turrent explosion that killed many men at gunnery practice thats alot more punch then any one missle hit and worse yet it was internal not external and still survived where many other modern classes would have gone under for sure.

[Gun Grape]

Wow you gave a list of things that are already on ABs. Excluding the poons on flight 2s.

[Dreadnought]

The Iowas used to do 37 knts when they were a slimmer 45 ktons, compared to the 57 ktons they displace now, so it wouldn't surprise me if the original 91 kton Nimitz class variants do 42 knts.


Close but not quite. The lightest Iowas Battleship displaces 58,751 tons (BB64 Wisconsin) With (BB62) New Jersey at 59,300 tons next followed by Iowa (BB61) and Missouri (BB63) at 59,331 displacement. These weights were at full load requirememnts following their 1982 refit.

[Dreadnought]

For what appears to be the final word on all US battleship classes, I recommend the book U.S. Battleships, An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. Mr. Friedman, by the way, says that the Iowa class ships never ran a measured mile in speed trials due to fear of enemy submarines. He quotes the same design speed as Conway's (and the other specs are very similar, if not identical, to Conway's figures), but says that the power plant was designed to permit up to 20% overload, that is 254,000shp, enough to drive a fully loaded ship to 33.5kts, or a light ship (51,000t) to 35.4kts.

He also states that on trials New Jersey showed fuel consumption equivalent to a range of 20,150nm at 15kts, or 4830nm at full power, far exceeding the design specification. The operational flexibility conferred by this great radius of action should not be underestimated. It is the kind of thing easily overlooked when comparing battleship guns and armor and so forth, but in the real world it may mean that battleship "A" is on station performing her mission, while the more impressive (on paper) battleship "B" is in port refueling.

As to the plusses and minuses of the Wisconsin, the extreme longevity and usefulness of the class certainly indicates that the fundamental design got it right. She was designed to be a battleship that could escort the fast carrier task forces. The wisdom and foresight of her design can not be denied. By the time Wisconsin joined the fleet, the fast carrier task force had become the final arbiter of sea power, having replaced the battle line in this role. Wisconsin and her sisters fit naturally into the new role. Their high speed, long range, and unsurpassed AA capability made them the right tool for the right job at the right time.

The superb 16in/50 gun (probably on balance the best battleship gun ever built) fired a super heavy 2700lb AP shell (the previous 16in AP shell weighed 2240lbs) at 2500fps, for a range of 42,345yds at 45 Degrees elevation.

The hull had a "bulbous" bow, to reduce drag (this increased both speed and range) The size and volume of their great hulls, plus their other sterling attributes, would make them useful to their country's Navy 40 years after the end of the war they were designed to fight.

As you can see the Iowas now weigh even more then when was tested so speed would have been reduced as well albeit a light ship or at full load.

So as you can see the fastest speed ever posted or achieved by the Iowa class battleships never exceded 35.4 knots. Yes I have heard the stories of much faster also on seatrials but not one person can substantiate these rumors as an objection to what official record states as proof given the 20% overload factor included.

And I might add:

After this was originally published in April 1999, the USN publicly released the "speed" of the nuclear carriers in June 1999:

Enterprise 33.6 knots after last refit
Nimitz 31.5 knots
Theodore Roosevelt 31.3 knots
Harry S Truman 30.9 knots

They have not or will not post the remaining others or newer carriers (Reagan etc) achievable speed as this now falls under homeland security acts and is removed from all naval official postings. They can only tell you the base speed they were designed for and not actual.

[Bill]

Dr. Friedman is a pretty good guy. I had a few chats with him back in the old glory days of Warships1(long since passed).

[rickusn]

Dr. Friedman is a pretty good guy. I had a few chats with him back in the old glory days of Warships1(long since passed).

Say what?

[TopHatter]

Say what?

Dr Friedman posted on Warships1??

Snipe, what was your handle on Warships1...same?

[Dreadnought]

Dr. Friedman is a pretty good guy. I had a few chats with him back in the old glory days of Warships1(long since passed).

From some of the people I have talked to they find him among few others to be one of the leading athorities of warship design and regard his opinion highly.

[Swift Sword]

An Iowa class battleship fully loaded with cruise missiles and parked in the Indian ocean would be a huge deterrent.

There is already battleship loaded with cruise missles parked in the Indian Ocean and it is a HUGE detrrent against our current adversaries. Its moored at 7°20'S 72°25'E

[TopHatter]

There is already battleship loaded with cruise missles parked in the Indian Ocean and it is a HUGE detrrent against our current adversaries. Its moored at 7°20'S 72°25'E

Heh heh...good one

However....

Diego Garcia is also a fixed position.